EVOCATIVE IMAGES

Since preparing a collection of “Evocative Images” for the CTPS Congress and a few workshops on this topic, I have been totally immersed in Macro Photography for the last 3 months and having clarified my thoughts, I feel able to get to the results I want to achieve much more easily. I am so familiar with my concepts and techniques and I attribute this to staying focused in the macro world without other distractions for a long time. Playing with abstracts, simplifying and allowing colours to be an emotional and rich element in my designs, I patiently distil the subjects until the eloquent natural light bring harmony into my photographs.

KOPPIE ALLEEN

The Cape Town Photographic Club celebrates its 125 anniversary this year and one of the high lights amongst their special events was an excellent Mini Congress in De Hoop where Guy and I were honored to be amongst the guest speakers.

The weather was not great but this did not stop us to rise early I the hope of catching a sunrise at Koppie Alleen. It was so overcast as we made our way to the beach by the light of our head lamps that it was soon obvious no sun was going to pierce this dense canopy of clouds. As always, I never give up and started shooting in complete darkness, painting the rocks in front of me with light. The beam of my flash light looked ridiculously insignificant in front of this majestic landscape and amazingly, it had some effect while the sea and sky blended in countless shades of blues to deep indigo. Eventually, a little glimpse of light filtered through the clouds and surprised me with the most unexpected range of colours dancing over the water and trough the waves. 

It was a great start of the day!

AFTER THE FIRE

Since the fire which ravaged the Jonkershoek Valley a month ago, I have walked regularly in the affected areas and am amazed at what I discover. The pine plantations smoldered for days and everything was black, shrouded in blue smoke. Our house & garden is a little green oasis on top of the hill. The weather is still unusually very warm for this time of the year with no rain and the regular strong winds sprinkles a generous new layer of ash at every gust, but I am thankful I still have a house to dust! A touch of luminescent green makes an appearance here and there and now the forest floor is covered in a thick carpet of crispy pine needles. The colours in the damaged foliage of the trees are taking a multitude of russet shades and in the evening light make a textured canvas in rich monochromes.

INFERNO

The wind swung around last Tuesday night and the fire which had burned for 2 days already in the pine plantations up in the Jonkershoek Valley advanced rapidly towards us on the top of the hill. By midnight we were surrounded by a raging fire, the thick smoke burned our eyes and made it difficult to breathe but fortunately, this time we had a lot of help from the firefighters who worked efficiently to keep the flames from reaching the house. The torching trees around the edge of the garden exploded in spectacular fireworks display sending sparks high up in the night as we watched the flames roaring up to the next ridge and beyond. It was a very long night but we saved the house and most of the garden. The Palmer family in the front lines of the action, never lost their sense of humor through this ordeal.