Dale Yudelman

Two eras of South African history, several continents and more than forty years of incessant image making.

Born in Johannesburg and inspired by creative parents, Dale began photographing as a boy under the guidance of his father, Louis Yudelman. He was barely out of his teens in 1979 when he became a staff photographer for The Star newspaper, his work syndicated worldwide through Associated Press and United Press International.

In 1986 he moved to London and then Los Angeles, working freelance for publications including The Sunday Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Telegraph and The Guardian. He returned to a newly democratic South Africa in 1996 and has lived in Cape Town ever since.

With artist Arlene Amaler-Raviv he produced three major exhibitions, the last of which, Livestock, was shown at the 8th Havana Biennale in Cuba. Drawing on his photojournalism and a growing interest in digital technology, he then created Reality Bytes, works that reclaim and freeze the emotional content of daily experience rather than merely recording events.

Projects that followed include I am..., on the plight of refugees in South Africa, and Life under Democracy, which won the inaugural Ernest Cole Award in 2012, the country's most prestigious prize for social documentary photography. In 2026 his Lion's Head won the Orms x Canon The Art of Photography Fine Art Competition from some 2,000 entries, with Table Mountain also selected for the exhibition on the Sea Point Promenade.