Hello New Year

"A daydreamers nightmare is to never even try"- '11am (daydreamer)' by 10 Years 

This has been a week where most people have been getting back into the groove of things and daily routines after the Chistmas holiday, Summer break, braais, late nights and hopefully lots of rest. It has also been a period of reflection and intension and I'm ready to get the show on the road, so to speak.

Doing something new, pursuing a new venture or getting out of one's comfort zone is a little scary but very exciting. Sure, there are no guarantees that things will go 100% according to plan, but very few things ever do, and its those imperfect moments that we truly learn and grow. 

This is a little message board I made (actually I just gave directions and my brother in law did the work/painting) where I and whoever feels like can write positive messages. 

This is the current message. 

Thanks it for now, thanks for reading and wishing you great personal adventures this year.

You have nothing to lose.

These words have resonated deep within me so much that I can’t fool myself to think otherwise. It is with this mindset that I stopped hiding behind the guise that I am still building a portfolio, learning, gaining experience...bla bla bla and just went for it and created a place for sharing my photographs. This place is not only open to my friends and acquaintances, but everyone else too. Scary stuff huh...or not.

So here it is, a link to the Facebook page for this aspiring photographer.

Portia T. Photography

I’ll admit, I owe this jump to a lot of people: my better half and my sister for their many words of encouragement, people who’ve been asking where they can see my work, acquaintances who believed in what I wanted to do and friends who’s been urging me on.

My trusted compact.

New shiny Nikon.

One major thing that happened this year was that I got a DSLR camera, yay. Hello manual setting and shutter speed control. Suddenly I could go boker crazy. Nice. I still use my compact, it’s a great camera and we’ve been through a lot together since the days of chopping up tomatoes and onions.

This is a photo of my friend’s partner and their son. It happened purely by chance and ended up being one of my favourite. I asked my friend if she would allow me to practice my portrait skills (white figuring out the many dials on this camera) on them and they happily agreed. I’m really glad we did this shoot, I learnt so much from it.

I guess the point of this entry is to share this: Our lives are made up of experiences and memories we create: from missing the start of an event because the GPS on your phone froze, losing friends and loved ones to stupid accidents and illnesses, celebrating birth and toasting to triumphs. Anything can happen anytime, it’s important to make everyday count. 

So here's to learning and creating memories.

Thanks for reading.

Overdue

15th of June. At first I thought that today was exactly halfway through the year, seeing that it is halfway through the 6th month and all. Then realising that today is only the 166th day of the year, the real halfway mark is sometime during the first of July, day 182.  

Anyway, it’s sort of halfway through the year and yes, that’s how long I’ve been away from Picture Splendour. I’ll be easing back into blogging for the next couple of weeks by sharing some of the images I’ve captures in the past 6 months and all the lessons learnt. I'm also excited about the rest of the year and can't wait to see where this journey leads.  

Thanks for reading.

Interconnected

I did this painting probably 2 years ago and until now, have not dwelt upon any conscious or subconscious meaning and significance that might have motivated me to do it. 

Energy: a topic that has occupied my mind (computer and workspace) for a large part of this year, has made me think about life and existence. Energy is all around us, we carry it within us, and when we run low, we take some form of it within us. We are all connected. The energy of the people we surround ourselves with have an effect on us. The energy we carry around affects everything around us. 

What I've learnt so far is that the story of energy can be complex yet at the same time, very simple. 

Once more with feeling

It's been a while and I'm really excited about posting again. I needed to take a break from the blog for a while for a number of reasons. It was necessary and I'm glad that's done. One of the reasons I left was because blogging is meant to be a fun way of expressing oneself, however I found that my approach to it was becoming one dimensional and thus I was subconsciously constricting my thought and creative process. The honest truth is that I was finding myself spending more time wondering about what to put on instead of just posting and sharing. Anyone who has ever found themselves spending a considerable amount of time worrying about something, be it anything instead of acting on it will know that it's quite exhausting. 

So, what has changed? Nothing and a lot. Quite the juxtaposition. Mindset. Feeling. That invisible string that's attached to this little space. Not only have I given the blog a new look and feel that I really like, I'm challenging myself to improved the way I'll approach things from now on. Initially I wanted to focus only on photography and was going to use this as a means of documenting the learning experience and sharing the new knowledge and skills I was acquiring. The objective hasn't changed, but the focus will be more on story telling, capturing moments and surroundings. This means that more emphasis will be places on exploring events around the city and things that city folks do, capturing landscapes when hitting the open road, opening up more on environmental issues, sharing artwork and creative crafts as well as anything that captures my imagination at any given moment.

Once more with feeling.

View of the other complex from the balcony, taken at 6:02pm on a Winter evening.

Balance

Have you even gone searching for something specific that the hunt becomes an obsession? I’ve been looking for a specific book. This book that will somehow improve a lot of things and make my life a whole lot better. For months I’ve been searching bookstores, kalahari.net, amazon and expos to no vail. Then last week I found a copy at the library. Hallelujah!

