C’mon Billy

I have two more weeks to finish. I have more time but I am trying to finish everything before my family comes out for a visit. That is, the parts that I have control over. Finish all the edits, write the press release, make sure the banner has been sent to Overtone, send out all invitations, send files to Orms, set up interviews with the press etc etc.

I am a bit in two minds as to what to do with the invitations. On the one I think it is good to send them out 3 weeks in advance but on the other I think a lot of people, especially those that don’t know me but who are interested in photography or in any of the artists taking part, may just decide a week or so in advance. I know that’s what I do. You check the current events calendars and see if you have time. Or you’re simply in the mood for free drinks, socializing and some art. Unless somebody tells that there will be an Anton Corbijn exhibition or Robert Capa one or something like that cause then I’ll book and make sure I’m there. Sigh, if only. It’s so odd to me that the World Press Photo doesn’t travel to Cape Town. Why not actually? That would almost be a dream job. Set it up over here and do my own work at the same time…

 

I saw Tim Burton’s ‘Big Fish’ again last night. Love, love, love that movie. Albert Finney and Jessica Lange. Wow. Love the colors, the imagination behind it, and who wouldn’t want an Edward Bloom day once a year where everything is just fabulous and magical? And I totally want someone who’ll climb into the bath with me when I’m old and sick. 

 

It’s funny eh how some images influence you or stay with you for a long time. I think the photo below of Bob Dylan by Barry Feinstein is such an image. It’s such a fantastic image, so well composed, such awesome black&white tones and sums up feelings of isolation, adoration, estrangement, intrusion, boredom, ouside world vs inner world, trying to just do your thing… Or like the first image above, by Edward Hopper ‘Excursions in Philosophy’.  He has such an awesome sense of composition and light, often using light as a way of showing revelation and casting long, symbolic shadows and depicting scenes of extreme loneliness, regret and maybe even estrangement within the American rural and urban landscape.

There are so many inspiring portrait and music photographers out there but being a Dutchie and growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, I grew up with images taken by Anton Corbijn, Niels van Iperen and Charles Peterson. When Anton Corbijn still had his one page in music magazine OOR a gazillion years ago, I would buy the magazine just for that. I would always be a little jealous while looking at his work. I’m jealous in any case of people who are being paid to travel, who get to see the world and meet people for a living. I know you can say the same thing f.e. about flight attendants but it’s not quite the same:-)

 

I have a photo shoot with a young ADFA graduate trying to make it as a director this afternoon. Should be interesting:-) Will talk about it later.

Listening to Agnes Obel ‘Philharmonic’, The Sore Losers self titled album and still Mark Ronson and the Business Intl’s ‘Record Collection’ and bang bang bang is still my favorite:-)

left: PJ Harvey by Anton Corbijn.

And yes, the title is a P.J. Harvey song:-)

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Bang Bang Bang, un deux trois

Fuck, I’m tired today. And no amount of coffee seems to help. Just dragged a puking cat outside as well, not helping either. What is helping are the new Sufjan Stevens album, The Age of ADZ and Mark Ronson & The Business Intl’s Record Collection:-) The first song Bang Bang Bang features Q-tip. Nice:-)

I had a fab day yesterday. I met up with illustrator Lauren Fowler at the Olympia cafe in the morning for a photo shoot and interview. I’ve loved her work for a while now but had never met her in person and chatting over coffee worked wonderfully. There’s a link to her work on the Blog Roll of this page (Lost Is A Place Too). After 30 mins or so we made our way to her house so we could choose some outfits for the shoot. I had thought about possible locations before I got to Kalk Bay but also decided to play it by ear and just see how things go. Possible locations were: Polana’s or the Harbor House because of the light and views of the ocean, a black wall of a store along the Main Road, the Kalk Bay trains station as that is quite picturesque and also offers great views of the ocean and perhaps her place if light allowed it. When we got to her house we pretty much immediately decided to do the first half of the shoot there as the light’s quite good, the atmosphere is great and there are lots of cool little things around the house.

I love shooting girls (yes, men too:-)), you can play dress up, play with make up etc and Lauren has tons of cool clothes:-)

After shooting in around her house for a while we headed outside and used that black wall at Aardvark. We were both jumping in between passing cars and got quite a few raised eyebrows. Cool;-) We shot at the train station as well but after a couple of shots we were both hungry and tired. Made our way back to Olympia for an awesome lunch (penne with tomato, olives, Parmesan) and some wine. Finished the whole day up by doing the interview as well and got home late in the afternoon.

My favorite pic so far is the one I posted above. It was shot in her garden.

I edited some pics, sent them off to her and went to Observatory in rain to meet up with Toby Twoshoes for an interview at 8 pm. The day ended with me crashing on my friend’s Lieve’s couch in Woodstock for some tea and chats. Got home at nearly midnight. Cool day.

Journalist Jess Henson wrote a cool article on The New Landscape exhibition for Creative Cape Town. You can find the article here:
http://www.creativecapetown.net/museum-gallery-%E2%80%93-a-new-view-on-the-upper-east-side/
Leave a comment if you like:-)