From 1956 to 1985, excepting a three-year hiatus between 1965 and 1968, he was on the staff at the Golden City Post and Drum; those sister publications printed many of his most famous photographs, primarily taken in the Indian and Black townships around Durban.
[2][4] In addition to his photos of the Durban social scene, he became especially renowned for portraiture and photographed many anti-apartheid activists, including Monty Naicker and Nelson Mandela (at the Rivonia Trial), Alan Paton, Oliver Tambo, and Albert Luthuli.
[4] In the 1980s he was retrenched from Drum and entered semi-retirement, doing occasional freelance work for private clients and local newspapers including the Sunday Tribune.
[4] However, he had little fame in South Africa until 2004, when, aged 79, he had his first solo exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, entitled Ranjith Kally: 60 Years in Black and White.
[2][3] A solo retrospective exhibition was launched at the Durban Art Gallery later that year and was subsequently shown at African Photography Encounters, where Kally earned the Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as at the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona, and Espace Jeumon in Réunion.