Journey of an apprentice photographer
One of the best decisions we made on our trip to Spain was to head off the main road from Sevilla to Ronda, and take a detour through the Parque Natural de la Sierra de Grazalema. The ‘park’ is an area of wild beauty, rugged, steep, sheer, spectacular, dotted with isolated farmsteads and whitewashed pueblos…
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Between Sevilla and Ronda lies the Parque Natural Sierra de Grazalema, a rugged, mountainous country of dramatic views and towering skies, where pueblos blancos – the white villages – cling to the rock. This is Zahara de la Sierra, where we stopped for lunch.
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Seville Cathedral stands on the site of a great mosque, built by the Almohads in the 12th century. It is the largest cathedral in Europe. Its bell-tower, La Giralda, was in its original incarnation a minaret, on top of which were erected a Christian belfry and Christian symbols. You climb La Giralda not by stairs…
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The world I was born into was analogue. That meant film: in my case, mostly Kodak Tri-X, or Ilford FP4. Tri-X for when you wanted to “push” the film speed, where the light was low, or where you wanted a contrasty, journalistic effect or – I shall come back to this in a moment –…
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Little Egret – Marievale. Marievale Bird Sanctuary, Gauteng. I left in the power lines and pylons deliberately, as well as traces of the reeds and the trees, as I wanted to give a sense of the complex environment – not stereotypical, picture-postcard countryside – in which these birds live. Nikon D500, 70-300mm. Processed in…
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As this is the only time, so far as I recall, that I’ve seen a mother warthog suckling her infants, I share this image – not as a great picture, but simply as a record. Nikon D500, 70-300mm. Processed in Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro.
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Two little warthog piglets were playing a robust game of catch and head-butting when we came across them at the edge of the camp in Marakele, on our first afternoon there, at the end of a game drive on which we had seen virtually nothing. Needless to say we sat for a while and watched…
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To maintain my sanity, or at least the appearance thereof, from time to time I have to take a break from what another photo blogger calls the work that pays the bills, and process an image. Here, as a foretaste of an upcoming posting, is just one image, of a pair of zebra in the…
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Here are two final images from our visit a couple of weeks ago to Cape Town and the V&A Waterfront: a young girl climbing on a metal sculpture near to the Zeitz-Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. Rob thinks the girl is lost in the image; I think the image of the girl is subtle. Decide…
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Below ground, at the Zeitz-MOCAA in Cape Town, run what they call ‘the tunnels’ – passages underneath the structure that housed the wheels and chutes that controlled the grain elevator. Spaced out at intervals along the passageways are low benches or tables, stacked high with prints of artwork, with an open invitation to everyone to…
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