Stuff it

Seriously, all I want is my stuff back, finish a few projects and go home. Sounds simple, right? Especially the getting my stuff back part. Apparently it’s not.

I stored 4 prints and 10 A2 sized framed images at Museum Gallery in Cape Town at the end of 2010, with the promise to get them back when I was next in town.  I was part of their opening show ‘The New Landscape’ and had a good working relationship with them. I blogged about the show here. When I left CT,  I asked if I could store some of my work at the gallery while I was in Europe. They said yes, no problem. Fast forward 15 months. I am back. And I have been *trying* to get my work back since April 5th and obviously still haven’t got it.

First thing I did was to simply go to the gallery. There was no one there. In fact, half the gallery seems to have been closed. So I wrote an email instead, asking for an appointment to come fetch my prints & frames. I got a swift reply from the owner/manager saying that he was out of town, but that he would look for my prints and get back to me as soon as he returned to town. That’s cool. I did not hear from him again. So I sent another email. And another one and another one. And, in fact, another one. I phoned and left a voicemail message. Finally, an email reply. He was on holiday, but he would get back to me a.s.a.p. “Asap” again, eh? I am sensing a theme here.

As to be expected, nothing happens. I phone again, I email again. I went down there again. We speak on the phone, again. I offer to come help look for the prints. “No no, you don’t want to be down there”. He will look for it, and will get back to me tomorrow morning, or this afternoon or whenever.

Anyway, you get the idea. There is always an excuse; he’s out of town, the electricity is out and he can’t see anything, they are taking down one exhibition and building the next, but once that’s done, sure ‘I’ll get to the archive’. Best of all was when he suggested it was my fault because it took me more than a year. What are we, in high school?

You are running a business, I made a deal with you guys that it was ok to store my stuff there, now I want it back. All you have to do is set up an appointment and keep your word. I am not your ex-girlfriend asking for an old t-shirt back. This is my work and frankly, returning it is your work.

Anyway, you get the idea. I am being strung along, given the run around, lied to. But, I still want my work back.
And this sucks.

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Conversations with photographer Mike Hutchings

The World Press Photo exhibition had not been to Cape Town since 2007, but this year the city got lucky when the exhibition reached its final destination at the beginning of February. In order to celebrate this event, the World Press Photo organization hooked up with Iziko Cape Town Museums and together they organized a summer school, full of Masterclasses, lectures and panel discussions. As part of the program, award-winning photographer Mike Hutchings spoke about his work to a captivated audience. Mike Hutchings (London, 1963) is an established photo-journalist coming from South Africa. As a photo journalist, he also covers sporting events, and it was one of his powerful images taken at soccer World Cup in 2010 that won him first prize in the World Press Photo Sports Category (photo of Demy de Zeeuw being kicked in the face). Mike studied Social Anthropology at the University and began working as a freelance photographer after his graduation. He covered political unrest in South Africa during the 1980’s and as well as the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, conflicts in the Democratic republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar and Zimbabwe as well as global sporting events such as the Olympics and the soccer World Cup. He became a photographer for Reuters in 1991.

Can you tell us something about how you got started and how you got involved with Reuters?
Mike Hutchings: The thing to remember with newspapers is, that it is not what you can do, but what you can do for them. I had been taking pictures for a number of years and the people at Reuters knew my work. You also need a dose a luck, of being in the right place at the right time, you need to build connections. I used to work for UPI (United Press International) which was bought by Reuters.

I believe that it is important for photographers to talk to other photographers; sometimes your work doesn’t translate as well as you think it does, talk to others, listen to opinions – you need honest and constructive criticism. My support came from advice from friends, various people like Leon Muller, Garth Stead, Eric Miller. It is stimulating talking to other photographers. Cape Town photographers are not a cut-throat breed, it is not that difficult to connect to fellow photographers.

