About…

I consider myself fortunate to have seen, learnt, and experienced so much of what life has to offer. Both the good, and the bad.

The National Geographic magazine had a huge impact on me as a child. The images captivated my attention and Geography became my favourite subject at school.

By the age of 11, I knew where every continent, country, sea, and ocean was on my twirling globe. I saw myself as an explorer of the world, going forth and conquering these explorations with my camera.

I was so taken with this fantasy that at the age of 13, I wrote to National Geographic asking them for a position as a photojournalist. Ah, the naivety of youth.

Nearly a decade later I chose a career in television with the South African Broadcasting Corporation. A few years later, I was offered a position with Channel Africa’s television department and my career took on a continuous learning curve.

Although video editing and image manipulation fed my creative spirit, it was journalism that afforded me the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life, and witness the most depraved indifference that man is capable of inflicting on another. Live studio directing provided an ongoing adrenaline rush, and management taught me the most valuable lesson of all: trust my intuition.

There have been several memorable incidents in my television career, but without a doubt the highlight was meeting Nelson Mandela. Nothing could have prepared me for the strength and courage that radiates from the man.

I experienced the most humbling moment in my life the 2nd time I spoke with him. The fact that Nelson Mandela remembered who I was from our brief encounter of several weeks earlier, just blew me away.

After a decade of working in broadcast media, I migrated towards communications and for the most part produced communication and training videos for South African Airways.

Prior to immigrating to Canada in 1999, I spent some time in my studio in Italy where I continued to paint. Some of my better work was created during this period.

Yes, it is a cliché, but everything does happen for a reason and here I am, having travelled full circle.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but as long as I have my camera in hand, it’s all good.

Shoefiti: the art of flinging footwear

What I didn’t expect to see on my way to San Josef Bay, on Vancouver Island’s wild west coast, was a tree that had literally dozens and dozens of shoes hanging from it. It was like a work of art.

But I am not talking about some fashion statement of Manolo Blahniks adorning a tree, but rather a collection of old sneakers, boots, shoes, and even the odd bathroom slipper. Some of the footwear had messages or just a person’s name written on them.

Maybe I don’t get out much, but I have never heard of, or seen, a shoetree before. Sure, I’ve seen the odd sneaker hanging by its tied laces from an overhead power line, but I’ve always put that down to some mischievous kid. What also intrigued me was a sign at the top of the tree, which asked the question: Isn’t it time? And went on to inform the reader that “Jesus is waiting!” – and that one should “give him your soul”.

I wondered if there was some correlation between the sign and the shoes. Was it testament to a person’s faith, and if so why here on this gravel road in the middle of nowhere, and near the town of Holberg? But maybe the location was the significant factor, and the flinging of well worn footwear was some sort of ritual that tourists would perform as a symbol of their achievements when returning from the arduous adventure of hiking the rugged Cape Scot trail.  

 

 

On my return to Vancouver, and after conducting some research, I found out that a resident of Holberg started this shoetree in 1989. Whether it was a symbolic gesture on her part is anyone’s guess. I also discovered that shoe flinging enjoyed such world-wide recognition that it had also been given a name: Shoefiti.

Shoefiti is created by tying the shoe’s laces together, and flinging the footwear onto an overhead appendage. This is not some frivolous and haphazard activity, and Shoefiti even has rules that need observing. For example: you are not allowed to drive nails into the tree trunk. Knocking off existing shoes is frowned upon by many because of the belief that spirits live in these shoes, and disturbing the spirits could bring you bad luck. A more practical reason to proceed with caution would be that hornets like to build their nests in smelly footwear. These theories would explain the multitude of shoes also placed at the base of this particular tree.

   

 

And with its word-wide fame, it is not surprising that Shoefiti has indeed taken on all sorts of individualistic meaning and symbolism. From the supposed advertisement of the whereabouts of a crack house in America, to an old Scottish tradition where a youngster would proudly announce the loss of his virginity by tossing his shoes over telephone cables or power lines.

It is also believed that shoe flinging is a break-away from the practice of tying pieces of  cloth to trees and other structures as  a symbol of someone’s passing into another world.

And that is the very beauty of the shoetree. Maybe started as a joke, it has evolved into a symbol of individual dreams, hopes, beliefs, or anything else you want it to represent. An international symbol of symbolism.

