The World according to JK

Latest Work! - Our trip to Cape Town

2011-05-04T14:40:00.002+02:00

So we decided to go to Cape Town this Easter holiday, not really because we wanted to but because my sister-in-law was getting married - about time I would say to her - but i am happy for her. I don't really like Cape Town, why you ask, well the sea is a "-"temperature or something, so you can't go for a swim without going into cardiac arrest, not that I go swim in the sea anyway usually just end up lying "veging" on the beach, but its the principle that if I wanted I could. The service is crap, the people are from another planet, and apparently they have the worse drivers in SA! I remembered while driving down why I don't go that often to Cape Town - because its so bloody far! Takes a whole day of driving or two days if you sleep halfway. I must be honest and say I enjoyed the trip - and forgot how beautiful Cape Town is - From the mountains in Franshoek to Table Mountain (I love mountains) and good clean beaches, I would put my head out and say its probably one of the most beautiful beach destinations in the world. Highlight of my trip - the boat trip around Cape Town from the Waterfront - see attached picture, and visiting my friend Christel and Jannie De Wet at their home in Grabouw - what magical and interesting people . I will be back Cape Town just because you are so beautiful!

This picture was taken on our boat trip around Cape Point
f = 10; Speed = 1/200 sec; ISO = 200 Focal = 18mm

Latest Work

2011-03-21T20:59:00.002+02:00

I love our iconic world cup stadium - its something really special - it just begs to be photographed. Took these shoots while flying with my friend Anthony in his Rockwell Commander - around Joburg.

In Honour of Japan

2011-03-12T12:03:00.004+02:00

In Honour of one of the greatest nations in the world, our thoughts, prayers and collective consciousness is with you. These photos downloaded from associated press show the devastation's from yesterdays earthquake.

This is cool

2011-02-22T20:15:00.001+02:00

Go tp the following website! http://www.a380delivery.com/qantas/panos/tour/tour/

2011-02-12T13:25:00.002+02:00

Yip it's a South African!! Well Done Winning the World Press Photo of the Year 2010

Jodi Bieber, South Africa, Institute for Artist Management/Goodman Gallery for Time magazineBibi Aisha, an 18-year-old woman from Oruzgan province, Afghanistan, fled to her family home from her violent husband. The Taliban arrived demanding Bibi face justice. Bibi’s brother-in-law then held her down and her husband sliced off her ears and nose

Worlds most iconic images - Part 3

2011-02-11T19:01:00.003+02:00

The realease of Nelson Manadela.

Today commemorates the release of Nelson Manadela who was released on the 11 of February 1990 from the Victor Verster Prison in Paarl. The event was broadcast live all over the world. Manadela spent 27 years in Prison at Robin Island,charges included involvement in planning armed action, in particular four charges of sabotage, which Mandela admitted to, and a conspiracy to help other countries invade South Africa, which Mandela denied.While in jail, his reputation grew and he became widely known as the most significant black leader in South Africa. On the island, he and others performed hard labour in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Letters, when they came, were often delayed for long periods and made unreadable by the prison censors.

Throughout Mandela's imprisonment, local and international pressure mounted on the South African government to release him, under the resounding slogan Free Nelson Mandela! In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when the then President of South Africa P.W. Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk announced Mandela's release in February 1990. Mandela went on to become the first democratic President of South Africa and was inaugurated on the 10 May 1994, and served until June 1999. Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation. Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup. (This is the theme of the 2009 film Invictus.) After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans. Today Manadela is widely seen by both black and white as the father of the nation, and a beacon of hope for the country to succeed. He is in frail health, and all South Africans are concerned with his well being. As for me growing up as a white boy in a middle class suburb, racism was taught to us from an early age, and indoctrinated into us at school and later in forced conscription in the South African Defence Force. It was while during my national service spending time in the township of Alexandra, and seeing for the first time the conditions black South Africans were living in, that I came to release that people cannot and should not live in those conditions, and was in fact in-human. Today I live side by side with my fellow black South Africans, and have many black friends, we are after all a rainbow nation of different cultures, and yes it works. Sure we have problems - lots of them, but I would not move to any other country. South Africa has some of the most friendliest people in the world, there's a vibe in this place that I haven't found anywhere else - I love it.

So today I say Thank-you Tata (father) Manadela for all you have done.

Worlds most iconic images - Part 2

2011-02-03T15:15:00.003+02:00

1969 - First man on the moon! Who can forget that image of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, it most probably is one of man's most historic and greatest achievement. Launched from Florida on July 16, the third lunar mission of NASA's Apollo program was crewed by Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed in the Sea of Tranquility and on July 21 became the first humans to walk on the Moon. Apollo 11 fulfilled U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon before the Soviet Union (Yes it was the cold war) by the end of the 1960s, which he had expressed during a 1961 mission statement before the United States Congress: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Neil Armstrong was the first to step on the surface of the moon at 0256 GMT on the 21 of July 1969. As he placed his left foot on the powered charcoal surface of the sea of tranquility, he famously declared: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong and Aldrin spent the first few minutes taking photographs and soil samples in case the mission had to be aborted. The iconic image of Edwin Aldrin, with Armstrong and the Eagle lunar module reflected in his helmet, marked the pinnacle of the 1960s space race. Did you know? Armstrong and Aldrin used a motor-driven Hasselblad 500EL/70 (70mm film back) Data camera fitted with a Reseau plate (a means of correcting images for the effects of film distortion) and Zeiss Biogon 60mm f5.6 lens.