What is your role with Reuters now?
MH: It is a fine balance between working with stringers across Africa, organizing all that, and actually going out taking pictures.Can you explain what “stringers” are?
MH: Stringers are freelancers or contributors that we work with occasionally or on a more steady basis. There are quite a few big stories in Southern Africa right now, such as obviously the World Cup in 2010, but also Mandela himself, political disasters such as in Zimbabwe or natural disasters such as in Mozambique. Sometimes Reuters can not send someone into a situation and that’s when we use stringers. Which is different from sending in someone from Reuters itself, where someone comes into a situation, does what he is supposed to do and leaves as soon as he’s finished. Those photographers are also known as “firemen”. Stringers are locals and they can access a story differently which can be an important difference in how you cover a news story or event.Do you own the copyright for the work you do for Reuters?
MH: No, Reuters owns it. One-sided contracts can be a problem, but I find working with Reuters very satisfactory. There are different contracts for the stringers as they get a commission when the photo gets sold and that is quite unique is the world of photo-journalism.

What can you tell us about the standard of photography of photographers in Africa?
MH: Well, that’s where it gets complicated. There is a huge range of skills here. In Kenya, for example, there is a really high level of skills unlike that in, for example, Angola. We were very happy to see that one of are stringers, Feisal Omar, in Mogadishu also won a World Press Photo (ed: Omar won first prize in Daily Life Singles) We have 5 stringers in Somalia. I was the editor of that certain photograph. As an editor you are responsible for fact checking (Reuters is very strict about accuracy), writing captions and occasionally cropping.

Fact checking can be a difficult thing in certain countries or situations, and you want to make sure all the facts are correct. Sometimes someone or an NGO sends in a photograph and it they often have their own agenda. So what you do as an editor is ask the photographer specific questions, check the Internet, discern between gossip, conjecture and facts.

How much post-processing do you do?
MH: I am not a fan of over-using Photoshop as you can reach vastly different results. I try to limit Photoshop to less than what I would do in a dark-room. I do crop slightly, mind you in Sports photography you have to crop as you are to far way and you are shooting for the crop. I used a 400 mm fixed lens on the winning photo. Using Photoshop can cause too many problems too easily as you are putting something into an image that you didn’t see. And as a news agency or photo-journalist you want the public to be able to rely on your honesty and not have it question if what you publish is the truth.How do you keep the resolution?
MH: You can sharpen, but you can only go so far before it looks stupid. The image has to be sharp before you start post-processing. As a sports photographer you can not shoot in RAW as it is too slow. Although a magazine like ‘Sports Illustrated’ does work with both RAW and Jpegs. But with newspaper work you have to be faster as the turn-over is faster. It is uploaded into a remote editing systems where the editor will pull it out. The photo of Demy De Zeeuw for example was part of a sequence, and I didn’t see the photo until 3 hours after.Shooting sporting events means you need to be “ready” all the time.If you can actually see the photo through your lens, you are too late. But you don’t want to just push your finger down either. I guess you just follow an instinct for where the action is going to be, you learn to anticipate the moment.

There are things you can do, naturally. You need to be technically ready. I preset the exposure, but not the focus as I’d like to be adaptable that way. I bring several bodies and a variety of lenses depending on what kind of sports I’m covering. For boxing, you need a shorter lens than you do for soccer. Some photographers will use a wireless remote while they shoot; they set up a camera behind the goal for example while they stand somewhere else. I prefer not to shoot that way, but you never know what you are getting exactly. You only know exactly what you’re getting when shooting with light-boxes in a very static shoot.

Can you tell us something about how you view photography on the digital high way?
MH: It has gotten a lot easier now. Before you were shooting 36 frames on film that had to be developed, printed, scanned. Photographers were shooting less. Nowadays people sometimes shoot 1,000 frames. With the number of frames photographers take these days, you just need to edit more. I think that photographers were more critical about what they shot as there was a limited amount of film and were therefore possibly more instinctive. The cameras have also gotten bigger which can be a disadvantage especially in social documentary. Shoving a huge camera in somebody’s face can be very intimidating and it puts something between you and your subject. There are ways around that though, it just means you have to engage with your subject more. But I find that good photographers will always engage a lot.You mentioned that Cape Town photographers are not a cut-throat breed. Can you tell us a little about the competitiveness in photo-journalism?
MH: I have always backed away from it, but you sometimes see it in others. There is a lot of heightened tension that comes with this profession, but photo-journalists realize that if you can’t vent verbally and get over it in 5 minutes, you are in the wrong business. We also have to rely on each other in dangerous situations.Do you think that “something” has been lost with digital photography, meaning it has become less physical, less tangible?
MH: I don’t really think so, a photograph maybe changing as an entity, but you still have all your files.