Maybe the smelly and noble shoe tree should become the international symbol for democracy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sigma vs Tokina

After days of deliberating, reading reviews and forums, and looking at images shot with both Sigma’s 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM and Tokina’s AT-X Pro 12-24mm F4 DX lenses, I bought the Sigma. What pushed me towards the Sigma were those extra 2 mils.

I have no idea how sharp the Tokina is, but it is supposedly even sharper than the Sigma. If that is indeed the case, then Tokina owners beware because you will slice yourself. Yes, the Sigma is that superbly sharp.

I took a couple of test shots in the camera store with my D300, handheld (the lens has no image stabilisation) and at f5.6, and ran them through Lightroom when I got home. I thought that either my computer, or Lightroom, was acting up because I couldn’t believe that at 1:1 they were this sharp. Truly amazing. (Because of image size restrictions the below images don’t do the lens the justice it deserves).

Camera Store

The reports of chromatic aberrations are correct. There was definitely red fringing, but select the defringe function in Lightroom (or whatever software) and they’re gone. The images below are 100% crops, without and with chromatic aberration removal.

No defringing

Defringe activated

Note, because of the red fringing, how the “unfringed” shot of the red lettering is sharper than the one with the chromatic aberrations removed. I guess those pesky chromatic aberrations come in handy sometimes.

As is shot

100 % crop

This is a sweet addition to my camera gear and it will be put to good use on my impending trip of the Sunshine Coast area and Vancouver Island.

Roadtrip, roadtrip, roadtrip………………

On the street

One night, soon after my arrival in Vancouver, a friend suggested she show me Canada’s version of 3rd world squatter camps. I scratched my head in confusion and responded with an appropriate: huh?

While I am aware that many cities in the world have their fare share of the homeless, what I saw at the intersection of East Hastings and Main surprised me. In fact it shocked me.

Besides child and animal abuse, homelessness riles me up no end. How does something of this magnitude happen in a country like Canada. A county that is one of the richest countries in the world and in a province such as British Columbia, which has one of the most prosperous economies in Canada.

Some weeks passed before I returned to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It was even worse during daylight hours. Street life in raw Technicolor.

There were literally hundreds of street and sheltered homeless roaming the area. City block after city block. Alleys filled with moving shadows of humanity; woman trying to earn pitiful livings prostituting themselves; friends talking in groups; some with dogs; others alone – pushing the ever familiar shopping cart. And even more heartbreaking, the people with vacant stares and oblivious to their surroundings, wandering into traffic for no apparent reason.

In 2008 the Social Planning and Research Council of BC conducted a survey on behalf of the Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness. The results showed 2,660 homeless people in this downtown area over a 24 hour period. A 137 % increase in six years.

In the 1970’s several psychiatric hospitals were considered unhealthy and shut down. (Other psychiatric hospitals have been de-institutionalised since then). Patients were “moved into the community” with the reassurance that care and supervision would be provided. The promised care never did materialise and these patients, and other people with mental health problems, now live on the street.

Mental health is a serious problem, and even more so because of the stigma attached to it. Very few people will openly admit to taking medication, while others refuse to admit even to themselves that they need medication.

In some cases this leads to mental health problems which affects a persons ability to think rationally. Which in turn may affect their work, which increasing stress and depression to the point they could become dysfunctional and cannot work at all. They then loose their homes, and another street statistic is born. And once they are living on the street, there is little chance of obtaining the rehabilitative help they so desperately need.

Yes, alcoholics and drug addicts also form part of the homeless masses. As do runaways and people who don’t want to live in shelters. But is it not common sense to conclude that if someone prefers to sleep out in the cold and eat out of trashcans, they are hardly capable of making a rational decision as to where and how they live?

And is it not just as obvious to conclude that the homeless that do not neccesarily have mental health issues would turn to drugs or alcohol to blunt that knife-edge a little? They’d have to be crazy not to want to.

Just think of what these people go through day in and day out. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month and of every year, they wake up to what has become their lives.

Their dreams shattered, their lives ruined. Without hope and alone they sink further into despair as they try to survive their life on the street.

And next year, if they live that long, they wake up to what is their life and live it again, every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every month, of every year.

That took all of a couple of seconds to read. Image living it…. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year.

There are no simple solutions, but at least treat the less fortunate with some compassion and respect. Unlike the ignorant idiot, that prompted me to write this entry, that tossed off a panhandler of clearly diminished mental capacity, with the comment: go get a job – as she clicked her way down the sidewalk.

Oh Canada! Indeed.