I read through it and couldn’t wait to start experimenting and putting all the ideas I had on paper or canvas. Then Saturday evening came, a time I had set aside to paint. Exciting...right?

2 hours later I grudgingly packed everything away and accepted that there was no colour smearing to be done tonight. As much as I wanted to paint, my heart was simply not into it. My aching body needed to rest a bit and as for my head...it was running a blank.

And I knew why. It has nothing to do with procrastination. 

My whole being was out of sync. A week (or 2) of overindulging in bar-one ice-cream, burgers, pizza, coke and other stuff left me feeling sluggish, sick and a little feverish. It doesn’t help that  I haven’t been exercising and that Morgan Spurlock’s puke in Super Size Me kept playing in my head everytime I took a bite of that cake.

My head was physically attached to my neck but I had no idea what was there half the time. As for my spirit, one can only imagine. Scraping pots instead of dipping a brush into paint seemed more interesting and fun.

As I was packing everything away I thought about balance. Black and White, Hot or Cold, In and Out. It made me realise that outside the science lab, harmonious balance is harder to reach if the lines between are rigid. Look at racial segregation for example (couldn’t think of anything else right now), its causes more problems than solutions, it limits our mindsets, inhibits progress and creates ignorance. 

Everything is interconnected. The beauty about balance is that if different elements come together and work harmoniously, then something new and beautiful can come out of it. In my case, I need to get my body sorted out ASAP so my head can clear and I can focus on deeper meaning and the tasks at hand. Once all these elements start working together  I can take control and be free of this wretched dread.

This may seem contradictory to the quote I put at the top...just start doing what you love even if the conditions aren’t perfect. However, I’m not giving up or giving in. Like the AA serenity prayer, I think I know the difference between what I can’t and what I can change at this very moment.

Hello Sunday Morning, a new day to start afresh.

Changing Faces

“So, what type of photography do you like?” a friend asked me the other day and without flinching a brow I replied “Landscape”. He then prompted to ask, “so what landscape work have you done recently?” and that's when the uh’s and um’s followed.

The thing is, I’ve always known that I like landscape photography, ask my boyfriend and he’ll say the same. I have a great love and appreciation for mother nature, how every sunrise and sunset is never the same. The way the seasons change, and after last night’s rain, Jo’burg will be alive with vivid colours and the city overview will no longer have that dust covered dreary grey all over. I like going out of the city, leaving the closely built concrete structures behind and watching the scenery roll by. That’s what attracted me to landscape initially and after going through different course options, I’ve always known that Landscape will be one of my focal point of study. Or will it?

The thing is though, I've hardly go to scenic views and haven't had interaction with pretty flowers as much as I would love to and because of this, I’ve had to look closer to home for inspiration, and that's how my appreciation for Still Life began. After all, its forced me to look at everything from a new perspective.

What about People/Portrait? Well, I had this idea for a 30 day challenge about a month and a half ago: creating a photo essay and interview “random” people about a specific topic. This would force me to go out there while combating my discomfort of interacting with people. Well, that idea is still in my notebook and yet to be executed.

Speaking of people/portrait photography, I’ve generally never been into it, that is until I came across a documentary called “Annie Leibovitz: A life through the lens”. It got me to reconsider my stance, after all, she has captured some of the most iconic and most memorable photographs and she worked for Rolling Stone Magazine in the ’70. Let me not get started about the ’70’s and the impact of that era's music both abroad and here in S.A. For some odd reason, that documentary made me want to capture different faces in black and white while listening to John Lennon’s ‘Power to the People’.

Another thing I enjoy is attending live music events and checking out bands, that creates an opportunity to do 2 things I love at the same time. Speaking of live music events, Cool Runnings Fourways, one of the very few surviving live music venues in Johannesburg is currently in danger of being shut down by the municipality, or rather they just want the venue to stop the live entertainment. There’s an online petition that can be signed but the best thing one can do is to stop by the venue and sign the physical petition while waiting for the Witkoppen traffic to ease up. Lets save Cool Runnings! After all, if bands can't play live because all the venues have been closed down, how will they grow as performers and musicians?

Back to the topic, what photography do I like? I think its better to be honest with myself and admit that what used to excite me yesteryear may not move me as much today. For example: I used to loathe fashion and design but now I’m learning more about croquis and fashion sketching (yeah I know). There’s a part of me that’s not a huge fan of weddings and can’t imagine  spending hours at such an event while another part of me has movies like ‘The Wedding Planner’ and ‘The Wedding Singer’ in their top 20 most watched list.  

Hence the exploration, its okay to try out different things, I might even like sports photography one day (doubt it but we’ll see). I'm glad I received the question, it made me think. The lesson from this is that if we stick to only one thing, we'll never grow, learn and discover anything. 

I would have always looked at plants, water, hills and mountains and such instead of appreciating the smaller (and bigger) things. 

Hello October: a month of EXPLORATION and a month of POSSIBILITY.