Any advice to photographers?
MH: Back up your files at least twice on external hard drives and keep them in separate places.

Looking For An Icon

What was supposed to be a 40 minute train ride turned into a 2 hours trip. Not the fun extended, unexpected “go for coffee with a friend but end up with different friends on a beach you never knew existed” kind of trip, but the “leave home on your bicycle to catch the train, but get caught in a thunderstorm only to find out there is no train so you wait for the bus, miss the connecting train in the next city, wait some more in your soaking wet clothes, everyone talks too loud, walks in front of you and generally every flipping part in this city is ticking you off” kind. That kind.

  All I wanted to do is pay a visit to the Dutch Doc Days, a new three-day festival celebrating Dutch documentary photography. I had checked the program beforehand and wanted to attend a debate, catch a movie and see the exhibition. I only saw half the exhibition and never quite made it to the debate but did see the movie (documentary, I should say) which was the thing I really wanted to see anyway.

I enjoyed the documentary even if I was slightly disappointed after I learned they were screening a 4-year-old documentary but in all fairness, that has nothing to with the contents of it. Anyhow, Hans Pool and Maik Krijgsman documentary ‘Looking For An Icon’ was made in celebration of World Press Photo 50th anniversary. The idea was to find out was goes into the making of an iconic photograph as well as why does one photograph become part of our collective visual memory while another doesn’t. They interviewed photographers several photographers (Eddie Adams, Charlie Cole, David Turnley and OlivieroToscani), editors, publishers and historians. Oliviero Toscani was highly entertaining with his razorsharp insight that everything is for sale somehow be it religion, news or art.

                         “Authority that exerts power has to create an icon”

He also chatted about a photo shoot he did years ago while with his then girlfriend. She was a model at the time and was wearing a white bridal gown. They had been working all day and were quite chuffed with the way it had been going. The assistant suggested at some point he’d take a picture of Oliviero and his girlfriend. Oliviero was wearing jeans and a shirt, she was still in the white dress as they stood side by side. They were married from that moment on. No one believed it wasn’t a wedding photo and to this day, his mother keeps that picture in a frame as proof of their union. The couple did eventually get married but according to the world they already were and people weren’t all that interested. “We believe the image, not the truth.” 

What was fascinating was seeing the frames before and after the iconic image, and hearing the photographers talk about what went in to making that photo. Charlie Cole was running out of film as the resistance at Tiananmen Square went on longer than expected, and his famous image was on frame 34 or 35 on his last roll of film. He became quite emotional when he talked about the man standing in front of the tanks and explained how he felt obligated to show the world this image as it was proof of the guy’s heroic act, one that he probably lost his life over, “they didn’t run him over them, but I am sure they did later on”.

One of the connoisseurs explained how we in the west are raised in biblical, Greek and Roman traditions where the individual can make a difference; David vs Goliath, George slaying the dragon and men fighting the gods. The image of Tiananmen Square find resonance in that tradition. This may not be the case in f.e. Asian cultures where the collective is more important than the individual. An image, therefore, may become iconic in one culture, but not in another as it doesn’t refer to the same collective stories, myths or traditions.

The documentary does not really answer the question what makes an image iconic or what is iconic to begin with. What it did explain is that iconic photographs often lack context; time and space are slightly kept out of the image as that way it provides more room for the viewer to fill in part of the story or to project one’s own emotions onto the image. And that they often side with those who have lost; lives lost, friends lost, innocence lost. Even if we tend to believe in the good of mankind we are generally lazy. Iconic images show us that “the other person” has stepped up or suffered on our behalf. The image requires nothing of us anymore as it is the end already. We can view the image, feel the pull on our heartstrings as it connects to our personal emotional history, feel a sense of right and wrong rising within us while we have our morning coffee and get ready for work. We don’t have to act anymore, someone did the job for us already.

