The Passage

And time itself, too, will one day make a mockery of us; our attempts at grandeur, pompousness, bullying, selfishness and narcissistic tendencies.

Yes, time itself imposes on us the greatest imaginable horror, that of an unstoppable forward motion in which the body decays bit by bit and the soul fights bravely on for eternal renewal, captive within a beautifully flawed prison of delicate flesh and bone.  And I dream of the day when I will once again be able to shed a tear, because I have become immunized against the dreadfulness of our dismal actions toward one another.  I am no romantic.  I am no idealist.  I am not religious, nor spiritual.  Yet I am confounded each day how we, as a species, made it this far.  I am confounded when I look at the purity of heart of my son of thirteen months and know that I have no real alternatives to the massive pain of current relationships in the world.  I am ashamed that neither I nor my generation has managed to overcome our infantile behaviour tward each other, despite our once held wisdom of how things could and should be being just beneath the surface of our daily consciousness.  Instead, we place ownership on feelings and fight each other to the death or worse over these ridiculous emotions we scarcely understand.

But I know this - time will make a mockery of all these lunacies.  Time: the great equalizer whose consequence we can all fear equally.

How is any of this relevant?  You may well ask.  I have had a lasting fascination and adoration for decaying buildings, long-since abandoned and crumbling under the weight of both the elements and time.  They are full of hope and dispair simultaneously.  They are symbolic of our ridiculously highfalutin images of ourselves.  They are reminders of how imortant humility is; the underlying strength of patience; the frailty of our dreams; and , most vitally for me, the sheer beauty that arises from blemishes.  Each tick and tock of the second hand is an opportunity to witness the remarkable.

And the apple dangling before my ego's cart is thus - to capture the spirit and physicality of those decaying buildings in human form.  For what else produces the slant of those shoulders, the depth of these lines, the magnificence of our bodily expression when it finds honesty... if it is not time?

The Image Above:

As I walked out of my work premisis one day, I saw this locust impaled on a cactus leaf.  I have never seen anything like it before, nor since that day.  My best guess is that he was blown into the plant by the wind, as it was the time of year when strong, hot desert winds blow here.

1st Student

On Friday I started my first teaching session with Carol.  She called me up earlier in the week and asked if I would mind teaching her how to use her camera.  I was very keen to get started, knowing the value of teaching lies in both learning new things from students as well as reaffirming what you do and do not know about your subjects.

Carol is from Canada, and shows a very keen interest in improving her photography.  She is interested in landscape shooting, which is not a strong point of mine at all, but I can at least teach her how to use her equipment correctly to get the shots she sees in her head.  Our first lesson was three hours long and included an interview and getting her to exclusively use the Aperture Priority setting on her camera for the next week.  I also introduced her to the rule of thirds in composition.

This is both an interesting and exciting challenge for me, and it feels great to share with another photographer.

Photoshoot - Day 3 Summary

Another morning out in the desert. The weather was suffering multiple personality disorder; Heavy fog for half an hour, then clouds covering the whole sky from the horizon up. The said clouds had little patches of blue in them and differed in thickness, which meant that the light exposures were bouncing up and down by the second.
To add to the trickiness factor - I was shooting in a northerly direction (sidelight on the models - heavy shadow when the sun popped out sporadically) so as to get a mountain as the backdrop. Models wore white tops, have black skin - an exposure nightmare considering all the aforementioned factors, and include that my brief was for a natural light shoot only. So, without the option of fill-flash... tough going!

The evening shoot was meant to be the crowning jewel of the three days. Fog as thick and dark as storm clouds as we arrived. I cursed. Dark, flat light meant slow shooting or pushing up the iso. Both could potentially mean high noise factors in the dark areas (the models skin). I opted out of the high iso and shot what I could at the fastest possible shutter speeds I could get without compromising my depth of field to much. Once again, a fill-flash would have made things easier, but was not to be. A strong, icy wind whipped over the dunes and Judith and Ester were amazing - although they were getting very cold, they did not complain once and were extremely patient with the designers and I when we pushed for 'just one more' in each outfit/setup. As you may suspect, that 'one more' always became another ten minutes before they could be covered by a blanket. I really felt sorry for both of them, but was so concerned about getting a decent shot that I pushed them as hard as I could. We bled the little bit of light that we had right to the end, and then all collapsed onto the ground in elation that we had done as much as we could for the past three days to try and get the best possible shots we were capable of as a group.
The shoot was over, and there was nothing else we could do...

Photoshoot - Day 2 Summary

On the 2nd morning of the shoot we were back on the beach. This time it was a narrow strip of pink and black sand. The sky was overcast with no sign of sun breaking anytime - exactly what we were not wanting.