Reference:

Wikipedia: - Man on the moon.
Practical Photography 50th anniversary issue

Latest shoot!

2011-01-25T19:26:00.003+02:00

This image was taking of my Father-in-law who has decided to take up playing the saxophone in his sixties - very inspirational. Shot in my home studio. Image taken on the 16/01/2011. Shutter speed = 1/125 Aperture value = f11. ISO = 200, Focal length = 35mm. Camera = Nikon D90

Worlds most iconic images Part 1

2011-01-24T20:41:00.003+02:00

In last week post I was discussing what makes a good picture, and looked at one of the most iconic images of our time - the 1972 Napalm attack in Vietnam. In today's post I will explore this iconic image further. The image was captured by Hung Cong (Nick) Ut's and is perhaps the most visceral depiction of war ever commited to silver halide. On the 8th June 1972 the South Vietnamese air force mistakenly dropped napalm bombs on its own solders, and on women and children hiding from the combat. Nick Ut's resulting image depicts a group of children running from a napalm cloud, the silent terror all too palpable. Kim Phuc, the naked girl who torn her burning clothes off, was just 9 years old at the time. The bombing killed two of Phúc's cousins and two other villagers.In an interview many years later, she recalled she was yelling, "Nóng quá, nóng quá" ("too hot, too hot") in the picture.
She survived the ordeal and in 1996 Phuc meet the surgeons who saved her life. She went further to study Medicine and now resides in Canada as a Canadian citizen.
Nick Ut earned a Pulitzer prize for the photograph, which was first seen on the cover of Time magazine in 1972. The photo had a huge influence on the American anti-war protests so much so that the then Richard Nixon doubted the authenticity of the photograph, thinking it might have been "fixed." . The photo is stark reminder of the horrors of war, and that in the end the people who suffer the most in war is the women and children

Did you know?
Ut took the children to hospital in Saigon straight after taking the shot Kin Phuc, whose burns were deemed so severe she was given zero chance of survival, underwent 17surgical procedures and returned home. Ut visited her until she was evacuated during the fall of Saigon three years later.

Reference:

Practical Photography Magazine - 50th Birthday issue.
Wikipedia

What Makes a good picture?

2011-01-15T16:40:00.002+02:00

The other day I was thinking what makes a good photograph? Is it in the technical aspects of the photo,as the photography magazines are always showing? The photo must be crisp in focus,the best photos must follow the rule of thirds, your aperture and shutter must be set to X for this photo, and it gets really technical, I've seen some really good photos get torn apart in these reviews . Is it the camera we use? A DSLR will take better pictures that point-and-shoot, the ever useless megapixal debate, SLR's with higher ISO ratings and ever more focus points.....and so we go on. Well while sitting around the other day I had a look at one of my old photography magazines in which they celebrated there 50 years of publication from 1959 - 2009. One article that stood out for me "50 years of the most iconic images" in the world today, and what I noticed is that all these images from a technical perspective was really "bad". The image was out of focus, or not really exposed correctly , etc. I recon if some of those images was sent to the magazines today they might have just trashed them, but these images tell a different story all together. Take for example on one the most iconic images of the time - the 1972 Napalm attack in Vietnam - the one of the naked girl running down the street. The photo is out of focus, the exposure is incorrect, blah, blah, blah. The photographer before then was never known, and after the publication of this picture in among others Time magazine he won a Pulitzer prize. The photograph stirrs a Strong emotion, and was one of the driving forces behind Americas huge Anti-war campaign. So it's emotion, more that anything? the emotion that it stirrs in us, that makes a good picture. A landscape, a portrait, a macro picture does it stirr an emotion? If you can elicit a strong emotion from the person, the photograph need not even be technically good. After all one the best photographers of our time Ansel Adams said it: - "I feel an emotion, I take a photograph" Lets remember that next time we press the shutter. In next couple of weeks I will look at some iconic images of the time, next week I start with the 1972 Napalm attack in Vietnam

Enjoy
Jacques

Valentines Special!!

2011-01-07T13:30:00.002+02:00

Why not give your partner something special this Valentines, something that will last - a valentines picture portrait!

Soulpix is having a special on all valentines portraits:
R350 for a half an hour photo shoot, includes 20 photos on a CD, & two 10x15 prints.

First customer gets a free photo frame!!

A place forgotten!

2011-01-02T09:44:00.004+02:00

When living in the city we sometimes loose perepctive of the world around the world -I call it the American syndrome - why? Well apprently there are some Americans who dont know where Africa even is, and that the world has lots of other countries, and intresting places to see. Dauring our annual December holiday to some place in the country I went to visit a small town for a day that I had heard of, the town is called Philapolis. Philapolis is the oldest town in the Free State, and is home to South Africas oldest prison. Until 1972 Philippolis was a vibarent town when people travelling from Johanesburg to Cape Town had to pass through Philippolis, but after 1972 the N1 highway was routed via Gariep dam, and Philippolis became a town forgotten. But the town has got a spirit of its own, and is being marketed as a "arty" town - a retreat for writers and artists. This town was after all the birthplace of Lawrence Van Der Post. No Malls, traffic problems - olny three streets, and grime / dirt, But I must say as a city boy - it would take a lot of getting used to to live in.