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:-)

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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:-)

Swanlights Tshepo Moche

 Why don’t we try the big knife? It seemed like a good idea. Oranges, pineapples, a blender, a pan. Not just any pan, an orange frying pan. The knife was only because the dog didn’t like to be held.

 

We are in a gorgeous house in the Bo-Kaap and I am doing a shoot with Tshepo Moche, a young AFDA student who will graduate this November. I really wanted someone at the beginning of their career as well just to show the whole process. And I hadn’t photographed anyone in the city yet so this was a wonderful opportunity to do so. You can’t really tell by the photos that it is in the city but I know and that’s enough for now.

 

No, we did not need the knife because the dog didn’t want to be held. The idea was for Tshepo to be this bored house wife holding smokes and a cute blond doggie. The doggie didn’t like it and the house was smoke free so we nixed the idea.

 

I struggled a little bit with the light. I like using just natural light and I have been doing so throughout this project and didn’t want to change that. I managed though. We shot in the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen and back to the living room again.

 

The awesome news is that we have also started working on a video for this project. Cait Pansegrouw and Pierre de Villiers are shooting it and I am so lucky to have them on board. It will be so cool and can’t wait to see what the final product will look like:-)

I haven’t done much all morning. Just emailed a bit, sent through interviews from last week and edited one photo. Ai. Time to go out for a run.

The rest of the week will see me editing the photos from yesterday and a couple still more to do from Lauren’s shoot as well. I may do a shoot on Thursday but that’s still up in the air. I will pay a visit to the Museum Gallery once again to go over the press release and set  things up properly tomorrow. I will likely meet up with Tshepo after that so we can do the Swimming Upstream interview. We never got round to it yesterday. Too many knives, oranges, coffees, baths and playing dress up to distract us. It was a cool day.

The photo above is just an outtake from yesterday’s shoot. The title comes from Antony & the Johnsons new album. I don’t really like them but I like the title:-)

All My Friends Are Insects

Bang bang here we go – another week and it’s going to be a hectic awesome week even if Monday came round in a dull moody kind of way.

 

Anyway, this week is the week of the The New Landscape exhibition!!!! First of three exhibitions. Yup:-) My exhibition quota will have doubled by the time I leave SA. Noice:-) 

 

This week going to be such a cool mixture of work & networking together with friends, drinks & celebrations. Today wil be just work work and sorting out some stupid admin stuff from the operation of two months ago. Apparently SA Admin and Dutch medical insurance companies don’t like each other and they rather mail my mother in the NL, call my friends here in CT etc rather than call me or sort it out themselves. Anyway, it’s annoying.

 

But hey, the rest of the week will be awesome. There’s the Cape Town Design Network (CTDN) The Editors Speak lecture on Tuesday evening.

According to the Facebook page “The CTDN is a fledgling organisation set up to help facilitate the development of design in Cape Town. This session is part of a set of talks and discussions the network has been hosting since early this year. The sessions usually host well-known designers speaking on their work. This is a special event where design editors are put to the test. Check out the network in its zooty new venue on the fan walk. Get a sneak preview of a venue which will be the talk of the town and which opens officially in October”

 

The list of speakers include One Small Seed’s editor Giuseppe Russo and Art SA’s Sean O’Toole which is pretty much the reason why I am going at all.

 

I’ll be running around the whole day Tuesday as I also have a meeting with a potential client in Long Street and with the Museum guys as well. Can’t wait to see the prints:-)

Wednesday brings another Cape Town networking opportunity at the The Field Office in Barrack Street. I also plan on finishing at least 2 shoots. I am actually aiming for 3 but 2 seems more realistic. 

Then I’ll go into town to fetch my passport with my brand new extended visa which in itself is a reason to celebrate:-)

 

 

Last of all, it’s the week of the The New Landscape exhibition!!!!!

 

And no, not all my friends are insects:-) The title comes from a Weezer song off their new album, ‘Hurley’. Listening to Half-Handed Cloud now. Their album ‘As Stowaways in Cabinets of Surf, We Live-out in Our Members a Kind of Rebirth’ is available now on Asthmatic Kitty. Having a folky day apparently as I’m also still loving the Sharon van Etten album.

 

On that note, listen to this song by Fairport Convention. Can’t find a proper video on youtube but this will do. It’s beautiful. Guess I’m a bit of a

hippie after all:-)