We bought some drinks and enjoyed our beer or rosé in my friend’s beautiful garden while the sun was slowly setting behind the trees. The images still linger in my mind’s eye and stories are still ringing in my ears. Photojournalists are often criticized for glamorizing war or being sensationalist. Sure, out of all the people you can find some are, most aren’t. I think most work from a place of compassion and even if an image hardly ever really changes the world, they do contribute to our understanding of a situation and remind us of our humanity.

Tim Hetherington, Chris Hondros, Anton Hammerl recently lost their lives wanting to do that. That can not possibly have been in vain.

CultureBox

CultureBox is a new blog by South African art magazine ‘A Look Away’ assistent editor, Andrea Vermaak. ColourBox is “a colourful box full of South African arts and culture, from fine artists, graphic designers, sculptors, photographers and illustrators; to writers, poets, musicians and performing artists.”

And, yay, Andrea was kind enough to blog about my project Swimming Upstream.

I think it’s very cool and a perfect start to the weekend:) You can see the full post right here:

http://cultureboxsa.blogspot.com/2011/04/kathalijne-van-zutphen-swimming.html

Please have a look and if you like you can leave a comment as well.

Thank you:)

Eduard Steichen – Beauty Primer

Having blogged about Robert Frank yesterday, I figured that today I could blog about one of the other photographers that was on show at the TEFAF, Eduard Steichen. Seeing how I am still a little bit bored (read: ill). 

 Eduard Steichen was the curator of the most awesome photo exhibitions ever, The Family of Man. Damn, I wish I could have attended that exhibition instead of just owning the book. Although I totally would have bought the book at the exhibition as well. The Family of Man was created by Steichen en Alfred Stieglitz, two men I admire for their photography but also for creating that exhibition, for starting Salon 291 and Camera Works. It must have been so exciting to be at the forefront of photography during time when it was still new and not everybody and their dog was snapping pics (not that I mind dogs with camera’s).

 

Steichen was born in Luxembourg on March 27, 1879. The family moved to the US when he was 3 years old, originally settling in Chicago but they relocated to Milwaukee a couple of years later. He became interested in photography during his 4 year apprenticeship at a lithography studio and soon formed the Milwaukee Art Students League with a bunch of friends, hiring well-known photographers to give lectures. Steichen met Alfred Stieglitz in 1901 and that was the start of a very fruitful relationship. Steichen became the most featured photographer in Stieglitz’s Camera Works and he also created the logo for it as well as a custom typeface. You may well know Stieglitz, btw, from his most famous photograph, The Steerage.

 

Steichen is the creator of what we now know as “fashion photography” after he accepted a dare by the publisher of Jardin des Modes and La Gazette du Bon Ton, Lucien Vogel, to promote fashion as a fine art by the use of photography. Now how awesome is that? Edward (as he was now known) photographed garments by couturier Paul Piret and these images were subsequently published in Art et Décoration. According to Jesse Alexander, this is “now considered to be the first ever modern fashion photography shoot. That is, photographing the garments in such a way as to convey a sense of their physical quality as well as their formal appearance, as opposed to simply illustrating the object.” Cool. Cool. He later became a photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair from 1923-1938. Vogue btw was only founded by Arthur Baldwin Turnure in 1892 but I assume that fashion was shown through illustrations.

