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.

Fête de la Musique 2013-Melville

Fete De La Musique (Melville) is a free and fun annual event that allows the public to enjoy a wide range of live performances and food markets in a safe and musical environment. In Johannesburg, this event takes place on 7th Street in Melville and is organised by the Alliance Francaise of Johannesburg together with the French Institute of South Africa and the Melville Residents Association.

I attended this event again this year with a group of friends and these are some of the moments I captured.

Yummy food

Beautiful Jozi people

Dancing in the street

 Food stalls and candy floss, yum.

Mandela T-shirts in the style of Shepard Fairey's Obama "Hope" poster.

Epiphone Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom "Bullseye" on the Renault Stage. She's quite a beauty.

 SwampHound Tritet performing on the Renault Stage. I was walking up and down 7th Street when I heard this interesting bluesy classical guitar mesh-up sound (that's how I can describe them) that captivated me until the end of their set. You can listen to some of their tracks on reverbnation. These guys are great at improv as well. They reminded me of how much I love the sound of the nylon string guitar.

4PBO Shoot | Stop Hunger Now SA - Mandela Day 2013

On Mandela Day the 18th of July, Stop Hunger Now Southern Africa hosted a food packaging event where 67 companies sponsored 67 volunteers to package meals in 67 minute long shifts. 

As part of their 4PBO (Public Benefit Organisations) program, Ubuntu Help Portrait got together a number of volunteer photographers to assist in documenting the events of the day. The energy was intoxicating and the other photographers were kind enough to assist this first time speedlight (not mine) user get a handle of using an external flash.

These are some of the images and moment I captured:

More photo's from this event can be found on flickr through this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ubuntuhelpportrait/sets/72157634646969535/ 

My first encounter with Ubuntu Help Portrait was last year through the Johannesburg Photowalkers group but I only got to understand what they are really about when I attended their launch this year. Basically the idea is to take a portrait of someone who needs it (school kids who don't have their photos taken, elderly etc), print it and give it back to them. Here's a video that best describes what they do. 

The best part of this is that the focus is purely on the person on the other side of the lens and not the photographer meaning that the images are not watermarked nor shared anywhere but go straight to the person whom they belong to. 

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.

Photo Challenge: Week 3

Looking at all the topics for Week 3 of the Photo Challenge, it occurred to me that light was a prominent theme. Essentially, photography is all about light, however this week’s photos required me to really think about lighting and plan around it. Some of the things I had to consider were finding a safe place for night photography where I can take a long exposure image, times of the day for backlit photo's, not to mention creating Bokeh.

On top of that I had to look for eyes. Obviously I started with myself, but would that be enough? Do I have the guts to approach a stranger and take a close up photograph of them? Should I go to the zoo and capture the sad look in the elephant's gaze? These were some of the questions I asked myself. 

The technology part was made easier by all the gadgets lying around the house, I guess those are the benefits of having an IT guy as a partner ;-).

Then the colour orange. All the fast food logo’s start popping out. I also noticed that many of the dudes who hand out flyers at intersections are dressed in orange. Weird. 

To help me prepare for this week’s challenge,I read through Anne McKinnell’s  “8 types of natural light that will add drama to your photography”, a free ebook that's available on her website. Anne McKinnell decided to spend a year on the road in order to explore North America through photography. She documented the experience, including how much she spent on fuel and produced many amazingly beautiful images.  How cool is that! 

You can check out Week 3 of the Photo Challenge here.

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.