The Ocean Doesn't Want Me - The Reins

A year in the making - no thanks to me - is the album art for my friends The Ocean Doesn't Want Me. I did the artwork/photos for their previous album As The Dust Settles as well and that also took me damn near a year to complete.

My concepts were solid, but as with most things, the longer I sit on it the more I start to second guess the ideas and execution. But hey, these things take time right and they've also been busy finishing up mixing of the tracks etc. so no harm no foul. I just like to be way more punctual you know?

So the concept of The Reins in brief is; a letter from the older generation to the younger generation saying; take the reins, we f**ked up. You deal with this.

There are four songs and thus four photographs representing each song.

Droughts & Floods - The older generation who are handing down the reins with difficulty knowing that they are giving something broken to the younger generation. The topographical map represents rivers and land.

Let Blood - The daughter. Father finds difficulty communicating with her in this "male centric/man made" world. That is also why I chose to make it a rather awkward/disturbing image. 

We Remember - The Son. Ultimately our fathers mistakes lie heavy on our shoulders (more so than it should perhaps). So we are left to toil in the dust and dirt to try and repair what doesn't work. This shot was all in camera whereas the other two I did the overlays in post.

Young Ones - The ignorance of youth, taking things on too eagerly perhaps and in their haste repeating the same patterns and same mistakes. Unlike the other images there is no overlaid image here. I wanted to capture it as simplistic as possible to show the "virginity" of youth and being young and perhaps foolish. That is also why I chose the fetal position.

And then for the cover image up top. I just liked that it almost looks like some sort of chemical reaction taking place. I had no concept for it and this was just something that I spotted by chance whilst house cleaning and then photographed.

Those are the images and the concepts and very short stories behind them and how I interpreted the lyrics to the songs and the explanations by the band as to what they mean for them.

Order their damn album when it drops. This is hard work.

Thanks for reading.

17 March 2014: A year in Review

Today marks the one year anniversary of that fateful day.

What day; you ask? March 17th. My last day working at the IT company whose employ I had been under for over 2 years. I'd given my resignation a month prior and this would be the last day before I embarked on the rollercoaster ride of being a full-time photographer.

What's it been like? In a word; exhilarating and perhaps terrifying. I can't think of how many times I have used the word terrifying in the last year, because it's true. Being a full-time freelance photographer (or anything for that matter is a little terrifying). It's also really rewarding. I am really happy about this leap of faith I made.

In this year I have worked for really cool clients; Terrestrial, the SABS Design Institute (South African Board of Standards). I photographed RnB singer, Loyiso Bala.

I lived in and travelled America for 5 months interning for Zack Arias, meeting other heroes like John Keatley and Sara Lando. You can go read about that here.

I worked on album art for The Ocean Doesn't Want Me, which I will be sharing in another post. I photographed the concert pianist Charl du Plessis and I have been working on an array of personal work to round off my portfolio. One of which I have already posted - The Spanish Dancer - and one that I will be teasing you with over the weeks leading up to Easter.

Charl du Plessis performing privately for me and my team whilst shooting.

To say it's been a wild ride is an understatement. I also finished my Dudes with Beards project after 2 years and 80 bearded dudes and it's been great. Thank you to everyone involved in that. Now let's make a book and have an awesome exhibition to complete the final chapter!

This post feels so frantic and rushed and I feel like I need bigger words to describe how grandiose this has all felt, but has it really? I did really small, little, tiny things that resulted in all of these bigger things happening. I wrote a letter and sent it to America, quit my job, shot a really big project for two months, went to America for 5 months, came back and started planning shoots and doing admin and getting people involved that I wanted to work with and then shooting that and now it's just rinse, wash & repeat the latter part.

I am busy trying to build a studio with a good friend of mine whom many of you know; Ett Venter. That will hopefully be up and running by the middle of the year; if we can get our shit together. I NEVER in a million years thought that I would be where I am right now. I still don't quite know where I am right now, but man, am I enjoying the ride.

Thanks for reading

Sifting Through The Bullshit

It's been an exciting and busy two weeks since I've returned from visiting friends and family at the coast. I needed to break away from the city a little. I was on edge and frustrated and I needed the quiet of sitting around and not doing much.

Breaks are good. They center us and give new perspective and new life to old ideas or let's us sift through the bullshit of said ideas and filter out the bad and good. So, that's what I've been doing. Sifting through all the bullshit and trying to get things done.

I have a handful of Dudes with Beards (Part two here) portraits lined up and then I am retiring the project. March 3rd will be the 2 year mark and I think that is a good amount of facial hair. I'll then be focusing on getting a book done and out there to complete the final chapter. Lord knows how long that's going to take, but that is the plan. I'll be releasing a limited amount. Right now I am thinking 50 - or perhaps whatever the total is that I finish on.

I'll also be looking to redo my website a little. It's almost two years old and I think it needs a little bit of a revamp, but first I need to shoot some new work which is what I've been busy organising the past two weeks.

Meetings, brainstorming and trying to figure out what I need to create the images that I have in my brain. I'm stoked and I think the work that I am trying to create is a little out of my comfort zone which will ultimately push my skillset a little further and I don't know of any other way to accomplish that.

On top of all this I am now also a contributor to DEDPXL and my first post for 2015 is up right now. It - and future posts - will basically chronicle my journey from interning with Zack to where I am now and where I see myself going. Scary stuff!

Last but not least here is a detail from artwork for my friends' band, "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me". I have one more image to create and I am putting out a call for a couple who wouldn't mind posing nude for the photo. It's fairly conceptual and "fine-artsy", so there isn't any full frontal weird stuff.

That's it from my camp for now.

Thanks for reading