(b Johannesburg, 1959). South African photographer. He studied psychology and African history at the University of Cape Town before becoming a photojournalist, covering African news and the end of apartheid in his native South Africa. In 1993 he began documenting the impact of the African HIV/AIDS epidemic. Eight years later he published A Broken Landscape: HIV & AIDS in Africa, including photographs that were some of the first visual documents of the epidemic. In addition to projects on politics and public health in Africa, he photographed discrimination against same-sex couples in the United States and undertook a major project investigating the global impact of climate change and flooding in his multimedia Drowning World. In Through Positive Eyes, Mendel employed a participatory approach in which people around the world with HIV made photographs of their own experiences. Like many of his contemporaries, Mendel straddled the line between Documentary photography and artistic imagery, showing his work in news publications as well as in galleries. As a result, some critics raised questions about whether his work exploited his subjects. Others saw his work as deeply empathetic and embodying positive, political activism. The recipient of many awards, including the W. Eugene Smith Grant, Mendel received acclaim in ...