Creation & Art

So far this year I've photographed a lot of things. In total, 54 things. That's roughly twice as many shoots as last year this time. I've not been doing a great job at posting about it though and keeping my website updated. I'm working on being better at it; I promise. This will hopefully be the start of it. When I started writing this post I had roughly 40 new images I want to update my portfolio with.

Before I carry on, let me share some of those images with you.

A quick insight on the images above.

  1. Anya, is the lovely wife of Tasos whom I've photographed and written about before here and after what felt like an eternity I finally messaged her and said that I wanted to have a portrait sitting with her. I missed the focus on this shot, but damn it I love it. Your photos don't alway have to be sharp.
  2. and 3. Morné, is an artist/painter that lives in the street parallel to where I reside currently and he contacted me for some portraits he needed for his upcoming exhibition at that time. The second image of him was featured on the cover of Editéur Plus Issue Nine. The first image was me trying to convey the chaos that I see when looking at his work and I'm really happy that I made that photo.
  3. Sakhile, is a dude I saw at a local cafe and after months of speaking with his girlfriend at the time we nailed down a date and I shot this profile image of him. The other shot of him is in my Instagram feed, here.

As I've mentioned I've been fortunate to photograph and work with some great people and companies in the last couple months. One such shoot was with Nataniël for his upcoming book documenting a small amount of his extensive costume collection, spanning a 30 year career. I believe the book drops in September, so until then I have to keep things under wraps.

I've photographed artists and friends and people whom have become friends. I've traveled to Cape Town to photograph the first ever piano performance by my good friend Charl du Plessis on top of Table Mountain (more on that in a follow up post). I've photographed images for a poster for an independent Afikaans Sci-fi film called, Siklus, by Louis Minnaar. I also can't release those photos yet. I recently worked on images for a Coca-Cola campaign and a lot of smaller, more intimate images with friends.

What I'm trying to say is that I've been keeping busy or, at least, trying to. Now I need to carry forward this momentum. I need to go out and create new work. Right now I am in a space where work has halted and it is always scary when I find myself in this place. In the past that's the thing that has dragged me down and into some pretty shit places where I felt worthless, and the images I were making, or rather not making, made it even worse.

Another portrait sitting that I am super happy with was of my friend Kelda's mother, the artist Margaret Nel, who is a painter and needed some images for her October exhibition. Her work is so beautiful and there is a painting of packaged meat that I so badly wish was hanging in my home. Check out her work when you have a minute.
My favourite image of her is probably the stitched panoramic portrait.

In closing, I've created a lot of imagery. Some of it I am really proud of and others less so. Is it art? It's subjective and differs from person to person. In photographing the artists and "regular" folks, I have I've come to see that through creation you get to a place where something may become art or artful. It's the process. You create and make and collaborate and eventually through struggle and perhaps a lot of crappy work you get to a point where you are happy with the art you've created.

Thanks for reading.