lull after the storm

Do you ever have soooo much to do you just can’t do it ?

I have 5000 photos from 6 weeks travel to convert into jpegs and to sort through the good from the bad. To categorise. To create a design for a 120 page book that I have to still do mock-ups and get approval.

ok so I just created my to-do list. thank goodness.

But is the proverbial lull after a storm true?  I think so… my legs are heavy….. my brain is dull…. my fingers unco-ordinated….. a creative thought isn’t entering the head…. can’t be funny…. can’t be clever….. I think the storm is in my head

I need to tally the miles

I wonder how far I have travelled? I am going to do a map and add it up. It is miles and miles and miles around this amazing country I call home.

The people …. this country is because of the people. They are friendly and welcoming. I have been hugged so many times I can’t count. I will share my stories over time but one got me, in particular.

We were in Cape Town and we stopped at Woodstock Station. A hard living area where more often than not people live hard, drugs are prevlanet, gang life is pretty hectic here too !

I met an amazing man, full of tattoos and thought wow I would love to photograph him but to be honest was too scared to simply aim and shoot ! So I resisted. He headed over to me, walking with a lilt, looking cool, no shirt and jeans but with a look in his eyes that reassured my heart that it really didn’t need to beat quite that fast.

He told me how he had been beaten by police, how he had lived on the street since he was 8. He hadn’t seen his mother or father since then. His lip quivered as he told me all this. I wanted to hug the guy. That’s all he wanted. A mom to hug him, to let him weep, to say it’s gonna be ok, to tell him she was there, to show him how to live, to show him this was not the only way.

He said people judge him by his cover, his tattoos, man I felt I couldn’t say now “cool tatts please let me photograph you ” , there he is putting his heart on his non-existant sleeve and I do EXACTLY what he says. So I pushed down the urge and decided to listen.

I thought of my own son. The son I nurtured and loved and was oh so proud of. The same son I went to every single soccer match, the same son I fed and worked hard for to make sure he had the cricket kit and the soccer trips and the best education I could offer. The same son that still loves a hugs and kiss even though he is 6ft4. My heart bled for this guy.

He just wanted a job, he didn’t care how much it paid – even R10 – R20 a day ( $1 – $2) – but I could see what would happen though and I told him. I said you say you want a job, but would you go ? you can’t go today and then not tomorrow. People can’t have workers like that. He said he knew and he would try.

He asked me for a loose skyf (a single cigarette) and I don’t smoke so I couldn’t do that. I offered him money, a R10 ( my heart wanted to give him more, but I knew it would just buy drugs or booze) I hung on to the one end as he had the other. I said ” look me in the eyes”, tell me you are going to buy food with this. He said “I promise”, I watched him walk from my car to the hawker down the road and he bought fruit that would at least fill his tummy for the day.

You know we all feel life isn’t fair sometimes, maybe when we don’t get the job we bid for or the best car on the block or the overseas holiday. Just think again….

I get it

I get why young people have perfect abs …….

I am talking about the 20-30 year old “young people”. The thing is I have been on the road in the past 4 weeks and I have noticed my abs getting more visible. ( ok I have a good imagination and a very friendly mirror) But as I was saying, I hgave been travelling with a many young people over this time, in their own private cars.

The variety has been amazing, from 1600’s to 2l, from red to white, from new to old, from smelly to not so smelly, from capable of 180km per hour to barely getting up the hill !

But there is always one constant.

The angle of the seat !

You are just not cool with an upright seat ! oh no the more it is to 45 degreess the better. The cooler you look ! The fact that you can barely see over the steering wheel also doesn’t count. The fact that the driver has to S-T-R-E-T-C-H HIS arms to reach the steering wheel also doesn’t matter. Just thinking about it, how do they reach the cd-players controls?

I suppose it is the same logic that says they must wear pants that are too big for them and allow aout 1/2 of the undies to show and that allows the crotch to look like they still wear nappies.

Ok I’m getting old ….

africa …

where babies look after babies….

Day 14 of 21 and we went rural !

and boy wsa it colourful and hot and fun ! we went to a place called Tugela Ferry where the people simply are real rural and still do all things traditional. I loved it !

just in case you thought I wasn’t really there this is the proof I have for now. …….. wait some more evidence to come. ( maybe not today though)

Just before we left on our journey it was very miserable here in Umhlanga (wish I could hear you all trying to say THAT word) anyway it is a beach town in Natal on the East coast of South Africa.

I love lighthouses but don’t have access to too many in my home town of Johannesburg (a long way from the sea)

Have a look at these girls walk to school. The road goes right down into the valley and then they have to walk all the way back up. You can see the school building at the top.

So it’s HOME tomorrow for a couple of days and then off to Eastern Cape for the 2nd to last haul !

sorry

that I don’t have thousands of pics from the wedding to show you but you know I made a promise to myself to NOT work at Leigh-Anne’s wedding and these are truly a few that I got and thought I would share with you. I am away this week in Natal and next week in the Eastern Cape but yipppeeeeee I then MAY have some me time to find my feet for an hour or 2 a day and then I will really concentrate and get some GREAT pics to you. ( hope you won’t be bored by then)

a few detail pics from the wedding

Yip it’s a week already and I haven’t posted much more. But a quick few may keep your appetite going
Oh how I wish my life was a little slower…

the “outback”

I am in a place called the Orange Free State. It is farm lands and our journey today kept us in the car for 13 hours ! 13 LONG hours with very little to shoot. ell very little that was different from the previous 12 hours

But I do love the colours of the setting sun and grass is definately one of my fav things ! So here we go… a few from the ever growing pile of 1000’s of pics !

part 2 !

just a few more of this fantastic town. Please believe me when I say if you come to South Africa, Cape Town is the one place you HAVE to visit

my feet hadn’t touched the ground

and I was jetting my way of to Cape Town. One of our better known destinations on my travel project. I have fallen alseep at EVERY opportunity. In the plane. In any moving car and even when sitting downloading the images onto my overworked laptop.

But I thought I would quickly share a few from the past 2 days. This is the Cape. An amazing colourful province on our southern shores. It is a beuatiful city and such interesting different people.