Paul Samuels was born in 1989 in Johannesburg. After completing high school he knew he wanted to be a photographer; he studied a BA Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and in 2012, graduated with a distinction in photography. During his studies, he worked as an intern at Glow Photographic, which expanded his technical and professional knowledge beyond the conceptual and critical thinking, which Wits had instilled in him. In his final year he was awarded a Tierney Fellowship for the project, XVI X, a body of portrait works of young men from the suburb of Edenvale, east of Johannesburg. From this point he had been mentored by Jo Ractliffe, and is currently under her mentor-ship. This work was also selected for the exhibition, Present Tense, curated by Antonio Pinto Ribeiro at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon (2013). His recent portrait series of San veteran soldiers, 31 Battalion, is included in the exhibition, In the night I remember at Stevenson in Johannesburg (2013) and is represented in the collection of the McGregor Museum in Kimberly. Samuels works mostly with portraiture, as he believes the photographic portrait best expresses individual and societal interests – how people live in relation to the broader formations of society. His images explore identity and belonging within some of society’s subcultures. He is interested in the ways groups develop and constitute themselves; how they share a common identity that reflects their own set of values and sense of purpose. He looks at the ways in which people present themselves through dress, gesture and attitude in the spaces and places they occupy, and how his photographs can tell the stories of young people, today in Africa.