I just returned from the penultimate thrust up the centre of the country. One more trip and I will be done photographing the N1 Highway.
Up 'til now the project has been a touch unresolved, but I think what binds the work is traces of the people for whom the highway is lifeblood. Portraits are in short supply, but the hint of a presence is pre-eminent.
In a couple of instances I have shelved the obvious or pathetic image in favour of that which suggests. It is too easy to yoke up the master narratives which drive the myth of this route and ride rough.
The gentleman whose hair is the same colour as the 'veld'(dry, yellow expanse of grassland) is a fitter-and-turner. He has been jobless for some time and his sister booted him out of the door. My guess is that he has gone hopelessly along this stretch of road in both directions many times, his hopeful thumb a tireless masthead on a sinking ship.
I prefer the shot of his back with pink spine.
The blood is from a human, the wreck and salvage crew worked nearby.
1 comment:
The picture of the fitter and turner from the back is also the one that does it for me. Blue fades into grassland and pink fades into grassland. It has to evoke something for a hoeveld meisie like me.
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