After earning a master’s degree in geography, Didier Della Maggiora left for Australia to visit his sister. Fascinated by the open spaces and the light, he bought his first camera. When he returned to Marseille, he decided to photograph street football, and then took his black and white photos to the Visa pour l’Image Festival in Perpignan to find out if they were any good. François Caron, manager of the Gamma agency, advised him to move to Paris. In the midst of the drawing of lots for the World Soccer Cup, his photos were purchased by such well-known publications as Libération, La Croix and Newton Zebra. This enabled him to buy a plane ticket for Johannesburg, where he photographed scenes of everyday life and moments of wild celebration amidst the misery of the Soweto ghetto, where football was king of the moment. Thanks to the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation grant, Didier Della Maggiora was able to travel to Johannesburg once again, this time with the intention of spending more time there and taking portraits of the various communities that make up the town. Didier Della Maggiora entrusted his photos of teenagers on the streets of “Jo’burg” to Otis Flinck, a mixed-race poet. “Images alone would not have been enough to convey the complexity of this form of exclusion, with which the young South African democracy has had to deal since the end of apartheid.”

Achievements since winning the grant

In 2000, Didier Della Maggiora exhibited a special report in Durban on the homeless in South Africa and led a photo workshop with a Malawian humanitarian organization. The same year, he participated in Carnet de Route, an exhibition supported by the French Cultural Centre.