João Silva (born 9 August 1966) is a Portuguese-born South African war photographer.

He is the last working member of the Bang-Bang Club, a group of photographers who covered South Africa from the time of Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990, to the country's first multiracial elections in 1994.

He has worked in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, Russia, and the Middle East.

[2] After recovery and receiving two prostheses, his first assignment out of Walter Reed Army Medical Center for The New York Times was at the White House.

His parents immigrated from Portuguese Mozambique to South Africa, because of the Mozambican War of Independence.

He came to the racetrack with us to photograph the race cars going around in circles, and I kind of thought: "O.K., I can see myself in this role.

[7]Silva gave up his other jobs, bought a second-hand camera and studied black-and-white photography at a vocational night school.

Beside his jobs for the Alberton Record in 1991, taking pictures of road accidents and Rotary meetings, he photographed the conflict zones of Thokoza and Soweto.

[8] Weeks later he showed his portfolio to the Reuters office in Johannesburg and arranged to submit photos for possible publication.

Silva then began to freelance for the Sunday Star and was later hired by Oosterbroek as a staff photographer.

The UN then received permission from a rebel group to fly food aid to Ayod, and Robert Hadley invited Silva and Carter to accompany him on this trip.

"[11] Silva and Carter separated to shoot pictures of children and the people, the living and dead victims of the hunger catastrophe that had arisen through the war.

[17][18] In 2011 Silva spoke at Bronx Documentary Center in New York about his life as photojournalist.

He continued: "I'm a historian with a camera, and hopefully my pictures use the medium to capture history, or to tell a story, or to highlight somebody else's suffering.

He took part in the New York City Marathon on a hand-cranked bike finishing it in 2 hours 38 minutes.

[21] In December 2011, he returned home in Johannesburg, South Africa, as a staff member of The New York Times.

After returning to South Africa, Silva bought a Harley-Davidson XL883L Super Low, motorcycles being part of his passion.

[21] Work from Silva's first 20 years as a conflict photographer was first displayed at the 25th annual Visa pour l'Image international photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France.