Posts Tagged ‘Add new tag’

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

I’ve been watching too much Seinfeld. It’s kind of a grim reminder how little life has a plotline. In a good way, though.

So, let’s see … what’s happened in the [fucking long time] since my last post?

  • New president (Zuma, what a shock):
    This photo of someone sleeping while waiting for election results won me Photo of the Week at work. Which is pretty cool.

    This photo of someone sleeping while waiting for election results won me Photo of the Week at work. Which is pretty cool.

    Can’t say that I necessarily support a lot of the horrible politicking of the election season, nor can I say I’m a horribly big fan of how the Zuma trial went, but … well, it’s been over 24-hours and he hasn’t completely obliterated the country. So: so far so good

  • Finally covered a decent protest-gone-bad: Some might call it a riot. I’m not so sure. I mean, yes, it devolved into stun grenades and rubber bullets and rocks being chucked at the police, but only for about 3 - 5 minutes. I really think SASCO and the CPUT students have more in them (and I hope so, ’cause I came back with shit photos) …
    My best photo of the violence ... WHY DID I HAVE TO HAVE A 12-24 ON MY CAMERA?

    My best photo of the violence ... WHY DID I HAVE TO HAVE A 12-24 ON MY CAMERA?

    smr_1341

  • Finally went to Blue Waters: Refugee camp that was actually shut down several months ago, but people won’t leave because they’re afraid of the horrific violence they’ve already experienced. It’s been about a year now since the xenophobic attacks. So, in a nutshell: horribly depressing situation, incredibly photogenic. Ah, horrible, suffocating poverty.

    smr_1453

  • Life outside work: I’ve been readmitted to Cal, though I haven’t gotten my appointment to sign up for classes yet. I’ve also been elected to the Staff Rep position at the Daily Cal (very competitive: I was running against myself). So … I guess I’ll have something resembling that other life I’ve been living once I get back.

Work is treating me well. Ian (boss) keeps asking me about extending my visa. Oh, if only he had asked a month or two ago. As it is, I’m starting to look into freelancing opportunities back in the states (and by “starting to look” I mean “have considered the idea of starting to look”).

Actually, most of this happened in the past week or two. I don’t know if it’s just been quiet(er) otherwise or it I just don’t remember very far back … oh well.

Desmond Tutu and a cross-dressing political satirist: Highlight of my election night.

Desmond Tutu and a cross-dressing political satirist: Highlight of my election night.

“Good coffee should be dark as the devil, hot as hell, and sweet as a kiss.” - Hungarian saying.Though I think there should be something about “bitter” in that …

Hmm … can’t seem to get photo alignment right on here. Should really brush up on internet-technology-isms and such.

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Recap, part 1 of … something: Wine Day

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

From my Twitter account:
Woohoo, wine day! It’s like real work, but involves drinking! 9:43 AM Feb 4th from web

Wine

Wine

From my Twitter account
Wine day did not go as expected. No drinking and lots of fire … and didn’t get off work till after midnight. 11:51 PM Feb 5th from web

Not wine

Not wine

It’s been a week since this happened … suppose that just means I’ve been busy, which is nice. Still.

Yeah, I was manual focusing. Bitch, what?

Yeah, I was manual focusing. Bitch, what?


This was more interesting than the non-blurred version.

This was more interesting than the non-blurred version.

It was a long day. Abnormally long, with little down time. Oh, how I wish every day could be like that:
9.00 - Morning paper. Wait for assignments. Think that half the day will be spent like this.
10.00 - Wine assignment. Shoot Groot Constantia for a multi-photo story (in the end it was only two photos … cunts).
13.30 - Come back, start filing. Get sent out to take photos of a market just across the street. So I shoot from a window in the office.
15.30 - Start filing. Figure it’s time to grab food, seeing as I haven’t eaten today. Grab food at the canteen.
16.30 -First bite into dinner, Ian runs in saying that there’s a fire in Stellenbosch. Do I know how to use the laptop to file remotely? Yes. Okay. Go with the even-newer-guy. Don’t eat any more. Fuck.
21.00 - Back to the office, smelling of braai. People in Stellenbosch are insane. They didn’t stop playing cricket, despite the air being replaced by thick orange smoke. Everyone we saw was jogging. Not to leave, but for exercise.
21.30 - What’s that? The roof of the gym of the university in Stellenbosch is on fire? So it’s threatening buildings? Yeah, I just finished filing. I’ll go with Jeffrey to cover it more.
1.30Well, that was a load of crap. Why would the roof of a modern building be on fire? Should’ve thought of that … Still, it was pretty. Bed … I don’t care if I still smell of smoke.

Hmm … odd how that turned into an internal monologue.

