In 1983, my father, Pops Panday, didn’t just pick up a camera; he picked up a responsibility. He understood something fundamental that drives us to this day: a photograph isn’t just ink on paper. It is a memory held still. It is a degree conferred, a school year completed, a moment that will never happen again, saved forever.

Pops was born in 1964, and by the time he left us in 2020, he had built Pandays Studio into the visual historian of KwaZulu-Natal. From the thousands of students he photographed to the university graduates whose hands he shook through the lens, his legacy is printed in the albums of families across South Africa.

When the world changed in 2020 and we lost him, the silence in the studio was deafening. But the work did not stop. My mother, Anila Panday, carried the torch through the darkest days of the pandemic, ensuring that the trust you placed in our name remained unbroken.

Today, as I take the reins in 2026, I do so with a deep sense of duty. I bring with me the experience of building my own award-winning companies, but more importantly, I bring the values I learned watching my father in the darkroom.

We are changing. We are modernizing. We are innovating. But the soul of this studio remains exactly where Pops left it: dedicated to excellence, and committed to you.”

Yasheen Panday
CEO, Pandays Studio