"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.