MOUNT NELSON

Rosie Marks photographed Mount Nelson in Cape Town, in spring 2023 and winter 2024.

Rosie Marks remembers seeing the trademark-pink walls of the Mount Nelson Hotel when she was a kid on a family holiday in South Africa. Years later, in this book she captures the rooms and grounds and their inhabitants with a sense of nostalgia, personal connection and her characteristic earthy humour. She was particularly drawn to Mount Nelson’s employees. Her portraits of the staff, some of whom have worked in the hotel for decades, gazing out at us proudly from windows and offices, offer a glimpse into their daily lives. She explains that she was fascinated by the rhythms of administrative work overlapping with ritual and community – the morning briefings often culminate in group prayer and singing, an important marker of the day’s beginning.

Above all, her photographs are as much about herself as they are about the people she is photographing: her images reveal what is funny and extraordinary and unique to her, picturing those quirks of human existence that we too often overlook.