The advantages of working with a community development arm

Particpant at the opening match of the Macambini Sports ground - paid for in whole by Tongaat Huletts and Simamisa

Something I have come to really enjoy and appreciate with one of my clients is the level of charity work that I have automatically come to be involved in. By nature I am lazy. It’s not something that I like to admit, but I don’t seem to be able to have enough energy to do the things that I know I need to do. So, having a client that forces me to be out in the community is fantastic. The client in question is the Community and Rural Development Unit at Tongaat Huletts. The unit is under the steerage of Nkonzo Mhlongo (a remarkable and tireless woman who never seems to sleep). I mentioned her in a post that had it’s genesis photographing her in early 2013. At any rate, thanks to Nkonzo and her team I have found myself up and down the length of Kwazulu-Natal photographing rural schools, HIV clinics, paediatric wards and rural farmers associations.

Learner at Bhekeshowe during the KZN Rally to Read.

Drakensberg workshop - The Camera Doesn't Matter

Returning to the same locations continuously often affords incredible opportunities to see the changing character of a place. So it is with the regular workshops that I run along with African Impact in the Drakensberg. I am often asked by the photographers whether I get bored of coming back to the same sites again and again and again. Yes, there is certainly a sense of monotony before I actually arrive, but once I'm back in the mountains and the light is unfolding before me, all sense of monotony disappears. The light is never the same twice. 

Just Get On With It

 

 The recent pent-up expectation and resultant disappointment by some and exultation by others over the biannual Photokina Trade Show in Germany has, once more, ruffled everyone’s feathers as to what gear they are shooting with and what they think they should be shooting with. To put this very briefly, Canon have updated their steadfast crop-frame pro camera to mark two status (7DmkII) and Nikon have ‘fixed’ the D600/D610 by introducing the D750 and they updated the D800 to the D810. The D800 has been touted as the best all-round camera available (arguably better than the Canon 5DmkIII) and the D810 only builds on this.

    So what happens? Suddenly there’s a plethora of Nikon D800’s, D610’s, Canon 7D’s and more all flooding the secondhand market. A multitude of photographers all look at their equipment, think to themselves, “I need better equipment to get better” and promptly sell off their hardly-used camera to fund the latest gear hit. Not necessarily the best way to improve but a fantastic way to drain through the bank account.

The One Frog Workshop!

Photographing frogs is a lot fun! There's a reason a small painted reed frog adorns my business cards. It was photographed years ago on Fuji Velvia when I was still a student at Rhodes University. Ever since then, whenever I get the opportunity I try to find some little amphibians to photograph. Of course there are a couple of pifalls to photographing frogs that you learn about pretty quickly. This is how you overcome them: