Strange and beautiful buildings in, and near, Liverpool

Having always been attracted by systems which serve function primarily, with little regard for beauty in the traditional sense, this vent for a tunnel under the Mersey caught my eye with the big hook.

African Centre for Cities-UCT

The ACC at UCT employed me to illustrate Chapters in their new Journal called Counter Currents. This I did and these are some results.

I was invited to present my work at a conference run by the same Faculty and part of my general rationale was the urge to speak about a certain type of photography's ability to encapsulate the 'everyday and the epic'. This idea is not mine, but comes from a book which influenced me deeply called 'The Epic and the Everyday'. I found the book at a used bookstore recently and let out a small sound indicating delight...FnA!

Another speaker at the conference asked me if my argument was not a bit binary. Well of course it is, the implication being that the photos include what falls between the outer markers.

The 3 shots are from:

1. Mitchell's Plain-a poor area on the 'Cape Flats' where 'Colored' people stay
2. The border of 'Kosovo' in an area called Phillipi in the informal settlements
3. The 'Parade' in Cape Town's CBD

Cities in Crisis

A large volume has just been published which documents the colloquium that 'Cities in Crisis' was a part of.

Cities in Crisis is an exhibition which I co-curated with my fried, Professor Michael Godby, who is head of the Art History Department at the University of Cape Town. The show was exhibited at the FADA gallery in Johannesburg and is represented on the www at citiesincrisis.com

My two favourite shots are that of David Goldblatt and Guy Tillim which both collapse disparate spaces into coherent, readable space. Goldblatt's shot shows the remains of some kids' game called 'Onopoppi'. The remains are a floor-plan of a house which makes me think that 'poppi' means doll. Behind the floorplan of stones are some unfinished houses so this shot features a cartesian perspective in the foreground, and a more traditional elevations in the background. 10 points.

Guy Tillim's shot fucks with the brain by compositing the shadow of an invisible building behind a water reservoir. The resultant suggestion is a volumetric and spatial impossibility. 10 points.

Mine is the shot of a beachfront.

Go to the www to see the entire show please.

All day I dream about sex.

I did a big shoot for ADIDAS.

Books, bucher, boeke

Last week I stumbled upon a massive bookfair in London at the Whitechapel Gallery. I bought many books because I am obsessed with the format. Strangely, my favourite was this small yellow fellow which made me feel mellow.

Its called 'All the clothes of a Woman' and it's by Hans Peter Feldman. He is a latter- day list maker and collector. Apparently he owns a toy shop. The cover gives the contents away with inimitable accuracy.

Not two days ago in Johannesburg I found this orange chap which jumped out at me like a slap. It's a first English edition of Italo Calvino's Mr Palomar. It's really beautiful and often features the protagonist watching waves.

At times this reader feels that the act of watching the waves might be marginally more interesting that the description of Palomar watching the waves but, like the act of watching waves washing over eachother, Calvino always manages to bring the attention to attention.

I also Found a reprint of Juan Foncuberta's Fauna which is a fictional account of the travels and discoveries of a certain Dr. Ameisenhaufen. Presented like a botanist/explorer's diary the book charts the discovery of a wide variety of outlandish hybrid beasts. The good doctor even discovers an elephantine beast with a trunk which becomes luminious when the animal is distraughs-Elephas Fulgens. It's far out.

Here are some bad page shots. That's Ameisenhaufen noting 'a fact' in a small book, the lumo trunker and some other weirdos.

MAERSK

MAERSK employed me some time back to travel to the Ports of W Africa to make a document of their activities. While cleansing my drives I chose these shots to compliment a earlier post called 'Take your Style'

These portraits are out-takes.

Laurent, the guy with the Ray bans, saved my bacon in a Cameroonian slum.

bisyllabic

Often considered malformed by prescriptive language users I have decided to call the post... BISYLLABIC.

It has become clearer to me that a large part of my subconscious motivation for making photos stems from the actual name, or the name that springs to my mind, of the object in frame. A file called bisyllabic now sits in my 'b/w' folder and contains some of the following shots.

What mean?

1. b/w_diegang
2. b/w_foghorn
3. b/w_hifi
4. b/w_kalus
5. b/w_rattrap

You Leica?

Tools only interest me inasmuch as they do what they are supposed to without making a racket or breaking-unless they are speakers in which case they can exhibit the former trait.

This is my favourite tool.

Produced in the late 70s it's diminutive body meant that it cut into the larger machines' sales. It was hastily discontinued. I think the best lens for it is a 40 mm. This is what I have. All the small-format b/w shots on this blog are made on it.

Those two chickens are friends.

30 14 36 38 25 43 07 04

The Leopard

When I was last in the mountains I spoke to Simon Madlala who tends to the thatched holiday house.

He told me that he had seen a leopard near the forest and that his plan was to trap the Leopard and sell the pelt to the local chief for a large sum of Rands.

On a day when he needed supplies I lifted Simon to the trade store. When we passed the place where he had spotted the leopard I tried to impress the logic of conservation onto Simon. I said that if he killed the rare leopard his son would never get to see such a beautiful animal. Simon stared forward through the windscreen and laughed a bit.

He dismounted from the Jeep at the trade store and soon afterwards I saw my father and told him the story.

'Dad, Simon has seen a leopard at the farm. He is keen to kill it and sell it to his Induna.'

My father smiled and said,

'Maybe the leopard will kill Simon'

My dad wears the tux and Simon carries a fire-fighting tool.

Last N1 Lightjet Contact Print

Cressida(the long dog), Frank Chong and a Guy Called Gerald

This is my dog Cressida and this is Frank Chong and his Toyota Cressida. Gerald and his Toyota Cressida also appear in this post.

I named my dog after the car which I believe represents South African motoring. My dog represents South African dogs. In Xhosa she is called 'itwina' which means something like a very typical hound of medium size. Cressida was bred by a hunting man to run down quarry. She goes like a fucking bullet from the barrel of an expensive sniper's rifle headed with ultimate precision towards the depression of an unsuspecting temple. I digress.

Frank Chong(small butchery owner) was very surprised when I came a knocking and asked him if he would pose near his Cressida in Rosettenville, Johannesburg. His surprise soon turned to a sort of shy Chinese glee which can be seen in his face behind his sunnies. I liked Frank Chong a lot.

The other dude is called Gerald. His mode of self-presentation is a little more sophisticated. This could be due to the fact that his kids were pulling the piss out of him as he leaned on his white horse. Note the enigmatic positioning of the hands.

1. I am a ninjite, back off!
2. Shit, I just dropped 5c
3. Pull a move with my hands and this photographer wont notice that I cut the 8 in half to make a '3' for my house number