Jewish Life Digital Edition February 2013 | Page 30

BUSINESS BRAINS

JOHANNA GINSBERG
PORTRAITS IN SUCCESS

I

F EVER THERE WAS A FAMILIAR FACE AT THE ROAD
races I run, it’s Johanna Ginsberg’s. In
her sunbeam yellow photographer’s
jacket, sitting haunched as a sniper,
finger on the trigger of her Nikon, she’s
readying herself to capture moments of
anguish, joy and relief. She is at the coalface
getting dirty as managing director of Jetline
ActionPhoto. If not on the road, Johanna,
immaculately dressed, oversees the sports
photography business of the newly aligned
Jetline ActionPhoto conglomerate. Prior to
the acquisition, ActionPhoto was a company
she and Ivor Ginsberg started, to photograph
participants in sporting events.
Johanna grew up in Germany. Her inquiring mind, people’s personality, and love of
nature gave her a sense of wanderlust, an energy and need to explore, to travel, to see the
world. When mum said there’ll be no aimless
wandering without an education, it was Hotel
School in Switzerland that Johanna chose to
pursue, for it gave her tools and skills and a
legitimate reason to ogle the world’s wonders.
While in Geneva, at the school, it was the
South Africans who couldn’t stop harping on
about ‘braaivleis, Chevvies and sunny skies’.
With that imagery, she decided there was no
other destination but for glisteningly blue
skies, bright sunshine and the syrupy bougainvillea purples of South Africa.
Working for Southern Sun at the Victoria
Hotel, she became the first female deputy
general in a hotel in SA. The magnitude of
this was great, since females rarely made it
into managerial positions.
While working in hotels across southern
Africa, she met Ivor Ginsberg, converted to
Judaism, and the two of them married. Being
a part of the hotel industry was not conducive
to a Jewish way of life, resulting in her
departing from the industry and fulfilling a
role as PA at The Portrait Place, holding

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company of ActionPhoto. She learned the
photography business, at once owning her
own FotoFirst in Parkview.
Thirty years ago, ActionPhoto began photographing its first Comrades Marathon.
From this anchor, the company grew, with the
two of them at the helm. It was a labourintensive operation unique in delivery and
speed of the images.
“That was chutzpah,” she says when talking
about their small South African business
marching onto the international stage, photographing the London Marathon in ’96.
The business and her family were intricately connected; however, in 2005, a tear in
the web altered the life of the two. A period of

Every failure
or problem is
revealing. Don’t be
afraid to try.
introspection ensued. Not afraid of new challenges, new adventures and opportunities, she
found herself employed as office manager in
Jewel City. Two years later, with G-d’s sunbeam upon her, Johanna was called back to
ActionPhoto as CEO, to assist with the difficulties the company had endured. Since then,
it’s been on the rise.
Johanna responds to me on the pursuit of a
goal and its importance both in a business
and personal sense. “If the goal is purely
financial gain, one could be unfulfilled.”
Though Johanna wasn’t goal-driven in a business capacity, she has since become so and is
excited about pushing the company into the
international market where it once had a
stronghold, recently signing on to document
the Jerusalem Marathon.

Johanna is hands on, delving into all aspects of the multifaceted business, not expecting anything from anyone, unless she herself
is prepared to do it.
Running a day’s event is one to be coordinated with military precision, accurately
positioning lenses and photographers. There is
a blueprint, she says, of the way an event is
photographed. However, every race day throws
up unique challenges and curve-balls. The
accelerating pace of digital technology demands
she be flexible, on the pulse and evolving.
She acknowledges success to be financial,
however, without a spiritual anchor teaching
you the basic tenets of life, “when is enough
financial gain, enough? One needs t