Perspective Pt.1

perspective

pəˈspɛktɪv/

noun

1. 1.

   the art of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other.

   "the theory and practice of perspective"

2. 2.

   a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view.

   "most guidebook history is written from the editor's perspective"

   synonyms: outlook, view, viewpoint, point of view, standpoint, position, stand, stance, angle, slant, attitude, frame of mind, frame of reference, approach, way of looking/thinking, vantage point, interpretation

   "her perspective on everything had been changing"

As the year draws to an end I realize that I need to take a step outside of myself and look at what I've done this year in an effort to not be so f**king hard on myself. That being said; it's difficult, because I like to look at what I didn't do and belittle myself.

It's the all too familiar space we all find ourselves in. That place of self-loathing and feeling like we're failures. However if I take a few minutes and go and look at each month that has passed this year, I see that I've worked with some great people and done some cool work that I should be proud of; probably.

This will be a two or three part entry, just because there is too much work I need to show and talk about and that I never got to earlier in the year, so let's do January through April as a start and see how it goes.
I urge you to go and do the same. Take a moment and look through the work you did this year and try to find the good in it.

By the look of things I got to January and February a little over here and here. Just a quick recap though. I started off January by getting in touch with people whom I've wanted to photograph for a while, some friends, some strangers. I had the great privilege of photographing artist Margaret Nel whose retrospective is still on show at the Pretoria Art Museum and I highly recommend you go and see it.

My friend Angelica Warchal in her apartment. This was a good day. We pretty much spent the entirety of it making photos and experimenting and then went for dinner afterwards.

I can also, FINALLY reveal this project that I (as well as many others) worked on with one of South Africa's most well known performers, Nataniël. It was for his latest book, called, "Closet: The Remarkable Wardrobe of Nataniël". For a quick read on it, go here.

29 March was world piano day, because it is the 88th day of the year (due to the 88 keys of a standard piano) started by pianist Nils Frahm and to celebrate it there were 10 performances on top of Table Mountain and my friend and oft collaborator Steinway artist Charl du Plessis was the first pianist in the world to perform on top of the mountain and I was fortunate enough to be the photographer there to capture this momentous day.

And in April I photographed some promo images for the Louis Minnaar short film, Siklus, however I still cannot share them until the film is released, so you will just have to wait.

That's it for part one. Check back later this week to see what other misadventures I got up to this year.

As always, thanks for reading.

Conceptual Storytelling Photography Workshop

It's finally here!
After months of talking and planning and gathering together a team of people, I am proud to announce that along with my friend (and the mastermind behind this idea) Jeanne Abrahams, I will be hosting a conceptual storytelling workshop in Pretoria on the 4th of October.

Watch the video below for all the information and then read further.

Head on over to the sign-up page: Fantasy/Fairytale Workshop

The aim of this workshop is to teach you how you can put together a small team of people with little to no budget and create beautiful conceptual images with story and narrative. You'll learn how to construct a narrative through lighting, posing and leading your subject into what your final vision is. Beautifully lit and styled and we'll be there to help you along every step of the way.

For this we've teamed up with the lovely actress and our model for the workshop Odelle de Wet, whom you may know from Isidingo, Binnelanders, 7de Laan and recently the international show, Blood Drive.

Our Make-up artist is Morné Marx from Kohl Make-up Academy in Pretoria who's a well known name in the entertainment industry and also did the make-up for the first teaser image at the top of the post.

We've got Fujifilm South Africa onboard and you'll get to see the Fujifilm GFX50 medium format camera in action.
AtPhoto will also be hosting an exhibition of the images the attendees made at the end of October and will cover the printing costs for the evening.
Outdoorphoto has also been kind enough to supply us with some lighting gear for the workshop.

Some final details in case you missed it.

1. Date: 4 October 2017
2. Venue: To be confirmed when attendees sign-up
3. Time: 9:00AM to 18:00PM
4. Cost: R6 000 (if you sign-up within the next two weeks you'll only pay R5000)
5. Food and drinks will be provided on the day.

PLEASE NOTE: Cancellation policy. We have to unfortunately be very strict, because of past issues where folks signed up and then pulled out last minute. That being said, if you cancel within two weeks of the workshop you will be refunded in full. Any time after that we will not give a refund unless you can fill your slot.

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.

Holy shit... I'm back!

Holy shit!

How has it been five months since the last time I wrote anything? Yes, sure things have been busy, but things are never that busy. I recently read a blog post by Eric Kim regarding his routine and how he has written 2600+ blog posts over the past 6 years.

That is a bonkers amount of words and he readily admits that sometimes it's probably horse shit, but it's part of his lifestyle. I like the idea of adopting a better approach to things in my life.
In the last month or two I've felt very "scattered" - I'm certain there's a better explanation lurking and perhaps it will reveal itself later in the post. I've had some incredible opportunities so far this year and photographed - and I don't mean to be crass - some fucking cool shit.

Inevitably the monster under the bed and inside my head awoke from its slumber and I've just been feeling; how do I put this? I'm bored with the photos I make. Now, to be fair, this is entirely my own fault. I have time, I really do, but I choose to spend it on shit. Utter and complete shit.

I know if I can get myself into a better routine that I can combat it, but it's f*cking difficult breaking a habit, especially without much or any consequences. I know they are there; snickering at me from behind the curtain and reminding me of my failures and what I lack. I have a massive backlog of work that I need to post, but I find it difficult to go back to things I've completed months ago and this is also entirely my fault. I need to be on top of my game and I need to write regularly. I need to make this a weekly, daily thing, even if it is shit. Show failure and then move along. Only in working through failure do you find success and then you're back to failing again.

My friend Lizanne turned me on to this quote by Ghandi - which I am unable to find now - but it goes something like this; "See every day and every thing you do as an experiment".
Get it? It's okay to fail with experiments, in fact you should fail. I like that sentiment. I'll say it again. It's okay to fail. I've written about failure numerous times on the blog. You can read about it here and here.

Moving on.
Dear reader; here is where I promise to try and be better. To write more and share more, even the failures and I implore you to call me out if I don't keep to it. Starting now here is the story about the photo above and how the shoot came about.

It all started with this photo my friend Jasmyn made of her Grandfather.

I LOVE this photo and I don't feel like any of the images I made on that day in February come close to what Jasmyn captured. I do love the portrait at the top of the page though and I still need to deliver the print to Oom Koos.

My initial idea, because he has an amazing Bonsai garden in his backyard, was to photograph a stitched panorama portrait, but that was a massive flop. Here is the one result of the 3 panoramic images I attempted.

Oom Koos in his Bonsai garden

Not a great attempt I'll admit. I could've worked the scene more and tried a few different options and compositions, but people have other things to do and appointments to keep and I didn't want to take up more time than necessary, so I defaulted to simpler images.

In the end I don't think any one of my images comes close to what Jasmyn captured that day in her granddad's Bonsai garden, but the first and last image in this post I really love. They are very similar I'll admit, but the one is almost more hopeful looking whilst the other is much more sombre and quiet. And what did I expect? That I would capture something so intimate as a relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter in 2 hours?

I'm back and I have a lot to write about so I'll see you all real soon.

Thanks for reading.