The Sky Really Has No Limit

Applying the Rule of Thirds. Seasoned lensmen will say never have the horizon centered in the frame. Always have a subject like a car of center with space "to move into". The portrait must be off center for the eyes to have space "to look into". Many do not apply the rules. Many bend them. Some push them to the limits. I simply shoot as I see it most times. 

I sat for about fifteen minutes looking at this spectacle through the viewfinder. I pointed the camera towards the ground placing to the horizon in the top third. Click click. 

From the same spot I pointed the lens skyward and pressed the shutter button. My initial reaction was "Mmm, it's ok". Maybe not to shabby. I got home and downloaded the pictures and than realized what I had accomplished in about thirty minutes on the beach. For me the picture was perfect. It needed no post editing and was just as I wanted it. 

What really "spoke" to me was the natural "blue vignette" in the sky above our beloved mountain. It seemed as if there was no end to this amazing blue sky. 

The saying goes "The Sky's the Limit" when one one achieves some sort milestone or success. Yet the "sky" is limitless and unending. 


Over the past few weeks I have been beating myself over the head trying to find reasons why things are just not working. The lights went on after "speaking" to some really talented and gifted, good people. This brought about a change in perspective. My dad always used to say, if you look at the ground when you walk you may just walk into a tree. Look up. See the sky above. Get direction. Change the way you do things. Get a different perspective. There is a brilliant blue sky above you filled with endless potential. 


  

What Does One Do To Get Noticed.

I once had a girlfriend. I was in high school and my sense of humour was in its development stages.  Anyway, she comes to school one day and I notice she had extracted all he front teeth. Problem was they were a beautiful set of teeth that did not need extracting. Well, at least I thought so. My comment at the time was the end to our little relationship. It went something like “damn, what some people do to attract attention”.

So here I am. Yes. Thats me. Yes, I know the picture's back to front.

 I’m all over the place. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, the works. My laptop even has a locater thingy that pops up ever so now and again. I’ve become half paranoid with the idea that aliens might be spying on me as I have my toast and coffee. I am NETWORKED. Well at least I think I am. I have “friends” or connections in all sorts of industries from media to social networking to motivational speakers the world over. Yet I feel like that skeleton sitting on the bench waiting for the world to change. Being on those networks and being connected has not meant anything to me at all. I am wracking my brain trying to find out what more I need to do attract attention. The “racist rant” thing seems to work quite well. That is simply not my style. Besides, it will be like doing the loaded gun Russian roulette exercise.  A nude selfie in the mirror on Facebook or Instagram will simply NOT have the desired effect. Seriously. Sending your Curriculum Vitae via email is like dropping a rock down one a deserted mine shaft and waiting for the splash. Phone calls are just never returned and the “we’ll call you” brigade rules. All the promises made makes Jacob Zuma look like a habitual deliverer. Therefore, what is it. What does one have to do to get the desired responses like a personalised mail or a call to say thanks but no thanks.

According to LinkedIn my profile is pretty damn good. It’s “all star”.  The blue circle indicates there is not much more I need to do to get right up there as far as I need to be to “attract attention”. I know there has been talk of content becoming too “facebookish”. I agree. After all, it’s a platform for professional discourse and interaction. Reality is I have had no interaction or constructive discourse, professional or otherwise. Maybe it’s just me. Wrong place. Wrong time. My age, looks, not professional enough. Who knows.

Personally, I think we, this human race, has become to socially networked. We’ve forgotten how to be human. Our lives have become meaningless without our smart phones and tech stuff. Yes, we need to keep up. We need to stay with the pace of change. Yet we also need to remain human. Human interaction has become a luxury. We don’t even want to shake hands any more.   

Now. Here is the challenge. If you have made your million by been profiled here or anywhere else, tell me. If, you are like that skeleton and me, still waiting, tell me. Maybe we can work this thing out together. Either way. I would love to network. Socially that is. I know we may never meet face to face.  

