Reflections. Reflecting

Osho says it is less important who you are. You are already. Just be. And lose the tags, names and roles that has been placed upon you. Osho says it is more important to ask where you are. Not only does this sustain and preserve your life-force, it also enables you to live fully. It keeps you present.

When i take pictures, the pursuit is to lose myself. Not to find something. The pursuit is not who am i. Even if a picture of a reflection of my face is taken, the purpose is to wash away existential baggage. The purpose is to become lighter. To be. Right here. Right now. Coz that is all we have actually...

A sunday of remembrance

the events that brought me and this saintly lady together are quite interesting. a few days prior to our photo expedition i saw her shining on someone else's blog. upon first glance i thought i have to go and visit her with my camera. as i did not know the exact location of the sacred statue, our adventure turned a laid back sunday afternoon into a magical mystical and memorable one. walking around here. snooping around there. browsing here. peeking through there. the only thing i knew was that it was in linden somewhere. we drove where i thought it was, but had no luck. and then, as we kind of  decided to make like a tree and leaf. as we i gave up and started to drive away from our initial destination, there it was, a few meters further down the same street.

this makes me think of how often i have found what i was looking for when i gave up looking for it

in case you would also like to visit this little garden of remembrance, sorry, you're not going to get any directions out of me. you're going to have to make your own little mission. the only thing that i will tell you is that it is somewhere in linden. happy hunting

the bitter sweet dance

I took this picture outside of the building where i spend most of my 9am to 6pm (sometimes 9am to 12am) time. But it wasn't the first time i noticed the cute little ballerina. In her previous life, she was dancing in thick chocolate icing. In her previous life she was the cherry on top of the cake. Shame, i feel for her. She must be pretty lonely among all the fags. And far far away from the chocolate stage, i wonder, who is admiring her now.

please conceal more

i like hidden things. a closed door. i want to open it. a veil. i want to lift it. a forest. i want to play christopher columbus cristopher columbus. but sometimes i dont want the concealed to be revealed. sometimes i prefer to watch intrigue and observation play a little longer. sometimes a fictional story takes me more by surprise. like with these wooden pannels covering whatever is hiding behind. i really wish they never get taken down. the building looks much better with the wooden pannels.

Gathering shadows

I often find that i lose myself chasing shadows. With "lose myself" i mean forget about myself. My issues, assumptions and preoccupations. Looking at shadows i feel i dissolve. Evaporate. My feet lift from the ground. I become light. And light. There is a book of old photographs out there somewhere about people who took pictures of other people, but then, unintentionally, included their shadows in the framing. The mistake turned out to be quite a success. I would also like to publish a book about shadows one day. Obviously a little different than that one though. Almost like the one above. Except my shadow shouldnt be in there. A friend of mine August takes pictures of his shadow at significant places and spaces. He calls them self portraits. Think I took this picture to remember that i was at a shoot. I love being on set - for any stills or audio visual story. Apparantly photography means painting with light. One day hopefully i will be able to paint with light. But at the moment painting with shadows will have to do.

Autumn in Johannesburg

This is my friend Johan. He's a fine artist, and a fine musician as well. He's favourite season is autumn. But when he paints he likes monochrome colours. Sometimes i like taking pictures of people taking pictures. The moment seem more intimate and personal. With a camera in their hands they feel more at ease. And feeling more at ease they reveal more of themselves. Autumn is a complex but beautiful season. Leaves change colour and get a new identity. But leaves fall and loose that identity again. It's an in-between season. Temperatures dance between not too hot and and not too cold. Not sure if they want to go out or if they should stay in, people are in limbo. With the extra layers of clothing it's a less revealing season. But with the extra layers and sometimes staying at home, it's a more intriguing season.

Seldom

I saw three beautiful things yesterday. Three things that seldom happens to me, you and joe with the surname soap. These three things made me feel like i'm on the VIP list. The first scenario was seeing the newspaper being thrown over my gate at the exact moment of my departure. The second was a security guard that i dont know who waved at me. The third was the praying mantis i saw as i put the alarm on at work. One day i was at a shoot and i saw another beautiful thing. It was a sleeping watchdog...

I saw a red lion

If you're looking for a little peace and quiet. If you're looking to align the wheels of those cogs that keep running between your ears. Park and play. Park and ride. Or simply park and sit. When i was a laaitie parks used to fill me with wonder. Now i just go there and let my mind wander. And then i discover things like this red lion. Must say, quite fancy the colour. But I havent really figured out its purpose. If you're small enough you could sit on it and imagine yourself chasing through fields and forests. Maybe it's there as a visual meditation tool. And if you look at it long enough you become aware of your inner lion. Or maybe it's the sacred animal icon of some outdoor underground sect.

Old things

Whenever i walk passed old things i have to stop. Stop and look. Stop and think. Stop and wonder. Cliche's like "they dont make'm like they used to" or "those were the days" come to mind. But generally i think little when i do this stop-and-look thing. It's more of an admiration. A feeling of wow, you are old. And i wonder how it must feel like to be old. You see, i respect old things and people and memories. Dont know why. Maybe because i think they are wise and i can learn from them. Maybe because i envy them as they are closer to completion. The end of a cycle. Something like that. Maybe because they remind me of feelings i have yet to find a name for and am quite happy to leave it that way...who knows