 

 I could talk to you about The Family of Man for days but that would be a bit extreme perhaps. In short, it is an exhibition about humanity, in all it’s facets. First shown in 1955 when the world was just slowly getting back on its feet after having witnessed the horrors of WW2. The curators picked 503 photos (out of almost 2 million) by 273 photographers coming from 68 countries which in itself is quite an achievement. They sequenced the photos in such a way that they tell the story of humanity across borders and passed skin tone. It moves from the creation of the world to a young child to falling in love, getting married, family life, children playing together, people working hard or traveling but also depicting bullying, war, depression and death. It ends with a photo of the United Nations. The photos are mixed with quotes from sages, philosophers, or statesmen. I think is quite possibly the best book (exhibition) against crimes against humanity. And Steichen curated this:)

 

As for his own photography… what I love is his sense of light, and there’s a delicate sensuality to his photos as well as a strength and some glamour. To me, there’s also an element of graphic design to his work with strong lines made by the body, light/shadows or his use of the surroundings. And even if the photos are dated by means of the clothing people are wearing, his work is not old-fashioned and still very inspirational.

 

Right now I am listening to the new Aleila Diane & Wild Divine album as well as Raphael Saadiq’s new one, Stone Rollin’. She seems cool to photograph. As you know, I have a long list of people I’d love to photograph. She is one of them as is Cat Power, Mark Lanegan, Jon Spencer, Pierre Bokma, the one hot guy from Andrew James and if she was still alive, Billie Holiday. Ag there are so many.. 

 Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just photograph whoever you want? If you could just write them an email and say “hi there, let’s meet up. I like your work. I think I could take a cool portrait of you. Let’s do it. Let’s have some fun. Cool. Thanks. See you next week” something like that:) No publicists or managers to by-pass.. Sorta like how things happened with Miss Texas 1977. I wrote them on Tuesday, they were in my kitchen on Sunday. That’s how we like it:)

 

Just do whatever you want, then get it into a magazine later. And get paid for it so you actually can do the next portrait session.. 

 

I *have* to approach more magazines. That being said, I submitted work to an online magazine yesterday. Not holding my breath which doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to be published there because I do. Wouldn’t submit work otherwise but ja, guess you become more realistic after knock-back #57. Which isn’t true ’cause every time I send my work anywhere a part of me becomes nervous and jittery, hoping for that email to pop in saying cool, we’ll take it. Oh well.. April is going to be a good month that’s for sure with lots of work lined up, a friend from Cape Town visiting me and well, hell, spring on its way.

All the images are by Edward Steichen except the 3rd one which is a photo from The Family of Man and was taken by Unosuke Gamou in Japan.  The first one by Steichen is called Beauty Primer and was taken in 1934, the second one is a portrait of Gloria Swanson, the third one is a portrait of Mary Heberden in 1935 and I don’t know what the last two are called. I do know the last one was also taken in 1935.

Sick of Goodbye’s

While I am sitting here in bed feeling sorry for myself because I have a case of tonsilitis, a fever *and* it’s raining outside, I figured this as good a time as any to blog about something. Btw if you like a hilarious read you really should check out groupiemom’s blog from time to time. She blogs about Pofadder:)

We went to the TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) this weekend gone and I saw some amazing art. Naturally, the one big Rembrandt portrait was amazing and a big crowd pleaser. I also got to see Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Käthe Kollwitz, Munch, loads of Miro, Picasso’s and Renoir’s. Then there’s the endless amount of diamonds, asian art, furniture, Russian religious icons, snuff bottles, Karel Appel, Lucebert and more, more, more. I probably only got to see 30% of what was on display. Dazzling.

I was very pleased to see quite a lot of photography yet a little bit bummed that some galleries had the big names but not very interesting work of said big names. Like this portrait of Clinton by Annie Leibovitz that probably worked really well along side an interview in a magazine, but seeing it on a wall was a bore. Anyway, I also got to see an awesome portrait of Chuck Close and color photographs by Ansell Adams (not a fan, sacrilege according to most, I’m sure ) And then I moved upstairs and yay, Dennis Hopper, Steichen, Man Ray and Robert Frank. And man, I love those!

I really like Robert Frank’s earlier documentary style (and Walker Evans inspired) work, he was friends with Kerouac and Ginsberg but I *really* am a huge fan of his later, far more personal work. Robert Frank is a Swiss born photographer who moved to the U.S.A. after WWII. Starting out as a fashion photographer for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, he moved into documentary photography along the way. Frank took his family on a string of road trips over a period of two years and took thousands of photographs which lead to his classic publication ‘The Americans’. Gripped by the contrast of 1950’s optimism vs class differences and racism, Frank took gritty black & white photos that were not favorably accepted by the public at first.

