Mountain Folk

So, I'm in Nelspruit at the moment doing a fashion shoot to raise awareness for wild animals. We are shooting people involved in caring for the animals, so no models, just real people who really do care. We are shooting a white lion, a cheetah, an elephant, a giraffe, a chimp and some other animals who aren't that rad, like a fish.? We only start on Tuesday so I've been cruising around shooting, today I went to Kaapsehoop which is about 20 minutes into the mountains from Nelspruit. It's fucken weird up there, mountain people for real. Going back tomorrow for more shooting.

Alec Soth

Liam Lynch pointed out to me a while ago that my work is quite similar (not nearly as good though) to Alec Soth's work, he also shoots mainly portraiture and perfect portraiture at that. Since then I have been obsessed with the man's work and look almost everday if he has new work on the net. And to my delight I found new work on his website and some interesting articles on his blog this morning. Go look here for a series of portraits relating to fashion (this image), and here for good reading on photography. I honestly love Alec Soth's eye.

I found this on his blog as well, a quote by Tod Papageorge:

'Cameras are like dogs, but dumb, and toward quarry, even more faithful. They point, -they render, and defy the photographer who hopes. Photography investigates no deeper relief than surfaces. It is superficial, in the first sense of the word; it studies the shape and skin of things, that which can be seen. By a passionate extension of this, its most profound meanings have to do with immanence, the indwelling grace of what Zen calls our ten thousand facts. This is not transport, or celestial transcendence, but that more footed joy and grief found near any clear sighting of the word.'

The Smith Hotels

Good old ST[E]AK has taken my photographs from Fashion Week and used them for a Back Hotels album cover. They are influenced by The Smiths album covers from back in the day, I think they're awesome. Go look here to see the rest of them. Stef has also been kind enough to put a little poll on his blog where you can vote for how tight my pants are, ahhh, friends.

Don't Ever Go To Sun City

I shot yet another cd cover on Friday, it was for a local R&B guy called Loyiso. We did the shoot at Sun City and it turned out to be the longest shoot I've ever been on. We left Jozi at 5 in the morning, we didn' start shooting until 10 and we only did our last shot at about 7 in the evening. I don't understand why everything took so long but it did, we didn't even stop for lunch. So I only got to eat when I got home last night at 21.30. We got to shoot in a suite called the 'King Suite' which costs a mere R46700 a night, Forest Whitaker is one of the people who stayed there and can obviously afford it. Why?

Valerie, Kenya's 'Idol'

I shot a cd cover for a girl called Valerie from Kenya on Tuesday, she won the Kenyan Pop Stars competition, or something like that. Her manager said that he would like to get me back to Kenya to shoot some stuff for him there as well, hopefully it happens because I'm dying to see Africa. Here is the stuff we did in Brixton, Jozi.

Twins

Was going to do, and am still thinking of carrying it on, a series of portraits of twins. Really hard to find the little buggers and they are not always what you are looking to photograph. I friend of mine had two beautiful daughters who happen to be twins so I'm hoping to shoot them soon. If you know of any, please leave a comment and let me know. These are twins I shot in Soweto just before I left for Durban.

A Beautiful Girl

Natasja Fourie

Was checking out Natasja Fourie's blog and saw this pic of me from when I was in Cape Town for that exhibition last year. Her work is amazing, go check it out for yourself.

Gideon

Durban Fashion Week Etc.

(So I'm splitting this work up into two posts,this one of random stuff from everything that happened around fashion week and then the series of portraits I shot of models backstage in Gideons new range.) Durban was a mess most of the time, Leksa and myself went down on the Tuesday without a plan and without a place to stay. Luckily I know some good people down there like J.P. Redpath and Mark Donaldson, who hooked us up with a place to stay and good times. In the 5 days I was there I shot a cover for Tribute Magazine, shot backstage at fashion week, shot loose people in bars, went skating at the beachfront and had a Elliott Smith song sung to me by J.P. in a bar, dedicating it to 'Warren van LENSburg'.Ha Ha.

Durban Fashion Week

Got back from Durban yesterday after being there for for Fasion Week. I got to shoot Gideon's new range backstage and some random pics around Durban. Here is a little preview, I still have to work on the rest. So, be patient, go listen to Fionn Regan in the mean time.