Live Music Photography - Stellenbosch early 2000’s
Live Music Photogfraphy in Stellenbosch. early 2000’s
In the early 2000’s I moved to Stellenbosch, a small university town just outside Cape Town. I really loved the slower pace of life and the amazing live music on offer…Stellenbosch is well known in South Africa where a lot of musicians come play as part of their tours and where many performers have launched their careers. Every evening in the local bars and live venues, you had an amazing choice of live music and performances to choose from. The audiences where young and full of energy, always ready for a few drinks and catching up with their favorite bands or discovering new talent.
I was lucky to be working at a photo lab and retail shop which gave me access to cheap film and processing. I made it a regular occasion to frequent my favorite spots, bringing my old Pentax me Super 35mm with a pocket full of film. I quickly learned to use high speed black and white film (Kodak T-Max 3200 iso) and push processing to increase the iso to 12800….great for shooting with available light. I fell in love with the beautiful grain and texture of black and white film, something I miss and try to emulate in digital.
The stages and venues lighting were not designed primary for performances so you really had to follow the existing available light and the movement of the bands in the shadows and limited lighting, for the first time I began to develop my style as a photographer (no flash, use the shadows and appreciate the grain and feel of the images created). I learned to understand and break the rules to get the images I was after.
The unpredictability and energy of a live performance was magic, a lot of the bands were new and still learning their stuff, sometimes they were a bit shy and would hide in the shadows, or offer very muted stage performances…but there were always moments of magic where an image would develop for a few seconds, and then be lost.
I met and became friends with many amazing artists who generally appreciated the images I would offer them after their performances, sometimes leading to further gigs and even shooting some album covers and inserts. The experience and images I managed to shoot led me to defining my style as a photographer, and my skills with working with light and movement.
Inspired by travel photography – NYC
Having been a photographer for many years, it can be difficult to find and see new inspirations for shooting when stuck in the same environment over time…everything looks familiar leaving no new sights to find and focus on. This is a challenge which pushes me to look at familiar scenes with a critical eye; to find the angle or subject showing something in a new way…I love this challenge and have based a lot of my work on finding new ways to shoot familiar situations or scenes.
My wife and I are fortunate to travel a lot more over the last few years, whether locally in South Africa, or overseas destinations. Here, as a photographer, I find amazing new environments to inspire my work and imaging. Traveling has always taught me that we all live in similar ways (we all need to eat, work, travel and socialize), but that we all do things slightly different when we operate in different cultures and countries. The joy of re-imagining these day-to-day tasks and journeys has always taught me about our shared interests and living goals…the flavor of each local climate dictating how we live and our daily goals.
Sanet and I recently spent some time in New York City, and I love the energy and culture of the people and the city…amazed how so many people from different cultures relate and work together in thus frenetic city (we live in a semi-urban area outside Cape Town where we have a lot of space and quiet)…the energy and 24/7 nature of the city is enticing but can also be very tiring as a tourist as we were there to explore and get the most out of our trip.
The larger cityscapes are easy to identify and shoot, but I find the greatest reward in finding the commonality between the people we see and how they navigate their lives in such a big city. Everyone finds their space and ways to operate, giving and taking equally to allow space for each to share the city.
While shooting the city and it’s people, travel photography becomes both a record of the places we travel, as well as documenting our journey into that land…both introspective as well as recording the external environment we are visiting. Sometimes a wide landscape image of the city , other times the close-up abstract of something that catches my eye…learning that to show the smaller details can teach me and share our commonality of those daily things we all need to do to survive. In this way, I find travel photography enriches my view and understanding of a different culture, teaching me of how I live and being able to take home some wisdom from my trips
Afrikaburn Open Day shenanigans, 2017
A fun afternoon at Afrikaburn Nansen Street workyard…bit of time to unwind and pelt each other with water balloons, dye and a couple more beers…
A fun afternoon at Afrikaburn Nansen Street workyard…bit of time to unwind and pelt each other with water balloons, dye and a couple more beers. I love shooting like this, just my cellphone and the space to experiment and get it wrong (which turns out to be right…). I use a filter app called Pixlr-O-Matic (great name) which adds the borders, colour and soft focus.
Some of my best mates, since my first burn on 2012 when I met my tribe…a group of people who welcomed me and shared their space and craziness with all who cared to participate.
ANC rally in Grahamstown, South Africa, 1990
It all begins with an idea.
After finishing school, I was lucky enough to attend Rhodes University in 1990. I had been shooting for many years, but more as a teenager taking pics of my day to day life in Johannesburg. Being away from my family and sharing a res with friends gave me a new found freedom and awareness of life in different places and conditions in our country.
Apartheid was still prevalent under the National Party white rule in South Africa, a state of being I began to be aware of since I first recognized a difference in the way people were living and working in about 1978 (my first memory of driving past Soweto township and asking my folks why so many people lived in tin shacks and in such bad conditions). I was never actively political but spend my younger years learning about Apartheid and how our government had dispossessed African people for so long…a brutal regime which scarred people for generations (we still grapple with racism and poverty after so many decades since 1994).
In about March 1990, I was invited to join some friends for a freedom rally in Vukani township, just on the edge of Grahamstown. These townships were allocated to the African population during Apartheid to keep the local populations separate from each other, whilst allowing space for Africans to access and work for the adjacent town (thus Apart-heid). On growing up, for a white person to visit a township was generally frowned upon and we were indoctrinated by fear of crime and threats to us to keep us away. My visit that day began a process to dispel that fear and a lot of inherited dogma which I had grown up with.
Four friends and I jumped into my VW City Golf and headed to the rally. We were all young and a bit nervous on visiting the township, our old fears and blindness still a factor…but the most amazing surprises and joy of being welcomed and treated well when we arrived. We spend the afternoon listening to the speeches, talking to the people we met and enjoying the company. The children were so full of energy, even through they had so little, they were full of hope and optimism. I still feel privileged to have been able to document and capture some of the mood and feeling of that day.
My biggest pleasure then and for each time I have visited friends in townships was how people were so welcoming to our presence, never leaving me feeling unsafe and in the wrong place…I think we were welcomed and respected by coming to visit people where they lived and to interact in their communities…the level of pride in what they had built and their hopes for integration into all the surrounding communities. I truly felt like a South African and this trip was a major step forward to me in opening my eyes and heart to the greater humanity of our beautiful country.
We still struggle today on South Africa, with a whole new set of issues confronting us, but the opening of our political and social space to all races was a huge step forward to us…allowing us to get to know each other.
I still look at the photos I took that day and wonder what became of the children and people I photographed, thirty four years later…I hope that each one discovered a good life for themselves and their friends.