  In fact, Popular Photography Magazine said that Frank’s images were “meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness.” Fortunately, the introduction made by Kerouac helped the book to “stay alive” and it is now considered an important body of work for art historians and sociologists alike. Sociologist Howard S. Becker wrote about ‘The Americans’:
“Robert Frank’s (…) enormously influential The Americans is in ways reminiscent both of Tocqueville’s analysis of American institutions and of the analysis of cultural themes by Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. Frank presents photographs made in scattered places around the country, returning again and again to such themes as the flag, the automobile, race, restaurants—eventually turning those artifacts, by the weight of the associations in which he embeds them, into profound and meaningful symbols of American culture.”

 To me though, it is his later, personal work that I love best. Robert Frank’s son Pablo was diagnosed with schizophrenia and later committed suicide in a mental hospital, a few years after his daughter Andrea had died in a plane crash. When you look at his later work, you feel the photos are his way of lending a voice to these feelings of dark and insurmountable loss. A way of communicating with the world, or perhaps just with himself. Perhaps, he is just trying to create order. Frank mainly shows objects, still lives or landscapes and often as composites of 2, 4 or 6 photos or with writing or scratching on it, but to me they are more personal than when he would given us a portrait.  

“Quality doesn’t mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That’s not quality, that’s a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy – the tone range isn’t right and things like that – but they’re far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he’s doing, what his mind is. It’s not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It’s got to do with intention.”  Elliott Erwitt

I remember this massive exhibition of his work at the MACBA in Barcelona and I was moved to tears. The exhibit was set up chronologically which worked well for me as you can really follow the change in his work. I visited the exhibition with my awesome friend Eva who merely “liked” the exhibit and I got a little irritated “like, like what do you mean you just like it?!” I told her a bit about his personal life and then she walked through the entire exhibition again which I thought was very cool, and changed her mind:) I don’t know if it’s a good thing, but to me you do need to know a bit about this photographer’s live to really feel the unspeakable, the intention and the loss. Some may argue that if he was truly great you wouldn’t need the extra information but let’s agree to disagree on that:)

Robert Frank lives in Nova Scotia.

Images: Francis Bacon Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X Painting 1953 | Chuck Close Self Portrait 1967/68 | Women at a Diner by Robert Frank, taken from The Americans | Cover for Frank’s The Americans | The man himself Robert Frank by Marc Trivier | Allen Ginsburg and Robert Frank by I don’t know who

Dazzled kid, pigs and pics

In an attempt to change my attitude and be a little bit happier, oh and because it actually may be fun, I decided to enter some images into a photo competition. Two competitions even… I have only done this once before and never even heard back. Oh well.. new days and all that. The theme of the one festival, Foto Festival Naarden, is ‘Portraits’ which, yay, is right up my alley. It is what I do after all. Should be easy enough to find something good enough to enter… I look for the Rules & Regulations.

 

“All photos must be taken between January 2009 and January 2011.” No problem. One can submit 1-5 images. Also not a problem. When submitting a series, the photos must form an “unbreakable unit”. Oh. I don’t do series that well. Stand alone images are more my forte than series but then again Swimming Upstream is my attempt at a series so I should be able to find something. I read on… Sub Themes… Oh #2… there are 8 of them but ai, there isn’t that much choice at all for me as I hardly fit any of the themes. In fact, I only fit one.

 

 The sub themes are Bare Essence (nudes), Famous Heads (your own visual interpretation of someone famous), Just Me (selfies), Second Skin (people in uniforms), Photoshop Mania (go PS wild), Polaroid vs SmartPhone, Studentenwerk (whatever you are working on at Art School) or On Going Project.