Show Compassion

I watched a YouTube video earlier today honouring the forty-nine victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre. One cannot but be moved as each one’s story is told in about thirty seconds. Earlier this week social media came alive with the news of the attack at the Attaturk Airport in Istanbul. Thirty-six more victims at the hands of someone who had a difference in belief and opinion. Somehow, somewhere someone was able to convince these young men to take up arms, strap high explosives to their bodies and enter a public space and wreak as much havoc as possible. They would pay the highest price a human can pay simply because they needed to make point. What that point is we may never know. Analyst will speculate for days and weeks. We will never know. They died making their point.  Along with that, they caused untold pain and misery to the families of the thirty six victims and to the two hundred odd people left injured. The kid that walked into the Pulse nightclub knew what he was doing. Someone somewhere had managed to get into his head and convince him being gay is wrong. He was married. He had a family. Yet to him, the only way he could get his point across was to buy a gun and walk into a crowded place and “make his point”. We will never really know what motivated him. Analyst will speculate for days. The digging up of the dirt will go on for as long as is necessary. Yet the pain and the agony he wreaked will live on forever. Forty-nine families will live with the pain of having lost loved ones.

Dirt collection day in our “neck of the woods” happens on Tuesdays. I often lay in bed at about five in the morning listening to the sound of the trollies been pushed down the road. At times, they irritate the living daylights out of me. The other morning I watched an oldish looking lady through my cosy little office window. I am not sure why, yet I went outside and my first in inclination was to shout at her and vent my irritation. Instead, I went out and said “more antie”. She looked at me with utter disbelief. Maybe she was expecting me to breath the wrath of frustration down on her.  The little boy with her screamed with wild excitement when he saw my tree climbing cat high in the tree above him. “Mamma kyk, die kat is innie boem”. Our exchange was brief. Why was she doing this. What was she looking for. What do they get for what they find. She found a single cold drink tin. She gets forty cents a kilo for a can. We all know what that can weighs. Yet she has to dig through what we discard in order to feed the five year old. She sleeps under the bridge of the very busy N7 highway that passes nearby.

Art Matthews penned the words Peace, Love More Tolerance. While he had his moment with our national anthem, I will always remember him for that song and the video they made with it. Our beloved Madiba even makes a little cameo appearance.  My point is this. It is so much easier to break something than to put it back together. The glass that is dropped on the floor, shatters into a million slivers.  It can’t be glued back together. Instead, the shards are swept up and binned. Relationships torn apart through infidelity, mistrust or some or other act of betrayal are often not restorable. The fact is, there are some things that simply cannot be fixed. That’s just life. We can, however, show compassion, a little understanding. We can even take a split second to look beyond the obvious. The song once said every face tells a story. Consider the bin picker that irritates us. The one who comes begging at the gate. The guy driving in that flashy sports car living in the house on the hill.  We all carry a story within us. A little compassion, a little understanding, a silent thought before that racist word is uttered or typed, will go a long way to change our world. I know all this may sound horribly simplistic. Yet that’s precisely it. It’s much simpler than we will ever know.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq6xRZlCSoM

"You Can Tell From The Lines On Her Face.........."

I need to credit Phil Collins for writing that line. It is in fact from the song "Another Day In Paradise". The following line completes the thought. It says "You can see that she's being there".

I had infiltrated the media covering the last #ZumaMustFall march. It was Freedom Day. I am not REALLY media. Brandishing a camera does have it's advantages and allows one to get into places you would not normally have access to. Mine was a three fold mission. One was to be part of the voice shouting it's displeasure at the headless chicken. Two was to capture the moments and be a part of the media throng, and three was simply to feel the thrill and the andrenalin of been there. Ok, I was also there just to feel what it's like to be a press tog. 

I digress. A friend and I were chatting yesterday. The discussion evolved to the point where we were talking about the sacrifices our mothers and fathers had made to get us where we were. How they had fought a fight against the odds to attain our freedom as we know it. Then I remembered this picture. Truth be told, it was one of those "point and shoot" moments. I was stuck behind a guy holding a TV Camera on his shoulder. I barely had enough time to frame and shoot. All I did was capture about five or six frames. 

I have this thing in me about capturing faces. I think there was once a song about every face telling a story. This one told me a story. Standing and leading the march, holding up a banner screaming "Right To Know", she was there to express her feeling toward the headless chicken. I do not know her name. She is probably famous. Please forgive my ignorense. But her face told me how she had fought the battle to get us where we are. How she had along with many others faced the baracades manned by men with guns and shields hell bent on protecting a headless chicken against a "foe" carrying placards and singing Jesus songs. The face told me of a determination to protect the legacy of those who died in the streets in the fight for freedom. It told me of a determination to protect her children and her childrens children against the cancer of corruption that had infiltrated the chicken coup. 

