Christine Nesbitt Hills is a South African independent photographer and videographer, focused on development journalism, based in the Eastern Cape of South Africa and working Africa-wide. Her passions are the majority world and Africa in particular. Her experience includes news, feature, documentary, development project reportage and advocacy, sports and travel assignments in many African countries, east and west Europe, the Middle East, South America and Australia.

Born in 1971, Christine grew up under the harsh historical contradictions of apartheid in South Africa. Studying photography, her part-time newspaper darkroom job as a student in the late 80's and early 90's led to a career in journalism.  Christine worked at the country’s major newspapers, at the coal-face, sometimes literally, of South Africa’s changes. Christine's first West African assignment for The Star newspaper in Liberia in 1997 was to prove to be a major influence in her life. Attracted to the region, Christine returned to record the region’s history, with the plight of voiceless children and women in war-stressed societies a major concern for her.  Christine's pictures were published worldwide during her time working for the international wire service The Associated Press, based first in Europe and then in West Africa.  During Christine’s time based in West Africa, besides photographing news and features, she co-ordinated & mentored a photo stringer network in the bureau’s region of twenty-two countries.

Since her return to South Africa, Christine concentrates on putting her skills to use in development journalism in sub-Saharan Africa; advocating for the rural poor, refugees, the internally displaced, women and girl survivors of gender violence and the impoverished. Christine’s photography is now more socio-documentary in nature and she has grown a  skills base in video production; camera, sound & editing.  Recent projects include an interactive video focussing on ICTs, a five-country photo documentation project on sanitation and water in West and Central Africa, a public service announcement (PSA) video series in Angola, a video documenting the arrival of a solar powered computer laboratory in a rural Eastern Cape school, a long-term photo project on paediatric HIV/Aids in Zambia.

Scaffolding her practice with theory, Christine is reading part-time towards a Master’s in Communication for Development. Her dissertation looks at documentary photography as a tool for social change, focusing on documentation of HIV/Aids.

A passionate common theme of the desire to document and inform runs throughout her work.

Portfolio site - www.christinesbitt.com