Shipwrecked

In the early hours of Saturday morning, a 50m long Japanese fishing trawler (the Eihatsu Maru) carrying fish and fuel, ran aground in thick fog. It's new harbour being none other than the upmarket Atlantic seaboard suburb of Clifton. Now for any international readers, homeowners pay a fortune to buy property in this affluent suburb, which offers breathtaking views of the Atlantic and it's coastline below - a rusting Japanese fishing trawler is definitely not something they would want on their beachfront. There have already been attempts to refloat the vessel, all of which have proved unsuccessful. Upon my visit last night it appeared to me that she isn't going anywhere soon (unless they can try on a spring tide perhaps). Surfers have been quite excited about the new arrival hoping it will generate a new surf spot, but that too looks unlikely. There was actually a surfer in the water last night who obviously wanted to be the famed first to ride the new wedge, but all he got was a lot of pounding on the head by ruthless shorebreak. A lot of questions are being asked as to how, with today's sophisticated navigation equipment, can an experienced fishing vessel run aground? Some are skeptical and think it's all in a bid for a fat insurance claim; others blame it on the fog, which was unbelievably thick on Saturday morning. Whatever the reason, she sure is drawing a lot of attention and I doubt she'll be leaving our shores anytime soon.

 

 

Treasure Hunting (Part 2)

Here are the rest of the surf shots from last weekend (5 - 6 May 2012). You can see Part 1 here.

Unhappy Birthday

And now for something COMPLETELY different. Even though I love to shoot - and mostly do shoot - surfing, my favourite thing to photograph is people. I was playing around with a bunch of concepts around the theme of environmental portraits. Well, actually, I wanted to turn the theme of an environmental portrait on its head and do environmental contradictions. These images are far from perfect so I prefer to look at these as a test shoot. I'll hopefully get to redo them in a proper studio set-up sometime soon. The models were all friends of mine and I must really give them credit for their fun and comfortable attitude towards the shoot. All the below are shot with a Canon 1000D and kit lens (taken back in 2009 in my garage).

Treasure Hunting (Part 1)

Cape surfers were spoilt for choice last weekend. I don't think there was an Atlantic spot that didn't have a decent wave. The boyfriend and I went treasure hunting and this is what we found. Part 2 to follow later this week...

Friday Favourite - Stepping Stones

Here's today's Friday Favourite - a once-off shot from my archives posted (almost) every Friday. Titled 'Stepping Stones', this was a spontaneous shot that I took back in 2008 of a friend of mine, Lauren, crossing a stream of water on the beach. I desaturated it slightly to give it a more muted & moody feel (especially because the weather was overcast and grey), and added a vignette. This image has special significance to me because it reminds me how far I've come as a photographer. Pursuing photography as a career definitely entails numerous 'stepping stones' along the way and when I look at the images in my archives it's always great to see the progress I've made along the way.

If you have any questions about my photographs, please feel free to ask me.

[PUBLISHED WORK] Zigzag Issue 36.4

One of my lifestyle shots made it to print in the latest issue of Zigzag Surfing Magazine (I apologise for the bad scan quality). It's a great & rewarding feeling to see one of my shots in a mag that I've been reading since I was a kid; a big thanks to the guys at Zigzag for selecting it for the issue. Get yourself a copy ASAP - it's a goody (that's the June issue, 36.4 - you can't miss Grant 'Twiggy' Baker's insane wave on the cover).

Surfing Safari

Cape Town never ceases to amaze me, and I am truly grateful for every day that I get to live in this beautiful city. Last weekend myself and friends literally went on a surf safari, deep into the peninsula. And despite the horrid weather, here's what we were fortunate enough to find: