Today I pimped my Holga, some advanced improvements. First the puppet works like magic when photographing around children and with the green dot I am sure to step into the footsteps of ‘the great masters’ who all used cameras with green dots. Even my son Rijk (2) expressed a spark of recognition seeing the green dot, this is how famous it has become after all these years. Yes I am very proud to have a camera with a green dot, and I am sure the price will go up with time because of it. Hmmm… my biggest dilemma is if I should keep in in my vitrine, safely behind glass like a true collector or if I actually should photograph with it…..you know many cameras with the green dot are like ‘Cartier’ necklaces and are very much wanted by street thieves and pickpockets. I will have to call a respected auction house to get an estimate for this rare green dotted model, insurance is the safest way to go in my opinion…
Photographer and photo editor Geoffrey hiller has created Verve to feature photos and interviews by the finest young image makers today. Verve is a reminder of the power of the still image. Verve will also point you to new photo agencies, publications and inspiring mulimedia projects. Check it out, a lot of links to good documentary work!
Check out the trailer on sssld.tv
My brother wrote a song for me once, which was released on the 2005 album ‘Army of Apocalypse’.
Thank you John-Paul, I love you my man.
Goodbye, Farewell
Before you were born you were taken away.
I still wonder why up till this day.
You never got a chance to give it a go.
We never spoke or said hello.
Ten thousand questions roam through my head.
All left unanswered as I remain sad.
I turn to the sky with a tear in my eye.
I cry out why did you have to die.
Goodbye farewell, this is where we part.
The memory of you is like a scar on my heart.
Goodbye farewell, take care little man.
I’ll always remember every way that I can.
No matter where you choose to go.
You’ll always be close because you know.
The memory of you I hold so dear.
Although you’re gone you are always near.
Goodbye farewell, this is were we part.
The memory of you is like a scar on my heart.
Goodbye farewell, take care little man.
I’ll always remember every way that I can.
Before the beginning, goodbye farewell.
There came an end, goodbye farewell.
Still I am so proud to have known you my friend.
So I will carry your name, goodbye farewell.
Wherever I go, goodbye farewell.
And tell the world who you were, always a true hero.
Goodbye, farewell.
Lately I am investing time to establish and improve my digital workflow. In all the books I have read about Adobe Photoshop CS3 the importance of non-destructive editing is stressed. The advantage of using non-destructive editing is that you don’t alter your original image. The means of doing so is by using normal and adjustment layers. This means you only have to do the pixelprocessing once to a copy of the original file. If you want to change something later to the image you can edit the specific layer. You can do this as many times as you want without changing the pixels of the original background layer. Although the first thing I do when importing the raw file into Photoshop from Lightroom is create a pre-sharpen layer, I wait with the output sharpening after re-sizing the image for a specific content, such as a print or for presentation on the web. Before saving the print file you can flatten the image to reduce the file size. There are a lot of free (video) tutorials out there for people who are not keen on books. An example is the video tutorial on photoshopsupport.com on NON-DESTRUCTIVE editing.
Film vs. digital, an endless discussion. In the end we all have to find our own ways. This might mean changing nothing;) I have been exposing slidefilm lately and must say I am becoming increasingly in love with the saturation and slight grain. I just offers a spectacular quality without much post production. Digital offers many possibilities but the files look so ‘clean’. It will take time to perfect the digital workflow and the printing process.
David Alan Harvey started an interesting topic on his blog about how we see our own work. This is my response;
“Answering the question personally is to answer why I photograph. A few years back I lost my first son. During a period of intense grief, I started to see images. Not imaginary images but clear visions of a new reality. It was like driving on a road you have taken many times but you never noticed the tree….. This made a big impression on me. This new seeing resulted in me feeling close to him. The longing for being close resulted in the longing for seeing. Photography was the logical medium.It gives me the chance to get close to people, in the middle of life, to give me prove that I am still alive, to get a chance to see what he didn’t see, the beauty of life… So the photographs are the proof….living proof.”
Q: How has photography changed your look at the world?
When people heard that I went to Soweto I received a lot of comments like: ‘that’s guts’ or ‘isn’t it dangerous’ or ‘where you afraid?’ or ‘what does your family think about your plans?’ This ‘prejudice’ is fuelled by the fact that Johannesburg encompasses Soweto to the south west. After the Group Areas Act was scrapped in the early 1990s, Johannesburg was affected by urban blight. Thousands of poor, mostly black, people, who had been forbidden to live in the city proper, moved into the city from surrounding black townships like Soweto. Crime levels in formerly white areas rose. Many buildings were abandoned by landlords, especially in high-density areas, such as Hillbrow. Many corporations and institutions, including the stock exchange, moved their headquarters away from the city centre, to suburbs like Sandton. By the late 1990s, Johannesburg was rated as one of the most dangerous cities in the world. In Soweto I see the opposite, crime rates are low and there is a strong social hierarchy. So in general I felt very safe walking around in Soweto, a very pleasant positive energy and atmosphere. I never felt afraid. Never? Well, one time I got pretty nervous. I was walking to my B&B in Dube township, late at night, when suddenly a car came around the corner with screaming tires. It stopped right next to me and a man jumped out. While my heart skipped some beats he asked: ‘is this yours?’ It turned out to be my lenscap…;)) So I have a question, what are your stories about photography or life in general where your prejudice about someone or some place was changed?
Tomorrow I will go to Amsterdam to hang with Jonas and Mathias alias Sjocosjon & Leip Duke. I met them during my stay in Soweto last November to make my story ‘Deep Soweto’. Jonas and Mathias are two filmmakers who stayed in Soweto several weeks to make a documentary about the HipHop scene and to teach promising local youth about the process of the documentary for Music Mayday. You can read about there journey on their Xplore log. Our Sowetan Mama’s hooked us up (the owners of our B&B’s). I joined them to go to Jabulani Flats were we met with the Deep Soweto crew, a big gang involved in the hiphop scene. Unfortunately they were at the end of their stay…But before they left they also brought me in contact with Federal of Asylum Tribe. Just in time for me to get invited to Splash Jam, an open air jam session at a carwash in Orlando West township. A few hundred people showed up and this event really rocked! The public went really crazy and you could see the performers were well respected. When a big thunderstorm dropped tons of rain on the event, I found myself standing in over a foot of water. I could take the name ‘Splash Jam’ quit literally. But everybody kept on jamming! As the only ‘Lumu’ (white man) I looked up at the sky and thought; ‘this is amazing’. So a big thanks to Sjocosjon and Leip Duke, some more pictures for you of Splash Jam:
Today I finished Eva’s print. I started by mounting the print and spotting it. Thereafter I cut the matboard for the passepartout. Then the signing and finally the framing and creating the vapor barrier. Photography from A to Z, very rewarding…
Tonight I went into the darkroom to make a print for Eva. It’s a 3 stop pushed Tri-x negative (iso 3200). It felt great to do some printing again.
New Multimedia story ‘Deep Soweto’ added, click to PLAY.
