Environmental Portraits of Auto Mechanics

Owning a van two years older than me has taught me a lot—mostly how to be my own mechanic, but also, how to take portraits of the people who keep cars alive: auto mechanics.

Right after I bought the van, the fanbelt popped. Knowing nothing about engines, I kept driving until something gave. That something turned out to be the head gasket—cue a full engine overhaul. Being a bit of a control freak, I wasn’t about to hand over my new-old van to a stranger.

Luckily, I was between jobs, so I parked myself at Melkom’s workshop for two weeks and watched everything he did. Melkom, unknowingly, became my head mechanic. Not fully trusting the process, I WhatsApped my brother in Germany constantly. He researched each issue while I interrogated poor Melkom with every step:

“Are you replacing all the seals?”
“If you’re doing X, are you also doing Y?”

Melkom must’ve thought I knew a lot about engine overhauls—and also that I was the most annoyingly curious small, blond girl ever to camp out in his garage.

Years later, I’ve solved dozens of car problems—many of them minor, but elusive. So elusive that it took 10 mechanics to finally track one down. Each one sent me to the next.

The auto mechanics featured in these environmental portraits are the very same ones I visited across a single weekend (yes, unannounced, and yes, they were all working weekends).

In the end, it was Mannie-the-Mechanic—who now calls me “Jessica-love-hate”—who found the problem: a quick-fix gone wrong. Someone had overtightened the return petrol pipe from the engine back to the tank, creating 7 bars of fuel pressure with nowhere to go but forward.

Easy to fix. Super hard to find.

This series of environmental portraits of auto mechanics captures the spaces, stories, and personalities of the people who keep the wheels turning—literally.

Special thanks to Douw Steyn for assisting me on this project.