I can (photo)graph

Throughout the year, the University's Archive Department and Qphoto (a local photographic store) host four workshops throughout the year. A lecturer from Vega School of Brand Leadership comes and condenses their intermediate photography course into the four Saturday mornings. One learns about the basic mechnics of a camera, about filters, lenses, flash, etc. My understanding was that if one attended all four workshops, one would receive a certificate attesting that one completed an intermediate course, which I thought could be useful if I would want to take other photographic courses in future. However, the deal was that one had to hand in all four assignments, which I did not do. I missed the fourth assignment and for the fourth I only had my little Panasonic because my mom took the DSLR on tour with her. Last night I attended the prize-giving ceremony and I thought I would receive a little condolence basket and a pat on the back. To be honest, the whole event was a bit of an irritation to me, because I had an assignment due for today that I had far from finished and I was thinking how Derrida and post-humanism and memory are more important for my future than watching people eat Sushi and drink Sherry. When they handed out the 10 "well-done"-awards, I was sure they had mistakenly invited me. This was a waste of time. But then, WHAM BAM, 2nd Prize. For taking a photo of a building with a bottle in. With my little one, my disregarded one,  with the one I throw in my handbag when we go out to take bar-brawl-party-pictures. Here it is ( not sure how the copyright is now, since I think it belongs to the UP Archives, but I took it? If anyone from Archives reads this and wants it removed, just let me know).

The Chemistry Building at the University of Pretoria ( 2nd prize QPhoto Awards 2011)

I think the best image I entered was this one though ( you might notice,I like buildings. They don't move. They like their picture taken):

New building at University of Pretoria and moon, 2011. 

And then, another WHAM BAM moment: the Pretoria Stadstapper Fotoklap was featured in the Beeld, a local Afrikaans newspaper. They spelled my surname wrongly, but I am glad they got my first name right. Such a minefield, these foreign names.

Here is an image of the article:

Beeld Pretoria Stadstapper Fotoklap feature, 26 October 2011.

Guess which one is mine? 

Admittedly, I cannot merge photos on my own, it is all technology and selecting which fotos could fuse together. Hell, I shoot in auto. 

Pretoria at sundown, viewed from Hotel 224.

Bites of Happiness

Paris, August 2010. Indian Ganesh festival. *

I wonder if the purpose of life is not very simple: happiness. But perhaps we get lost in pursuit of constant pleasures, we get lost in hedonism, and miss the daily bites of happiness that we could experience. It seems that we are only happy retrospectively, we are only happy when we are reminiscing about past events and parties.

So now, I am trying to find the momentary happiness when faced with a situation to remember. Like today, my friend I. accompanied me to the Pretoria Stadstap Fotoklap, where people get together and walk around a specific part of the city taking photographs. The walk concluded on the top floor of the Hotel 224, which has a 360° view of the city. Everyone else was taking in the sunset through their lenses, and admittedly, I also captured some frames. But the best moment was when we distanced ourselves from the tripods and shutter noises and just looked at the city.

It is a sense of calm serenity. It is a sense of enormity and luck and preciousness of the moment that surrounds you. It is simply standing and seeing and appreciating the view and the company. Simply put, it is a bite of happiness.

The same embracing sentiment was experienced when we were in Wilderness. The others were doing Yoga, so I headed to the stairs that lead to the beach. Because of recent storms, these stairs were dangerous and one could only walk down to a certain bench in the middle of the dune, and not completely down to the beach.

I did not take my camera along, but it was the most marvellous sunset. Dolphin's peak and Victoria Bay disappeared into a mist. The sky was awash with berries, from the ripest gooseberries over to strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and Youngberries, it seemed as though a basket had spilled and Van Gogh had spread out the fruits' lifeblood to form a perfect sunset.

Gerard Manley Hopkins would have killed for such splendour, for "God's Grandeur" in this daily rotation of the world. The canvas of sea and mountain and mist and colour and waves and breezes was merging into one, was forming into a unity of all elements. It was a moment evoking transcendence. I wondered then if this was what Romantics like C.D. Friedrich were trying to paint in their works. If here was where God is to be found. If this is why people believe in more than earthly pleasures.

Perhaps it is not necessarily God. Perhaps there exists a deeper spirituality in nature which we, through years of city living and the stresses of a fast paced life, have lost track of. I do not feel part of these beautiful land/cityscapes, and maybe this adds to the disconnection from happiness. If one cannot sense a symbiosis with the moment of pure joy, there is no way one can appreciate it.

But this moment, this sitting on the stairs and admiring of berry-stained skies was what the being-in-awe of awesome describes, and it was perfect happiness.





* if you are wondering about the image, it is another moment of perfect happiness, when I randomly went to the Ganesh festival in the Indian "quartier" of Paris. Ganesh is known as the remover of obstacles and the Lord of new beginnings and also associated with wisdom. At the festival, devotees break great amounts of coconuts and then people just pick up the pieces off of the street and eat them.