We owe it to ones like these who still today find the strength to voice their displeasure and rise up show the world what they stand for. We cannot remain silent. At the end of the march the strains of "We Shall Overcome" rang out at the gates of parlaiment. It reminded me of the night when young people gathered in a church in Kuils River in 76 to voice there support for struggle. It's time to change the course of history.............again.      

Slow and Steady Will Get You There.

Seven am, Sunday morning. It's a rush to get done. Now why on earth would one be rushing at seven on a Sunday morning you may ask. Well it's pretty simple really. We go to church. As result of a bit of a "morning after the night before" things are are just a little off center. Anyway, I'm kinda half dressed with a few finishing touches still to be affected when I wonder outside into the beautiful Sunday sunshine with my coffee fix in hand. And there is "Slug" making his way across the garden path. 

My first thought. "My camera. I need to get my camera. I need to move fast or I will miss this moment". I almost drop my loaded coffee cup. I rush inside, zip out the camera, check the settings and "rush" outside like a man gone crazy. But....."Slug" has only moved an inch. He is really in no hurry to go anywhere. He is just lazilly moving at his own SLOOOOOWWW pace across the paving without a care in the world. And here I am, firing off seven frames per second thinking I am going to miss a moment. 

I must be honest. I felt a bit daft after all that "rushing". I came inside, drank my coffee, put my tie on, did all the finishing touches, went back outside camera in hand and "Slug" was just a little further than he was when I left him five minutes before. Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, I found "Slug" had made his way up the step. Again he paused long enough for me to "capture the moment" as reached his everest. 

Obviously, this got me thinking. We have this thing about chasing after stuff. Sometimes it's the most meaningless stuff that occupy our time and energy to such an extent, we lose complete focus of where we need to be. Like me, rushing to get things done because I need to get somewhere. And then along comes "Slug".

I have never really stopped to look at the beauty of the pattern on a snail shell. I have often picked them up and tossed them out of the garden. They are afterall a pain in the "you know what". Yet I have never really looked at the beauty of a snail, untill seven on that Sunday morning. We need to, at times, just........stop........look around and see whats around us. Sometimes there is really no reason to rush. Slow and steady will also get us there, whereever there is.    

Freelancing - My Perspective

I've always wanted to a journalist. My big brother was one. He worked for a small regional paper back in the day when shooting film was king and developing negatives in the dark was an art. I remember the day he took me to a cricket match on a dusty pitch in Somerset West. I had just entered high school and impressional as a blank page. Throughout high school this dream burnt, inexstinguishable, within. I wanted to be like him. Easter weekend in 78 everything changed. Michael was taken. It was devastating. Still, I went through the processes. Rhodes was where I was going. I was going to be a journo and write stories and take pictures like my brother. Life, had other ideas. I ended up at a teachers college, than a photographic studio with a man who taught me to take pictures and work a dark room like my brother did. 

Fast forward about thirty odd years. The two things my brother did, I still do. I play guitar and take pictures. I'm just not a journo. I'm to old for that stuff. 

Life just never stops changing the goal posts. After years of working for a boss, that horrible, big "R" word reared its head. Like the Big C, it hits you when you least expect it. Oh, sorry. I thought you knew what it was. RETRENCHMENT. Just like cancer, it happens to the best of us. That happened. But I am different see. This is not a trainsmash I thought. I have a camera. I will work from home. Run a business. I will FREELANCE. Thats it. Problem solved. MMMMmmmm.

It's been all of fourteen months. It's been a rude awakening. It's been life changing. It's been hard in the trenches. From here on I am expressing my experience of being a freelancer.

Freelancing is often born out of neccessity. It is born out of the fact that there is a need and the need can be fulfilled by using that "unique set of skills", be it photography, writing, design, music etc. The problem is attaching a value to that set of skills. Now if your name is Liam Neeson and you have that "unique set of skills" you would have no problem selling your skills or top dollars. However, if your name is Tom, Dick or Sally trying to sell your skills to a corporate world is a whole different tin of sardines. There is often a complete disrespect for you as a freelancer and for what you are offering. Therefor there is often little or no value placed on your "unique set of skills". You soon find out your skills are not so unique. Add to that, you are probably one of a hundred on the same corner of the block with that "unique" set of skills. It thus ends up coming down to what makes you different, an individual. 

