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I was haphazardly flipping through the SPCA calendar whilst chatting to Sashni, a colleague at The Times when a particular photograph caught my eye.
I was certain that the centre picture of the September page, showing a Jack Russell, was in fact my picture. Sashni, who argued that there are thousands of Jack Russell pictures out there, reacted to my claim with reasonable skepticism.
So I hurried back to my desk, and successfully searched through my flickr account. I was right; the picture was indeed one of mine.
Now I had to find out how on earth the SPCA got hold of it. So I had another look at the calendar and found the credit printed on the back of the page.
Picture 4: Name: Bouncer – by Russell Manchip
This came as a relief since I thought the SPCA just took the picture without asking or attributing it – or even worse, making it out to be that this dog was homeless. The name of the dog is correct, and Russell (one of my closest friends) had obviously sent them the picture (still need to clarify that thou).
Over and above the fact that the attribution of this image was not accurate, which I am not too fazed about, this occurrence is one of those that boggle the mind:
What is the likelihood, of picking up that calendar, completely unsystematically browsing through it, and recognizing a photograph that I took more than a year ago?
Today I’m starting to prepare myself mentally for Sunday’s challenge.
I’m ready to tackle the flat wide tarmac of the M1, brace myself for the corners of the Jo’burg CBD, conquer the long stretching ascends and descends of Jan Smuts Avenue, and finally engage with the taxing cross-winds on the M14 freeway.
But, what is even more motivating, is that I will be riding this years’ Pick ‘n Pay 94.7 Cycle Challenge for a good cause. My close friend Donald and I have raised funds over the last couple of months to aid the awareness and treatment of Epilepsy in South Africa.
On 16 November 1993, Donald’s cousin, Sheldon Ashen died of Status Epilepticus, at the young age of 7. For those who don’t know what it is, it is the harshest form of epileptic attack, which shuts down oxygen supply to your brain. The insult is so severe that the outcome is often fatal.
Seeing that the race takes place on 16 November, the 15th anniversary of Donny’s cousin’s death, we thought it would be fitting to cycle in his memory, where as the donated funds will go towards the Epileptic clinic run at The Johannesburg General Hospital.
Wish us luck on race-day and feel free to contact me if you’d like to help or donate to this cause.
I compiled this slide show on the eve of the Xenophobic attacks reaching new levels of horrific violence. Ever since, these images have been etched into my memory, leaving me feeling deeply distressed.
I must say, the denialism and all-round quiet diplomacy we’ve witnessed from our South African leader, the president, Thabo Mbeki, is really paying off:
Zimbabwe is in ruins, and it falling further off the face of this earth. Excellent achievement, well done to the super-duo Thabo and Robert!
But more so, Zimbabweans and other foreign Africans are now being hunted down in our very own country, to the extent that today, a mob of looters:
I am ashamed to be associated with this image. I am ashamed that there are people out there with no sense of humanity. I am ashamed, I am angry; I am actually fucking pissed off! This image better be a wake-up call to the South African government, to our very own president, who has so far left his people in the lurch, and has left those fleeing from his quiet diplomacy to burn in hell, literally!
If you don’t understand where I’m coming from, please do yourself a favour and click here to watch “Flames of Hate”.
Whilst completing my studies in Grahamstown I found out that the city has close to 100 religious buildings. So I went on a mission to find them…
Some of the buildings resemble churches, some resemble homes, some basic run-down shacks…but all of them are places of worship.
These pics were all taken on Platform 16, at the main train train station in Johannesburg.
It took me more than an hour and a half to get home on Monday, when I usual don’t spend more than 1o minutes driving back from work. Instead of becoming frustrated I started taking pics out the window, recorded some video footage, the sounds of the rain, the radio, and the traffic. I documented my drive home using my Canon G7 and whipped up a very basic photo-story for The Times. The idea of the photo-story was to convey the feeling, the slience, and even the patience, some drivers have to endure during these chaotic times of power-shedding and thunder storms.
When tomorrow morning’s paper gets slapped on your desk you know you’ve been in the office just a tad too long. And when your sleep is constantly intruded by images of war and repetitive monologues, then you know you’ve been dealing with one issue far too long.
Editing a 1:35 hour audio interview, which is an extremely detailed account of how a guys leg was blown off in Iraq, to make a 8 minute multimedia photo story out of it, proved to be quite a challenge. Not only was the editing process highly time consuming, but the actual content, the detailed explanations, of what was happening over there became haunting figures in my life.
It was however worth all the effort and patience, as it was as always a pleasure and an honour to have been working alongside an amazing photographer like Alon Skuy.
Alon approached me a while back and told me about this story, about a South African chap, Rory Mackenzie, who went to the British army, lost his leg there in a bomb explosion, came back to SA for a break, and wants to go back to Iraq…this meant gaining insight into a topic which has been kept quite distant to the public.
The first step of this lengthy process was to extract the audio, to present it in a logical order, explaining the event. The audio had to be edited about 7 times before coming close to 10 minutes. It was painful having to cut and chop away on an interview which grasps your full attention for the entire 1:35h duration, and where every sentence is an eye-opener…
It was vital for Alon and me to have the same idea and angle about the story, in order to begin the story-boarding process, which happened in correlation to the audio editing process. By looking at the video and photographic footage available, we were able to pinpoint which parts of the interview would be suitable and of course powerful: the aim was to enlighten, also to shock, and of course to make the viewer think critical about the issues.
The most difficult part of finding a way to add visuals where Rory explains the actual account. we had no direct footage of when the incident happened and had to creativley find an alternative. So we used video footage shot by Rory during one of his patrols and added it with some ‘black space’…
After a week of editing, of swapping and changing pictures, videos, and ideas, we finally finished the package, and both of us are happy with the result. The defining moment was adding music to the packaged story, which just added another dimension of effectiveness.
The story, or rather the interview, does entail some foul language, and sensitive viewers might find some of the images disturbing, so be warned, but don’t be put off either, as you won’t often get the chance to hear first hand what it feels like to get a limb blown off your body…
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