Monthly Archives: June 2014
Chapter Twenty One: Soweto, Johannesburg, May 2014
Meet Amos. Amos is 51 years old and lives and works in the Soweto township in the South of Johannesburg. I met Amos when I visited The Shack, the shebeen where he is employed. Amos told me that he has got 8 children of his own, and moved to South Africa from Malawi after his brother passed away from the AIDS virus in order to look after his brother’s wife and 8 children as well as his own. Their house had only one bedroom, and when the children were growing up they would all sleep alongside one another like sardines – when he returned home from work in the evening he would turn the light off in order to get changed in the dark.
All of the children have left home now. The youngest daughter is an IT trainee, and hopes to be able to get a job of her own and be fully self supporting once she has finished her apprenticeship. He was saddened that all his children are only interested in themselves, and don’t assist him in anyway anymore.
Amos works at The Shack, a shebeen just off Vilakazi Street. Shebeen is an Irish word meaning ‘illegal drinking place’, From Wikipedia: Shebeens are most often located in townships as an alternative to pubs and bars, where under apartheid and the Rhodesian era, indigenous Africans were barred from entering pubs or bars reserved for those of European descent. Today, shebeens are operated legally, and serve as part of the African culture. In addition to serving South African and international beers, shebeens offer local beers. At The Shack, they offer Joburg beer – Amos told me that it’s what keeps his skin looking good, and since it only contains 1.5% alcohol, he drinks it daily for breakfast as it’s a meal in itself. The beer is sold in a carton similar to a milk carton, and has an entertaining slogan on the side:
Amos showed me round the shebeen, but he seemed to be most proud of the ladies toilet. “You know Johnny Walker? Well we made Winnie Walker!”
All the shots in this post were made with the Leica M-E and Summilux 50mm ASPH. The first four shots were shot as ISO 2000, which shows that as long as the shot is well exposed, high ISOs are perfectly useable with the M-E…..
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Chapter Twenty: Easter in Bath
My trip to the UK over Easter happened to coincide with a Leica User Forum meet up in Bath on Easter Saturday. Since I was fairly local for once, I decided to make the journey down to bath to join a group of like-minded photographers. Although rain had been forecast, the weather was beautiful, and it was very enjoyable wandering around Bath.
It’s twenty years since I was last in Bath, and although I can’t remember much about that trip, I do remember it as being a lively student town (after all, my previous trip was to see whether the university would be a suitable place for me to study). It seems that it is still very lively today, and the good weather had brought out the crowds, and also the street performers, who were all there in force, hoping to earn enough money to buy a couple of Easter eggs…..
I spent most of the day chatting with fellow photographers, and ended up not taking as many shots as I had wished, but was happy with some of the results.
Street Performers in Bath
The Royal Crescent, Bath (wikipedia). This semi circle of 30 terraced houses was built in the eighteenth century by the architect John Wood the Younger. It is thought of as one of the best examples of Georgian architecture in the United Kingdom, and is a Grade I listed building.
Although the houses along the Royal Crescent all appear identical from the outside, the first residents purchased a section of the exterior facade, and then employed their own architects to design the interior of the buildings, leading to some very different designs internally. Nowadays, the houses are either split up into flats, used as single residences, or in some cases turned into guest houses.
All of the doors in the Royal Crescent are painted white, with the exception of this yellow one. It was painted yellow by one of the previous residents in the 1970s, and, although Bath Council objected, the Secretary of State for the Environment overruled the court case and allowed the door to remain yellow. However since the building is Grade I listed, it is hard to make any significant changes to the exterior of the buildings without prior approval and planning permission, so the door has remained yellow ever since.
All of the access doors along the Royal Crescent are on the first floor. The ground floor appears to be a separate flat or basement area for the upper floors.
Holburne Museum of Art, Bath.
All the shots in this post were shot with the Summicron 28mm on the Leica M-E
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Chapter Nineteen: Photowalk Amsterdam, March 2014
A few shots from a recent wander around Amsterdam. One of the first fine days of the year, and to enable me to shoot with the Summilux wide open or thereabouts, I used a B+W 0.9ND filter to block a couple of extra stops of light. As you can hopefully see from these shots, the use of the filter hasn’t impacted the ability of the Summilux 50mm to take sharp and contrasty shots.
Sitting on a bench. Nieuwmarkt Amsterdam
Waiting for God-ot
When are you coming home?
Amsterdam Canal
Bridge of love locks, Amsterdam
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