Here’s the photo that ran in the Argus the next day (Times ran a shitty one from a freelancer, despite the fact that mine were filed in time. Punks):

smr_0009

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don’t need no water let the motherfucker burn. I had it stuck in my head the whole fucking time.

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Be Our Guest, and Less Recognizable Quotes

Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Beauty and the Beast is playing at a local theatre for the next few months.

Beauty and the Beast is playing at a local theatre for the next few months.

The week’s been a touch busy, at least at times. Other times I’ve found myself wondering how I’d possibly pass the time. For instance, today. As I said earlier, I spent a good part of today sitting around waiting for an assignment. After being in the office from 8-12 and checking my email about a fourteen thousand times, Andrew finally gave me something.

sr0_0039 sr0_0055

So I shot a press call for the Cape Town performance of Beauty and the Beast. I didn’t realize it until I got back, but Andrew basically handed me a front page. A blind, retarded monkey could’ve made a pretty photo out of it, and with the show opening this weekend … well, yeah, knock on wood. The photo that I was told might make the front is the first image.
Note:For the paper I cropped closer to the bottom of the stage, but here I left the conductor in. Thought it made it interesting. Just wish I had a working copy of Photoshop so I could dodge his outline a little bit.

Otherwise, the week’s been good. I’ve been getting out on assignments, though few of them are actually worth mentioning in depth. Rastas and Police Day and horses and comedians and politicians and trying to shoot the sun and a giant freakin’ jersey. That about sums up my week.

… Wow, that actually makes it sound rather interesting.

Whitey likes hats

Whitey likes hats

Oh, and then there’s Hat Lady. I don’t remember her name and don’t want to bother checking my notes. Needless to say, it’s a woman who’s rather well-known in the hat making business because she makes really nice, fancy hats. We’re covering her because she’s made a lot of hats for a big Cape Town event, the J+B Met. I came back with a few nice shots (and a free hat … ) but my favorite was of the photog who I went with, Whitey (Mxolisi, but everyone calls him Whitey. I don’t know the back-story).

It goes well overall, I suppose. And that’s about it for the moment. Maybe I’ll talk about my life outside of work at some point. Just have to figure out if I actually have one …

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SIX and Thoughts

Monday, January 26th, 2009

SIX is Southern Ink Xposure. It is also awesome. I’ve recently had quite a bit of interest in tattoos, in tattoo culture and body art. So I was probably going to go, anyway. So this was, to say the least, convenient.

Shaun Nel working on Ross Warwick.

Shaun Nel working on Ross Warwick.

What’s occurred to me as a result, however, is the way in which online photo galleries have affected the job of a photojournalist. While, admittedly, it shouldn’t be that different, I have found myself making a practical distinction in what I take photos of: when working for something with online galleries, every assignment is a photo essay (albeit a short one). Even a speaker shot can have multiple angles and more emphasis on supplemental details. But if it’s just for paper, even though I know I should still look for those little details, I find myself concentrating on the one photo that tells the whole story. I think that ramble made sense …

sr0_0018 sr0_0036sr0_0068

Whereas back home I would have spent hours upon hours at the event, taking detail photos of the equipment, of the DJs, of the T-shirts and people sitting in a line against a wall (okay, I still took that last one, but it didn’t come out), here I did the same shot over and over: tattoo artist giving tattoo. And while I got that same shot in a number of different ways, it’s still the same shot.

It’s not that I’m unhappy with my shots … I just feel that it makes me, well … lazy? I know that I should keep getting those other shots, but it’s not something that’ll get used because the online content here is - how to put this - scarce. It’s good practice, I suppose, but I hope I don’t get too rusty with supplemental images.

"What more do you want than two women on your thighs?"

I don’t know. It’s just something that was crossing my mind.

In personal life news (yeah, shocking, I have a life outside work): there is now a third person in the flat I’m in. His name is Pieter and he’s Belgian. I’m trying not to make crappy jokes about waffles or Flemish (which is, let’s face it, a horribly unfortunate name for a language). He and Martin both managed to humble me in poker this evening.

“Learning is about more than simply acquiring new knowledge and insights; it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlived its relevance. Thus, forgetting is probably at least as important as learning.” - Gary Ryan Blair

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24 Hours After a New President

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

There was a moment yesterday, while Obama was speaking during the inauguration, where I felt an odd warmth in my chest and a tug on my throat. I’m not really familiar with what “national pride” feels like. Kinda like an upset stomach, actually.

Maybe 200 or 300 people crowded in to watch the inauguraiton.

Maybe 200 or 300 people crowded in to watch the inauguraiton.

And the crowd goes wild.

And the crowd goes wild.

Side note: I think more South Africans know the American National Anthem than Americans.

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