A different time in space

A different time in space

 

If I was the melancholic type, I’d wish it was still that time in space but that’s a different story..

 

Yesterday. Kind of an odd day. I woke up to a very grey and wet Utrecht. Waking up in a new place is always a bit odd to begin with. You see, I am staying at friend’s place who’s on holiday in Jordan right now. I used to live next door to him (at this place: hello operator ) so everything is very familiar but not the same. And not mine. Anyway, it was the day of my first photo shoot and first job interview since getting back to the NL. I was hired by a copy writing agency to do a corporate shoot for an in-house magazine. The shoot was originally planned at a building site but seeing how the weather was utterly crap I decided to change locations. I felt a little out-of-place doing so as I’m not really in charge and the outside location had been approved by the 3 parties involved but hey, feeling a little odd is better than coming across as incapable ’cause everyone would have drowned during the shoot and the photos could quite possibly have turned out crap. So I changed locations and I am glad I did. The shoot went by quite fast and I had fun doing it. People were friendly and cooperative and it was nice telling people what to do again:)

 

 After the shoot I had to rush across town (on my bicycle, in the rain) to a school for a job interview. The interview went well but I am kind of hoping I don’t get the job as I am looking for something with a bit more weight to it. I have gotten another photo job for at the end of this month and that’s quite cool too. Am a little worried about not having received an invoice yet for FotoFestivalNaarden (the invoice comes *after* you’ve paid and entered the competition and basically serves as a confirmation notice). I hope they received everything in good order. If I don’t get in because they find my work not suitable that’s one thing but to not get in on administrative errors is uhm, *another*.  I also have to keep my eye on the S.I.P. deadline and start working on my proposal. I really do think I could do a good job on writing a reasearch paper on photography. Plus, apply for jobs on this side obviously. And there’s still the Itch submissions, and Mahala… and Hollands Diep.. And… 🙂

 

And I have a meeting with a fashion magazine next week and am quite excited by the idea. I don’t want to say too much as I am afraid to jinx it. Spurred on by the meeting though, I decided to take all the Swimming Upstream interviews, re-read, re-edit them and write one more general article on the Cape Town creative scene. I approached some young corporates in the creative scene to counter balance the interviews with the artists. I wonder what magazine editors, gallery owners or journalists have to say. So far I approached 4 people but only heard back from one so far, thanks Shani/The Imaginarium. Then again, I only asked people last night:)

 

So my question to you is, when you think about the Cape Town creative scene what springs to mind? Is there anything remarkable, odd or lacking? There is so much creativity in CT but what do you think of the quality of work that is produced? Should the local government provide for.. for what? Is there anything that Cape Town really needs?

 

 

A different time in space… I don’t know why that random remark gets to me so. Being back in Utrecht is a step back in time. Trying to get work here with work I did there so I can go elsewhere. I have one foot here, another there. Trying to connect the dots. I already know here my heart is as I know exactly where my mind wanders. Time. Space. I need both. Whatever. I’m here. My heart not. It’s probably a decision you make. But I did that in June ’09 already when I quit my job.

 

Like I said, time for more coffee.

 

 

 

 

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Thinking of Dean Moriarty

Here I am, with suddenly only nine days left to go before the exhibition. It’s wonderfully weird and a little frightening somehow to see it all come together. Slowly but coming together non the less. I keep waiting for the bomb to drop but no bomb has dropped yet and hopefully it never will. Some old 80’s Dutch band sang about “Dansen op de vulkaan” and that’s how I feel today. Excited but not everything is finished yet and there’s still a long swim ahead.

 

We did the last shoot for the behind-the-scenes video today. The video is being made by Pierre De Villiers and Cait Pansegrouw, an awfully talented duo and I can’t wait to see the end result.  It was an awesome day today, hot and muggy but we did good work. We interviewed 3 different people today, just shot a location that I have used for this project and had coffee. Received a call about the project from Cape Town Magazine and hopefully they’ll feature it on their site as well. Driving around, meeting people, beautiful scenery and a cool project to work, what else could one possibly want?

 

 

I secured the fourth “go ahead” from a band today saying that we can use their music in the video. There’s four now; Tristan Waterkeyn, Guy Buttery, Hot Water and Miss Texas 1977. It will be a wonderful eclectic sound, I’m sure.

 

 After the shoots I went to Orms to see the final prints and man do they do stunning work or what? I printed out 11 A2 sized metallic C-prints but chose 10 to be framed and exhibited on the walls of the Grand Daddy Hotel. The others will be shown digitally, together with the video and quotes taken from the interviews.

 

The last shoot was done last week and will start editing it on Friday. We met up in Obs, got the stuff in the car and headed to Guguletu. the idea was to shoot at Mzoli’s but when we got there I didn’t like it very much so we shot in the spaza shop across the road and on the road next to Mzoli’s. Then we had *lunch* at Mzoli’s:-) Much better. We took the long way round out of Gugs and ended up at some run down building. The sun was a little less bright by then which helped the shoot for sure. I am not a fan of shooting in bright bright sunlight.

 

The weekend saw us heading towards Stellenbosch and Franschhoek for a hell of a lot of wine tasting. La Motte won hands down… awesome awesome wine! Their Pierneeff range is simply to die for and I’m sure my brother would have stayed there if he could.

 

Just had a look at the new releases and they’ve got to be kidding… all oldies; Brian Eno, Brian Ferry, Monster Magnet even Jamiroquai (why hasn’t he disappeared yet?) Fair enough, Giant Sand are oldies too.. but Howe Gelb, what can I say, it’s Howe Gelb 🙂 The video btw,  is of Jack Kerouac reading from On The Road… just because I like it. Thinking of Dean Moriarty…

 

 I do kind of like Shaking Godspeed’s album ‘Awe’ on Suburban Records. Am listening to Gold Panda now which doesn’t exactly do it for me so I moved to Warpaint ‘The Fool’ on Rough Trade which I do like so far:-) Will check out Zwart Licht’s “No Juju” later.

 

The Facebook events page for Swimming Upstream is up and running and can be found here: please RSVP… don’t just RSVP but say *yes*, attending for sure and bring people with:-) http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=159213667451942

 

See you there! I for one can’t wait:-))