 

That only leaves one category for me, as I don’t have any nudes, I have famous people or well-known people but they aren’t Dutch, I don’t like doing self portraits and therefore have non, I use Photoshop but don’t go wild which could be a reason to enter into this category as I could be part of the low-end of the Photoshop spectrum but I am assuming there are looking for all out photoshopped images. Then there is the Polaroid vs Smartphone one well ugh… I like the idea of an established photo festival trying to incorporate smartphones etc but well… I don’t have a smart phone or a Polaroid so that possibility is out as well. I am not at the Academy of Art nor have I ever been at the Academy of Art which leaves On Going project as the only possible category.

 

 Cool. On Going Project it is then. It’s what Swimming Upstream is and hey, maybe it’s not a bad thing to only fit into one category. Kinda how things are for me anyway. I want this, not that etc…

 

Back to Rules & Regulations. Besides fitting into any of the categories one must either be a student at an established School of Art, belong to a professional photographer’s association (I don’t but could join one today and enter the competition tomorrow), belong to a photo agency (aaah Duncan? Help:-) uhmmm ok I belong to World Portraits and will be included in The Imaginarium’s database), be able to name a professional reference (wtf.. what does that even mean? I’m sure I can?), won stipends or grants etc (nope) and/or have exhibited one’s work… phiew… finally YES. Cool.

 

What’s next? Ah… 35 euros entrance fee. For someone as broke as I am 35 euros may as well be 3,500 euros as zero money is zero money but oh well it can’t be that I can’t do this over some silly entrance fee so I’ll make it work. Somehow.

 

Now this turns out to be a really nice bridge to my next uhm… “dilemma”. The friend’s mother I mentioned in September Girls sent me an email looking for some images and is willing to pay for them, however, she is not looking to buy a printed and framed photo but a high res image and wonders what would it cost. Good question and great, except that it feels very wrong to ask her for money. It feels wrong for a couple of reasons. If she was buying a physical product where there are actual costs involved it is easier to charge money. Let’s say she does want to buy a framed image, then I’d have something to hand over to her and that she could put on the wall. Now it is simply sending an email on my side and she still has to drive to town to get something printed and framed and all costs are on her side. The other thing is, that my friend has been a huge help in my project and well, a friend. Charging his mother just feels wrong. And my final thing is, seeing how I don’t have an SA bank account but a Dutch one most of the money would get lost in international transfer fees. Guess the answer would be to charge her 35 euros… but the transfer fees are more than that… Ugh.

 

Any suggestions, ass kickings or any comments of the “stop whining” or “get your butt into gear” are welcome:-)

 

I am now going to come up with a selection to send in…Have a vague idea of which ones but not sure at all yet.  It’s going to be a “kill your darlings kind of day” I’m sure…

 

Listening to Suarez (easy French folk pop), Dazzled Kid and White Lies. And still backing up files of the last 6 months. Have cleared out 38 gigs so far… Also have to go to a temp agency today…

Oh and the photos: top is Tristan Waterkeyn, then Tshepo Moche and bottom one S.A. Partridge and Timothy Lester. About time to do some new shoots:-)

Slide Machine

So, I guess I was sort of asking for it… you know, wanting a life that is different than the one you were living… a life that doesn’t just cruise by and keeps you in a false state of security until you reach 60 and think what the hell did I do? So I moved. So I noticed:-)

I got some good news regarding my visa on Monday, drinks with a friend that same evening followed by a cool time at Langebaan all day Tuesday. Kite surfers, cool company, beer, weird stories, sun, lagoon… it was a good day:-)

 Then yesterday morning things changed. My flatmate came in to tell me that her boyfriend was held up at gun point in our street at about 5.30 am. Totally unprovoked while packing his car to go to work. Shit-heads. Then I went out that same afternoon to meet with a friend only to find that my car was stolen. It took me a while to register the fact which in itself is kinda funny… I walk out, expecting the car to be there and nope, no car. I put on my glasses to check again and oddly enough still no car. I ask my flatmate to have a look and no, no car in sight… We must have looked quite funny to the random people passing by. She just got out of the shower and was only wearing a towel and I just had the most blank yet incredulous look on my face I’m sure. Huh??. Spent most of the day at the police station and calling the rental car company… Burnt straight through my newly uploaded airtime.

