Droughts & Floods

Things have been quiet on the regular blog front, but for more up to date news you can check out my America adventures here. I'm currently busy with a new post about my west coast trip with the Arias family.

I am also in the "throes" of commissioned work for a local SA band, but I am keeping it close to the chest for the time being. Those who know, know what I am talking about ;)

I posted a little sneak peek on my Instagram feed or you can just look at it right here. The album will be titled; "The Reigns", more than that I won't divulge, but I will be doing some posts about each piece as it develops and try to explain my thought process without giving too much away.

Droughts & Floods: Detail

Droughts & Floods: Detail

So the idea behind the photos were to do in-camera multiple/double exposures, but after playing around with it and doing tests I found it to be a little trickier than I had anticipated and decided to change direction a little bit. The picture above might not even be the final image for this particular piece. I'm not too certain how happy I am with it yet, but for now it's a good start.

I need to find a few more models and shoot more plates. The plates will be used for the overlay/texture that I am adding to the images in post. This too is tricky, coz there are so many blending options and ways to go about it and move the texture around and warp it and it's driving me nuts, coz I keep second guessing, but that's just the usual path of my "creative" process :)

Photographing Loyiso Bala

Right now I am on the other side of the world sitting in the dining room of a photographer I admire very much. I never thought this would happen. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd hop on a plane to America.

I feel incredibly blessed. In a very short amount of time my life has been flip-turned, upside down (a little reference to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air if you didn't notice :P). And it's probably going to flip over a couple more times, but this is exactly what I asked for.

I was terrified and excited. I told a friend the other day I was scared and she told me, she wants to be scared again. I thought that was quite beautiful. It's not a fear for your life kinda scared; more a fear of the unknown and it's exhilarating :)

A month ago or so I mentioned that I was doing a shoot that I wasn't allowed to share until the end of May. Well, the time has come and I can finally talk about it.

At the beginning of April I received an email from a local record company (Merchant Music) who wanted me to photograph one of their artists. I was stoked. I've been making music in some way or form since I was 15 and even though my life has taken a different turn I will always love making music.

So, right before easter weekend I shot the local artist Loyiso Bala's latest CD/DVD combo cover and the inserts.

The cover image

The cover image

He wanted a "backstage" look and feel for it, so by some luck we managed to get permission to shoot at the Pretoria State Theater and man was it awesome! It was also a little tricky! That place swallows light! Everything is black backstage. The "ceilings" are like 5 stories high and swallow massive steel doors. It's cavernous!

BTS shots by the awesome Ett Venter. Thanks dude.

We had 3 hours to play around and it was glorious. Loyiso is such a kind and friendly dude, just patiently waiting while my assistant and I set up for each next shot. Very chilled out even though right after the shoot he was hopping on a plane to Cape Town for a show, then back to Johannesburg and then off to Port Elizabeth for a stint of shows over the easter weekend. It's awesome being so passionate over something.

It was such a good shoot and I came away from it very happy and also managed to get out of a tricky situation with a police officer for being on my phone while driving to another shoot. I guess he was feeling generous with easter being a day away :)

Here are some more shots.

Thanks for reading

Living in Beta

Seeing as I'm on a roll here, I might as well get another blogpost out there for the world to see. If you missed yesterday's post, you can go have a read here.

I've been busy... very busy in fact. It's a blessing. I love every second of it. It's kicking my ass and I am making mistakes, but with that I am growing and learning and talking to friends and learning from them the ins and outs and trying to remember it all as I am hurtling towards the unknown at blinding speeds.

It's all one big rush. I recently finished one of the biggest jobs I've done so far and what a great bunch of people I have had the privilege of working with. One of those people is Tasos Calantzis. Himself, his wife (Anya) and their business partner Frederick has an awesome company called Terrestrial and along with the SABS Design Institute they are doing very cool things.

After all the madness of the 43 Challenge I've been busy with personal work and other smaller client jobs. Tasos contacted me last week and asked if I would shoot his portrait for an upcoming trip he'll be taking to Australia. I said yes; thinking it'd be a quick headshot and I'd be out of there. Then we had to postpone it until Monday of this week and as I was driving home Thursday evening from a thing at church; I had an idea.

He has been building this rad little boxcar for his daughter and it struck me like a punch to the throat. I HAD to get him in a suit and tie and get him in that thing and shoot his portrait. So Sunday I decided I'd email him and see if he was keen on my whacky idea. Here is his response: "Hey Bernard; that sounds awesome! It's actually great that the car is half built! The process and all that you know. Living in Beta. "

I love that slogan: "Living in Beta". As creatives/artists/creators we are constantly living in that in between of the concept and the finished product. Always striving for something better, never quite satisfied with the results and if we are, it lasts for a very short fleeting moment and then we move on to the next thing.

So here is the image: Living In Beta

Living in Beta

Thanks for reading