Rashid Lombard was born in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape) on 10 April 1951. In 1962, his family relocated to Cape Town, Western Cape Province.
After school, he trained as an architectural draughtsman. During the 1980s, Lombard worked in the audio-visual department of a large construction company in Cape Town. His love for photography grew through art classes while attending Wittebome High in Wynberg, Cape Town, and through an uncle interested in the art form.
Lombard worked as a freelance photographer for national and international newspapers and was a member of the Vakalisa Art Association (isiXhosa for enlighten), an artists’ collective that worked in communities to promote cultural activities.
Lombard’s photographs were used extensively by community organisations and the alternative press, such as Grassroots. He also contributed to various group exhibitions in Southern Africa, including at the University of Zimbabwe in 1983 and the Staffrider exhibitions of 1984 and 1985. Lombard’s images were also published in South Africa: The Cordoned Heart. It showed how people mobilised and organised themselves politically in response to oppression.
During the 1980s, he founded the Cape Town Press Centre with renowned photojournalist John Rubython, and documented for the BBC, NBC, AFP and local publications such as Grassroots and South.
Lombard’s interest in archiving started in 1986, after being awarded a study and travel grant to work at the prestigious Magnum Photos in New York, United States of America. From 1987, he was the chief photographer for South Press, the first alternative, anti-apartheid weekly newspaper in Cape Town.
Lombard was the CEO of espAfrika, which he founded in 1997. The Cape-based company was responsible for the largest jazz multi-event in the southern hemisphere, the North Sea Jazz Festival, later renamed the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, of which he was the Festival Director.
Lombard promoted South African jazz music. Jazz Rocks, a book of his jazz photographs, was published in 2010 by espAfrika and Highbury/Safika Media. In 2010, he participated in an exhibition at the Duotone Gallery at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which paid tribute to South African saxophonist, Hugh Masekela.
The South African Government conferred the National Order of Ikhamanga (Silver) in 2014 for his excellent contribution to arts and culture and his dedication to promoting jazz music, which put South Africa on the map for many jazz enthusiasts around the world.
Rashid Lombard passed away on 4 June 2025 at his Cape Town home and was buried on 5 June 2025 in Cape Town, Western Cape.