But yay, as soon as I logged on to Facebook this morning I saw the little video the talented Nic Redelinghuys made of the Swimming Upstream exhibition opening. I haven’t got a copy yet but there is one on the Grand Daddy Hotel Facebook page, right here

The title comes from a Mark Lanegan B-side to the Stay 7″ from years and years ago. Can’t get the song out of  my head today. It’s not a badthing seeing how Mark Lanegan is pretty much my favorite singer of all time and he can sing straight out of the phone book and I’ll still love it:-)

– I just wanted to say –

I just wanted to say – Thank you. ‘Thank you’ to my friends and family, but most of all ‘thank you’ to;

my awesome friends Joy-Anne and Jolene for all the support, kicking my ass at times and making me believe I could do it, Lieve for feeding me, the Grand Daddy guys for hosting the exhibition and allowing me to have their first proper exhibition ever. The guys from Overtone for running banners, helping me with contacts and being part of the inspiration, Taluut for designing banners and invitations, Akio for spinning records, Dylan/Museum for giving me a chance in the New Landscape exhibition and for your valuable input, Verity for her beautiful introduction and Cait & Pierre for the awesome video and sleepless nights trying to pull it all together.

And naturally huge thank you’s to all artists taking part. Thank you so much for your time and willingness to climb into dirty deserted trains, for donning weird outfits, for dragging your beautiful designs into a soaking wet forest, for driving me around while getting drunk together and having your feet knibbled on by pigs, for standing in ice cold dams, for singing to me, for showing me around your neighborhood, for inviting me in your homes, for your music, for your art.

Thank you Toby Atwell, Lauren Beukes, Donovan Copley, Guy Buttery, Lauren Fowler, Twanji Kalula, Akio Kawahito, Miss Texas 1977, Tshepo Moche, Maloti Mothobi, S.A. Partridge, Verity Price, Monishia Schoeman, Neil John Smith, Hendrik Vermeulen, Tristan Waterkeyn and Sam Wilson.

Thank you.

 

On Opening Night

The opening night is over… It was amazing and I had a fab fab fab time. Thank you so much to everyone who came out!! I can hardly get my head around the fact that the Swimming Upstream project is up for show now. Cool:-)

The whole day was amazing. I was lucky enough to have Jolene help me out all day long. We made our way to Orms at about 11 am to fetch the prints and damn, they did a stellar job. Packed it all up and went to the GD straight away. As soon as we pulled up at the Grand Daddy a big car moved out of the way creating the one and only available parking space in front of the Grand Daddy Hotel. The guys helped us carry the frames into The Venue and move furniture around.  Then we still had to decide on the order of the photos. I had made a selection on my computer but it is different once you’re inside a venue. There’s only so much space available, which photos do you want people to see first when they enter the room. Certain photo go together well, other don’t… When we finally made the decision of who to put where it was more than an hour later. Handyman Sheldon was quickly bribed to forget fixing the water pump and help put up the photos. Thank you:-) 

I think my favorite part of the day was sitting on the floor with Jo, eating pasta, drinking caipirinhas, tweeting and chatting while staring at my own work and realizing it has actually become a reality. Nice:-)

Jolene and I rushed home to Woodstock at about 4 pm in order to shower and change. Made it back just in time for me to fly into a fit, to get the dj table *back* into the room, move some furniture out of the room and for the champagne to be found before the first guests came. And from then on the night just whizzed by.

Verity opened the exhibition with a beautiful introduction and what Swimming Upstream means to her after which we played the video and Akio spinned his records all evening long. He had brought another dj with and they just took turns. Thank you guys so much!

And I can’t wait to see the Pixel Revelation’s video of the evening and some of Joy’s pics:-) If you have any as well, please let me know as between the excitement, champagne, chatting to people, rum & coke, being interviewed, tequila shots, the occasional hiding behind you just so I could take it all in and some more chatting and some more rum & coke, the evening just flew by.

Made it to bed at about 3.30 am. We started the ext day with a yummie breakfast at Superette and now it’s back to reality. Pics need to be sold, banks to be paid and visas to be sorted out… But the night happened anyway:-)