The lesson in all this??. Be resilient. Don't give up. Find your niche. Develop that special little something in the way you do things. Try a different angle. Never stop  learning. Attach a VALUE to your skills. They're your's. In short, develop that "Unique Set Of Skills". Become Liam Neeson!

**The picture was shot during the #ZumaMustFall march on December 16, 2015. The march had "dispersed". The journo's and cameramen had all left. This group of about 200 ahd walked back to the gates of Parlaiment. These two guys decided to climb the statue and drape the banner. I was one two or three people with cameras in the group.                

"So This Is Christmas......"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5hk7jDvvs

John Lennon composed this little song as a protest against the Vietnam war at the time. The full title includes the words "War is over". There are a number of different "versions" of the song on youtube. There is one depicting the most ghastly photographs of war and suffering taken by some of the most hardened war time photographers of the time. I decided to stick my head in the sand and post a much softer version with pictures of beautiful gardens and stuff. So much for the explanation.

It's wishful thinking to believe pain and suffering will stop. Even just for one day. It's even harder to imagine the warring factions will put down the guns and silence the rhetoric just for one day and "Give Peace A Chance". Believing that death and destruction will take a deserved break just for one day is the belief of a fool. So what is there to believe in. 

Expectation, Hope, Joy, Purity are what the four candles of Advent mean. We can live with the expectation that tomorrow will be better. We can live with the hope of a brighter future if we all put our hands to the plow and work together to make this world a better place for each other. We can share in other's victories and celebrate the joy that comes with overcoming obstacles. We can strive toward the purity of heart and mind, to live life never to have to look over your shoulder. 

Am I delusional. Maybe I am. Yet someone once said there is good in everyone. Sometimes we just have to scratch a little deeper to find the shiny bits. 

Look back, Look Inward and Look forward. May this Christmas be a GOOD ONE.     

Lessons from Trees - Hope for the Future

The one skill I do not have is gardening. My green fingers just never grew. Maybe that's why God gave me the ability to see things just a little different. 

Anyway, about three weeks ago we hired a gardening service to come and cleam up around the house. One of the trees in the front yard is a Syringa. Those that know the tree will also know it tends to be a little messy. However it is also a hardy and resilient species. Trying to control it's growth can be a full time job. These guys rocked up and hacked away and broke off branches fron the tree with almost reckless abandon, leaving one or two jagged ends. Two days ago I went out to get our tree climbing cat out of the tree and spotted the new shoot growing out from where the branches were broken of. My first thought was to photograph this little marvel of nature. Well, I think it's "bloody marvelous"

This got me thinking.

Twenty fifteen can hardly be described as a vintage year for me personally. And I guess I can say with a fair degree of confidence that there are many who too, have not being dealt a fair hand the past year. Now we find ourselves on the verge of Christmas and the end of the year. Twenty Sixteen beckons. We can look back at the year gone by and reflect on the mistake we've made and revel in the victories. We can use the gift of hindsight and say with confidence "never again will I do it that way". The future is unknown and it's quite frankly better that way. 

However, I want to have the resilience of the Syringa. Even though I may be broken and slightly bent out of shape, I want to continue growing and have the ability to grow new life. There will always be adversity. People will come along and "break" me crudely and harshly put me down. But I want to have the ability to sprout new "branches" everytime.

And to all my friends here, there and everywhere. See you all in 2016. Never give up. Never stop growing "new branches".    

Perspectives

One of my all time favorate songs is a song by Phil Collins called "Both Sides Of The Story". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PclPI54NvNM

Watch the clip and you will understand where I am coming or going with this. 

Friday afternoon we had our usual dose off loadshedding. I decided to escape the pending darkness and head to a little place not far from home. It's a place where one could at one stage quite peace and solitude amidst the bussle of urban life. It's a place where, on a good day, one is able to photograph the most beautiful birds and the occasional wild life. One can sit in a hide and wait for hours for a Malachite Kingfisher to appear out of nowhere. The silence will surround you and solitude will become your companion. 

Friday was different. There was the noise of construction everywhere. The sound of hammers and drills and mechanical tools drowned out any hope of quite solitude. AND above everything, there were no birds. I had clearly chosen a wrong time and wrong place to "escape the darkness". There was going to be no getting away from the noise. 

I left the hide and decided to walk the paths in search of something to photograph. Two little Cape White Eyes made a fleeting appearence. They were simply too fast to capture. It was getting cold and miserable. The only "subject" left to photograph were the thorn bushes. 

