"I knew after my accident that I was going to be in a wheelchair, I knew it was going to be permanent. There were two things I had to do, either give up or go on, and I chose to go on," Johann Meintjes.
An esteemed gymnast in his time; getting his Springbok colours in gymnastics in 1977 and for tumbling in 1978, Meintjes sustained a career-ending injury that left him in a wheelchair for almost half of his life. But his mental resolve and positive personality have seen him enjoy life to the fullest.
"I have been disabled since 1981. I was in a gymnastics injury in a competition, I broke sixth and seventh vertebrae and since then I have been a quadriplegic. Being quadriplegic means I am disabled in all four of my limbs. So since that time I have been disabled, I have been in a wheelchair. During that time in 1981, I stayed at the hospital for quite a long time, I stayed for six months; so they could teach me how to get up, get into position and transfer from one place to another place," said Meintjes
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Being positive is something Meintjes had to do during the transitional period in his life, as he, a gymnast before the injury, was always positive. After his injury he had to fall back on that positivism to keep him going mentally, emotionally and physically.
"I was quite a positive person, because of the gymnastics I did. And so I was a happy person, very mentally and emotionally tough, very fit, just a strong person. So that helped me during my disability. I was very positive about everything, I tried to do everything as possible as I can. From that time until now, everything emotionally and mentally with me has gone well," said Meintjes
Challenges came with the disability, especially in his professional life as an educator. He had to prove that he could function as an able person in the classroom. Meintjes went on to become the first teacher in a wheelchair in South Africa and had a gymnastics club that spanned 20 years.
"Just after my accident, the first challenge that I had was to get into teaching again. I was a teacher before my accident, and I had to convince everyone that I can be a teacher in a wheelchair. At that time, there were no people teaching who were in a wheelchair. So after about two or three months, talking to all the people that will actually decide whether I was able to be a teacher again. Eventually they said yes, I can teach and I was the first teacher in a wheelchair in South Africa. I started teaching at Laerskool Constantiapark in Pretoria and I started teaching there and I did all the subjects, later on I was a physical education teacher and at the moment I'm teaching computer education. So that was one of the challenges that I had to overcome during my life.
Some other challenges were that, I still wanted to coach gymnastics, although I was in the wheelchair. So I started a gymnastic club called Gymnastics World, and everyone said I would not be able to do that. I got students to help the younger kids on the apparatus while I was giving instructions, telling them what do, the technique and just how to do it. And for 20 years I had a gymnastic club here in Pretoria and I had over 100 gymnasts at that time. After 20 years I stopped training gymnastics, and I explored some other avenues for myself."
One of those avenues Meintjes explored was photography. He first did it as an activity at school, then studied it and later became a sports photographer. His passion for photography would blossom from there on.
"My love and passion for photography came about eight years ago, when I had to get something do at the school. I could not coach rugby or cricket and the other stuff; so I had to get something for myself to do at the school and at that moment we just started a website for the children. I was involved with the website, we had to get some pictures for the website and I got a few kids together and told them listen, let's start a photographic club, where we will get pictures of all the activities here at the school.
And as we got along with that the children got more curious about photography so I had to go and study more about it and later on, we all decided that maybe it's possible to start the photographic club at the school; where the children can learn more about photography and that is where my love for photography started.
After that, I got involved with lots of sports to take pictures because I'm a sport lover. So I got involved at the Blue Bulls, and I got accreditation at Loftus to take pictures. And then as I went along, I took pictures at lots of sports venues. And like gymnastic competition and later on also in sports for disabled people like wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby."
There are struggles Meintjes encountered in his photography career but he has managed to grapple with things, and is improving with time.
"For me as a sports photographer, the key element is that I can not handle a camera in my hands because of my disability. So I had to get someone to build a bold for me that was mounted onto my wheelchair, and then the camera will be mounted to that. And then that enabled me to start taking sport photos.
It is a little bit difficult to follow everything in the games. So but I manage to do it and with practice, things are likely to be better in the future. I will not class myself as an excellent sports photographer at the moment but I'm getting there, I'm getting better and better. I have managed to be a good sports photographer at sports like wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball, it is much easier with things a little bit slower there. I love taking pictures of rugby, cricket and athletics."
Some of the career highlights for Mentjies include taking pictures at the Super Rugby games, Sevens Rugby tournament in Cape Town, an international Hockey tournament, international gymnastics tournaments, international wheelchair basketball tournaments and the pictures he has taken of the kids at his school.
Johann Meintjes established the South African Society for Photographers with Disability (SASPD). The association accommodates disabled photographers and encourages people with disability who want to learn about photography to join so they can learn. The organization has representatives all over South Africa.
After his life changing injury Meintjes went on to do great things with his life and he advocates that people who have been in accidents to not throw in the towel but to keep on persevering.
"Any person that has an accident and get their dreams and hopes shattered by the disability, I would like to give them positive words of encouragement. Get into something that you like, something that you enjoy doing, that was gymnastics for me. And I had that gymnastic club for 20 years, then later on I went onto something else. It took long for me to discover it but eventually I got into photography and I would say that was the main thing for me.
Be positive about life. I would like people to know that I, even with my disability, I'm still laughing, I'm still smiling, I'm still trying my best with everything. And I like to do things that normal people do and I go out camping, I do everything normal people do, I kept on doing the same things that I did before my accident," concluded Meintjes.
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