Alon Skuy is a photojournalist based in Miami, Florida and born in Johannesburg, South Africa. After completing a course at The Market Photo Workshop, he began working as a photographer for some of the country’s largest publications. He later moved on to be Chief Photographer of the Sunday Times and The Times in South Africa, focusing on issues relating to inequality, resilience and life on the fringes of society.
Skuy’s career has been defined by his depth and range as a news and documentary photographer. He is noted for his coverage of the 2012 Marikana Massacre, said to be the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against its own civilians since The Sharpeville Massacre of 1976.
Skuy is the recipient of numerous local and international awards, including recognition by the World Press Photo Foundation, and multiple awards from the Picture of the Year International (POYI). He won first place in the News category of the POYI awards in 2015 for his work on the unrest at the Marikana mine in South Africa. Then, in 2016 and 2017, he achieved third and second place, respectively, in POYI’s Newspaper Photographer of the Year category. In 2020, Skuy was awarded Photographer of the Year, Local in POYI.
Skuy was awarded the Ruth First Fellowship Award for Photojournalism at the prestigious University of the Witwatersrand in 2008 for his photographic essay “Living Inside A Bridge.”
For more than a decade, Skuy has documented xenophobia in South Africa, and together with colleague James Oatway, published a book on the subject in 2021, entitled {BR}OTHER.
In 2022, Skuy published MARiKANA 2012/2022, a body of work commemorating a decade since the Marikana Massacre, a watershed moment in South Africa’s history.