Working in a small area (there were also fishing boats out at sea and fishermen along the coast to be avoided in the shots) was challenging and confined a lot of my angles. It was tough going but we managed to get some shots that we were happy with. The Judith and Ester (our models) had a fantastic time playing on the beach and got quite a shock at how cold the sea was. Beatrice and Henriette (our designers) discovered how badly one can get sunburned through the fog.

Our evening shoot was out in the desert, about 45km out of town. There was a moment of despair when we realized how deep the fog went into the desert. We struggled to find a straight length of railway in the sun and almost gave up. Fortunately, we found a great spot just as the light was entering the golden hour. Judith and Ester looked amazing in the garments in the sunset glow, and I was again more comfortable shooting in the desert than the beach.

Because the shoot incorporated a stretch of railway line, Judith had to have a crash course in walking on one of the steel girders in platform shoes. She mastered it quickly and did a superb job of both walking on a single track and maintaining an air of calm in front of the camera. For this she must be applauded!

Although it was a day of mixed fortunes, the overall feel was of optimism after the spectacular light and backdrop of the evening shoot. When we returned to Swakopmund, the fog was heavy again and we decided that we would do another shoot in the desert the following morning not too far from where we had done the previous evening's shoot. We had spotted a wonderful stretch of desert and small rocky hilltops that would work wonderfully with the early morning sun light.
Plans were made, and everyone went to bed tired but satisfied with the day.

Introducing the Team

From left to right: Judith, Henriette, Andrew, Ester, Beatrice

Here we all are at one of the locations out in the desert. Judith and Ester are our two lovely models from Namibia and did an excellent job throughout the shoot. Both worked very hard for long hours without a word of negativity or complaint, and were always interested to learn more about their surroundings at each location. I am very glad I had the opportunity to work with them and hope that I will again in the future.

Henriette and Ester are the clothing designers from Germany. They spent the last six months putting together the collections we photographed. I was very impressed with their level of professionalism and really enjoyed their outfits. They are both very good designers and have contrasting contrasting styles, which helped made my job of photographing both collections back-to-back so much easier.

I would like to thank the team for their hard work, enthusiasm, humor, professionalism and faith in me to represent their work, despite my having no previous experience doing this kind of shoot.

F@#K!!!

I'm knackered, so this will be brief.

Morning Shoot:
A complete disaster. The weather was terrible - fog as thick as a light rain at 05hoo. No sun on the beach (or anywhere else in sight) until 11h00. 5 minutes of great light, the horrible, midday top light.

And me shooting like a complete amateur. Most pics are a write-off. The keepers are far from great.
Lesson of the day - stay calm and humble.

Afternoon Shoot:
Great light, new rocky desert location far out of town (far from the fog bank engulfing Swakopmund), and great models. And great looking clothes by the designers that really suited the location.
After the morning panic, came in slightly unnerved but focused. Got a couple of great shots, quite a few good ones and the usual number of crap photos. At least I'm back on par with myself.
Explained to everyone I had a disastrous morning. They were very understanding, but haven't seen the actual pics yet.

We shoot the same thing tomorrow morning. Just a little later ;-)

D-Day

I just spent two-and-a-half hours doing a meet and greet with Henriette, Beatrice and the two models who will be wearing their collections. Meeting everyone and speaking face-to-face has calmed my nerves. Judging by the way we all communicated with each other, the running of the shoots should be okay. I'm sure there will be some niggles to iron out as we each get used to the others' style of working, but I'm certainly feeling much more confident that there should be no problem with the basic running of things.

The collection's of each designer are very different as are their ideas of the final look they would like to present. This will make it easier for me, as the photographer, to switch between collections on the fly. Both collections look good and I'm sure will be very impactful when worn by either of the very lovely models.

We start with a beach shoot tomorrow morning. Up at 04h00; meet at 05h00. Sunrise is at 06h31. The weather looks like it may actually play in our favor after more than a week of being terrible. I have my usual gear and have managed, thanks to a good friend, to borrow a Nikon D80, reflector, 85mm prime lens, and 17-135 zoom lens. Having a good variety of gear certainly goes a long way to calming my nerves too.

I'm going to try and run (inadvertently) the shoot like a film shoot. There will be little scenarios to play out using slow movements and strong energy. The scenarios will be discussed in detail before being played out, and very little intervention (hopefully) will happen while they happen and as I photograph them. Not quite what models are familiar with, but with some techniques I learnt from dancing butoh, I think we could get some interesting results if they manage to get into it.

And so, my nerves are all directed to where they should be - taking photographs. I would like to have as much concentration there as possible with as little distraction from other elements as possible. Sounds naive, I know, but that is where I would like to ideally be.

Will keep you updated about how it goes...