Looking through the lens I struggled to see beauty in the thorns. They appeared harsh and threatening. For a moment I pictured the crown of thorns. I imagined the damage they could do. Then I saw a nest under construction. I saw the little green leaves on the branches surrounding the thorns. I changed the settings on the camera and managed to "paint" a mottled, blurred background. All of a sudden there was beauty there.

Just now and then we need to change our perspective and look at people, things, circumstances and our own lives just a little differently. 

There is always another PERSPECTIVE. We may just need to make little adjustments.  

Rising From The Ashes

Cape Town experienced one of the most devastating veld fires a few weeks ago. It raged for days over a vast area of the Southern Peninsula. A family drive-out yesterday took us along the route where the fire had roared for days. 

The "moonscape" is visible from a long way off. What is of signifigance is how close the the fire had come to dwellings and how lives were affected. Vast swathes of mountainside has become sandy wasteland. The normally beautiful green landscape has become a blackened scene of unbelievable devastation. 

As we drive along the winding mountain pass the we see more and more signs of life rising up amidst the ruin. Green leaves seem to be popping up in the most unlikeliest of places. Mother nature has taken control and and started restoring herself to the former beauty. We are told it may take years. Yet one thing is sure. The beauty WILL be restored. 

Our lives are often devastated by raging fires. We are challenged by circumstances that destroy our dreams and desires and proverbially force us to change direction. All  we see from one end of the horizon to the other is utter devastation. Smoke clouds our vision and our eyes drown in tears as we try and make sense of the ashes and embers that surround us. 

As Mother nature is able to rise again, we too can rise from the ashes. When the smoke has cleared and the tears are gone, we are able to see the green leaves rising from the scorched earth of our lives. Yes it may take years. It may even need a complete turn around strategy. In nature these fires need to burn. So too it is in life. The fires need to burn for new life to rise from the ashes. 

Let the fires burn. We have a God given power in us to Rise From The Ashes.        

From One Christmas to Another.

The period of advent always seems to catch me unawares. In fact it's become really bad over the last few years. I am not sure whether it's got something to do with age or whether it's just the over emphases on material splendour the world seems to place on the time of advent. I make no bones about the fact that I detest the commercialization of Christmas. But that is just me. 

There is however another little factor that comes into play. 

The question is often posed. What comes first, Chirstmas or New Year. I have often tried to catch my nieces and nephews with this little trick. Most times I lose. 

Yet those few days after Christmas is often the most difficult for me. It's like being stuck in the doldrums with no wind and very little direction. It's the time when the god Janus comes out and forces me to look back and look forward at the same time. And honestly speaking the last couple of times I did that, both the past and the future looked equilly bleak. But I am an eternal optimist. I often need to force myself to reflect deeply. Where I was, where I am and where I need/want to be. 

Twenty fourteen has not been a good year. The harvest has not produced the finest vintage and it will certainly not go down in history as been one of the finest crops. In a matter of days it will end with me not working for a boss. That "security" of getting paid at the end of the month will be gone.The only option is now me to create my own security. I now have to do it for myself and I must honest, I am as scared as hell. I have never been here before. 

I do not make resolutions. I find it's like making a promise to yourself and breaking it a day, a week or a month down the line. However the one thing I do know is that my life is not in my hands. There is a greater Being that holds control over the path ahead for me. 

So 2015 will be a new beginning for me. Yet the greatest gift I have is this fact. I am healthy. I have resources, albeit somewhat limited. I am able to use my hands. I breathe. I have family that cares. I have friends that inspire and uplift me. I am not alone. And then, most of all, I have GOD on my side. All said and done, I am pretty much ok.

There are those that have very little, least of all hope. Let us think of them this Christmas     

"So This Is Christmas"......

 

I must be honest I am not a great fan of the commercial hype that comes to the fore this time of the year. In fact, I find it somewhat of an irritation when my ears get tortured by the endless sounds of Boney M and Mariah Carey doing their level best to earn royalties form the carols they sing. But that is just me. And Christmas is not about me. 

John Lennon penned the words to the song "So This is Christmas/War is over" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5hk7jDvvs. . 

The words are somewhat repetitive. Yet they ring very true. In the light of the news headlines we heard over the last few days. A husband and father is held captive in an Eastern country. If one is to believe all the reports then he was on the verge of being set free. However, as fate would have it, he is caught in crossfire of apparent raid and killed the night before his release. He leaves behind a wife and children whose lives are shattered and broken and who will have to battle with the reality of preparing to lay him to rest ......just before Christmas.  

For many that will be Christmas. We all live in hope that we will see the breaking of the dawn every day. I am sure we all go to bed at night with a huge measure of confidence that we will awake as normal from a nights rest. 

Maybe the point I am trying to make is that we should treasure every moment. Capture those little moments of life that we seem to miss as we go about our business. 

As for Christmas. May we all just be that little light that will brighten up the day for someone else. That stranger in the car next to you may just need a smile. That colleague at work that never fails to wind up your last nerve may just need a hug and a word of re-assurance. And then, let us not forget the REAL meaning of Christmas. Let's put the CHRIST back in Christmas. 

"Let it be good one"

One of Life's Most Precious Gifts.....

We sit with candles burning all around. I am on a laptop with battery power and using a mobile WIFI devise to connect to the internet. I guess on the bigger scale of things I am a lot better off then a lot of other people. We have just had supper. Fortunately the food was prepared by yours truly earlier this afternoon. Depending on your perspective ,the only little or major  inconvenience is the fact that our power utility has failed to plan correctly and as result has turned our cities into black holes.So when one looks at the bigger picture, it certainly seems like I am better of then most.

Lets take this just a little further.

Yesterday afternoon, just as we are about to enjoy Sunday roast, a cell phone rings. The wife answers and hands the phone to me. On the other end is a desparate, almost distraught voice. He is a friend. The news he shares is not good news. He's young wife is breathing her last living breaths. Cancer has brought her to the edge and time is running out very rapidly. His plea is a simple one. Will we please just come through and spend a few moments with her and him. 

However things are never all that simple. Our location in relation to where they are is about a forty five minute drive. We overlook that small detail and decide to hit the road. 

What we find rocks the wife and I to the core. She is not human anymore. Her face is distorted and the once beautiful head of hair is no longer. Yet through all that she hears my voice and sort of responds. What is very evident is time. TIME is not on her side. Sadly her clock is ticking. It is only a matter of TIME. 

In Celebration Off..........

I was driving with a colleague to the city this morning. The one thing we have in common is that we celebrate our birthdays days apart. She is a deeply spiritual person whom I greatly admire for her strength and courage oft times in the face of great adversity. Our discussion leant toward the things in our lives we can be thankful for. My thoughts then moved toward considering the lives of two very specific women. 

I have never met either Whilma Liedeman ( @WhilmaL) or Gaynor Young (@earearblog). Ms Liedeman's background is unknown to me. Ms Gaynor Young's life story is well documented in her biography "My Plunge to Fame". The common thread here is that they both had their lives irreversably changed by events and moments that I believe they could never have foreseeing. Ms Young was at the pinnacle of her opera career when an accident changed her life in ways unimaginable. These two women are confined to living their lives in wheelchairs and with extreme challenges that would make people like me want to give up. Yet they both, unbeknown to them, have become to me and many others, incredible beacons of hope and life. 

The picture is of a gentleman unknown to me. He is blind and is playing a Baritone mouthorgan. The important fact is, he is blind. 

Considering all this, perhabs the one lesson is that God often uses us when we are at our most vunerable. When we are at our weakest He uses us to inspire others to greater heights of understanding and faith. All around us are men and women who face incredible challenges in life. Men and women who in spite of the obstacles rise up to show the world that with God given strength and human determination, anything is possible. In the words of Winston Churchill, giving up is not an option.   

I am a completely able bodied, healthy guy. I have no reason to complain in any way and can be thankful that I have been blessed with what I have. I have talents that I believe many would love to have. Yet there is the tendency to take things for granted. The fact that I can walk and live an active life is blessing in itself. The fact that I can see and breathe normally is a blessing in itself. I have no reason to complain. As Gaynor Young puts it very simply, "I am alive". 

September 3 is the day I celebrate my birthday. I may not have much to celebrate. Yet the fact that I breathe is but through the grace of God and that to me is enough reason to celebrate. Thank you to those who have inspired me in the past year. There are many amazing women and men that I will probably never get to meet in person. Yet know this, you have made your mark. 

Thank You.

PS. When you have a moment, please read www.earearblog.com. 

Digging Deep to get to the Sweet Stuff

There is this evergreen bush in my garden. I do not know what it's called but at the onset of Spring it undergoes this incredible makeover. It covers itself in a miriad of little pink flowers. These little pink flowers in turn attract and become the playgound for bees by the hundred. Needless to say, my fascination is peaked by these little creatures and the photo oppertunities presented. The challenge is getting these little guys to sit still for a second. I can almost hear them say to me, "sorry mate, we're to beezy for a photoshoot right now". 

Anyway, so I contort myself and fire off frame after frame hoping to get at least one that will be sharp and usable in some way.

But this "hive of activity" got me thinking. Every now and then one or two of these hyperactive little chaps would dive headlong into the depths of these little flowers. So I wondered. 

Nature has determined and the bees instictively know there is something in the flower they want. However, what guarentee do they have that they will find what they are looking for. Yet every single time, they dive with almost reckless abandon, searching for that "sweet stuff". 

Then this human aspect came to mind. Each and every person I believe is born with some "sweet stuff". Some may have more then others. For some the "sweet stuff" simply oozes out of them. Their outlook and positivity of life is a constant display of the abundance of "sweet stuff" in their souls. 

And then there are those that have had their fair share of lemons in life and the "sweet stuff" has been pushed so far down that their outlook is completely drowned by lemon juice. They battle to find the "sweet stuff" in their own lives. And then someone comes along, not knowing the circumstances, has a taste of the lemon juice and decides "not for me" and they get flushed down the drain without being given a chance to show of their sweetness. 

Even within our own lives we at times have nothing but lemons and we battle to find the "sweet stuff" within all the sours that crop up in our day to day lives. We at times have to dig really deep to get to the sweet stuff deep even within our own being. 

But these little creatures know, just as winter comes and the flowers will go away, spring will come and the blossoms will bloom. Seasons change. Lemon juice changes to syrup and the "sweet stuff" will once again appear. You know it's that "every cloud has a silver lining" bit. There are however those occasions when we need to dig really deep to get to the "sweet stuff". We at times need to to dive headfirst into the challenges to find that sliver of hope.  

We all have the sweet stuff within us. For some it's a lot closer to the surface. Just sometimes, we need to dig really deep to find it. Nothing ever stays the same. Even the bees know that. Thats why they come back every year to this bush looking for the "sweet stuff".

The REWARD, is SWEET beyond description.     

Be Thankful .......For The Simple Things

We live in very harsh unforgiving world. Much of the time we are caught up in the rush of life, so much so that we forget to stop and "smell the coffee". We chase after the those things that we believe will bring us happiness and fulfillment. We forget to be thankful for the little things in life. 

The last week brought into focus for many of us, the plight of those who are less fortunate. Newspapers in this beautiful city of ours showed us the horrible underbelly as people were forcibly removed from their homes. I am not in any way qualified to offer opinion as to the rights and wrongs of the actions of either side. Yet the pictures we saw portrayed images of inhumanity and cruelty by those who held power in their hands. Yet while all this was going on, not very far from us, I was able to snuggle into my warm bed and sleep peacefully, the only disturbance been the sound of the rain against my bedroom window. I was able to shut out the harsh reality of the pain and the suffering that children were going through simply because they did not have a place to call home.

So I am thankful for the fact that I woke up the next morning. I was alive. I had not been harmed in any way. I was able to have a hot shower, get dressed, have coffee and go to work. I had everything I needed to go about my life without any fear or discomfort. 

Now and then, amidst the activity of a busy day, we would find the time to talk about the plight of others. But that was all it was, just a casual chat. It did not serve to change anything,maybe just to ease our conscience.

In essence what we have, we have by the grace of God. The words of a song by Joan Baez come to mind. "There but for fortune, go you and I". I would re-phrase and say, there but for the Grace of God, go I.

So I am thankful for what a I have. 

The simple things of life.

Please Be Gentle.

Hi there. My name is Peter and no, I am not an alchoholic. I take photographs of people and things around the Mother City and occasionally photograph events like the Twitter Blanker Drive or #TBD2014 as it is known. 

This whole exercise is all new to me. So before you come crashing down with critizism, some words of advise will be greatly appreciated. Hopefully I will be more inspired in the future and indeed share things that will really rock the world. 

In closing, I coin a phrase from the writings of Robert Zimmerman AKA Bob Dylan, "Don't critizise what you can't understand".

Good Night.