SA Rocks

The below video was sent to me by Simon Davidson. This is his video.

Photographing at sunrise requires a little bit of planning and the ability to wake up to your alarm clock at 5:00am… In this video you will get an inside look at a sunrise shoot which takes place on the Knysna Lagoon in Southern Africa.

The video has over 6000 views on Vimeo which I think is a great achievement by Simon.

Shooting at Sunrise – Photography from SimonDavo on Vimeo.

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I absolutely love the idea of virtual tours. The guys over at Virtual Africa are doing a sterling job of capturing Africa and allowing us to view it online, 360degrees around.

Here’s one I found from virtualtourguide of the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Actually quite a magnificent place to visit if you never have. Be sure to look for little white arrows that appear in the images below, click them to be taken to a new venue. Takes a bit of time to load.

Be sure, once things have loaded, to enter “Full screen mode”. You will be amazed.

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Our first proper day of excursions kicked off today with a helicopter tour of Cape Town. What an absolutely stunning city CT is. I wont go in to that too much because this post is purely going to show you all the bloggers on the tour with me and the links to their respective projects or blogs.

Virtual Africa is the brains behind this amazing photograph. They will be supplying the tour with more panoramic shots as we progress through the trip.

For now you click on the image below to visit the full panoramic view or click here.

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I haven’t featured a photographer from the SA Rocks Flickr Group in a while and thought this was a great opportunity.

Charlotte_ZA from on Flickr just added the following stunning photographs to the SA Rocks group on Flickr.

Charlotte_ZA has some absolute phenomenal photographs of bands on her flickr profile page so head over and have a look.

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André van Rooyen and I met up recently at Capello’s in Sandton. We got to talking about copyright, images online, ownership and the like.

I have been dying to try and get something off the ground as an initiative to help SA Rocks Flickr group contributors. André was the first one to come to me with the idea of printing a book of his photographs and getting his work out there. I am more than happy to announce that we have (well mostly André) successfully used Blurb.com to set up André’s very first photographic book: The Fairest Cape.

Get to Blurb now and

BUY THIS BOOK!!!

The Fairest Cape

My romance with the light and the seas off the Cape, in images

You can head over to blurb where André has his book on sale. You can preview the first 15 pages of the book and get a taste of what you’d be buying. The quality of the paper (the actual book) is great and André has designed himself a magnificent piece of work.

I would really implore you to head over and buy his book, let’s support local online enthusiasts who have hobbies that make our country look absolutely phenomonal.

I would also like to ask you to blog about the book and let your readers have a look at his work and spend some money! Prices start at $22.95 excl shipping and local taxes.

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In the name of the photographic theme this week on SA Rocks I feel compelled to point you to a great new photography website by Simon Davidson.

He is picturing Africa (South Africa) by the alphabet. Yes, A to Z. These will be Simon’s themes. A is for apple, B is braai C is for country and so on.

From the website:

26 photographs, the alphabet and the love for both photography and South Africa!

A photograph will be captured for each letter of the alphabet. Every letter making a word that relates to South Africa. Every photograph capturing the word in one still image. Beginning at letter A, and heading towards letter Z! A new post will be made every 3-4 days!

The Aim!

Many people living in South Africa have a very negative mindset towards the country and through iPicAfrica.com I hope to show that there is so many positives here. Rather than complain about what isn’t going right, try focus on the positives of the country and work around these to make a difference!

‘Don’t find fault, find remedy!‘ – (Henry Ford)

Why the name, iPicAfrica?

iPicAfrica.com was chosen because of its double meaning.

1. i Pic Africa – (I picture/photograph Africa) 2. i Pic Africa – (I choose/pick Africa)

Who is behind this idea!

My name is Simon Davidson and I am both the editor and photographer for iPicAfrica.com!

I love the idea and Simon is proving to be very creative from what can be seen so far.

Here are A and B for your enjoyment. But be sure to head over to ipicafrica.com and visit often or simply subscribe via RSS!

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I have been asked to judge a competition. I always like being asked to judge things, it makes me feel, well, important. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen but nonetheless I am judging a photography competition.

JustSouthAfrica.co.za is hosting a competition.

From the site:

Finding South Africas best photos. Submit your photos, 5 judges will evaluate them and all nominees can use the nominated badge on their website. Monthly winners can add their winning badges and get their winning photo printed on canvass.
First Prize 900 x 600 print on canvas,
Second Prize 600 x400 canvas print
Third Prize 400 x 300 print.

As many of you know I set up an SA Rocks Flickr group a while back. The response to that group has been quite impressive. The group has amassed over 3000 photographs of incredible quality. So if you are interested in taking part simply visit justsouthafrica.co.za and get registered and going.

As the blurb above states, five judges will all login and vote on the photographs as they are uploaded. The prizes are pretty good if you ask me and will look fantastic on your wall if you win. So get snapping.

And just for some motivation here are some photographs that I’ve taken in the past while studying photography at Rhodes University:

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One of the small, unknown successes that has come out of SA Rocks is the Flickr group that I set up about 18 months ago.

Here are some quick stats:

There are 3039 photographs in the group.
There are 158 members (including myself) in the group.
The top five contributors are: mallix, Calico182, Debby Champion, andreinafrica and finepixtrix.

Here’s a photograph from each of the top five contributors:

And finally the top four tags in the group are:

southafrica
africa
capetown
ocean

I urge you to go and rummage through the SA Rocks Flickr group. There are some absolutely phenomenal photographs on display. If you really are feeling friendly today you could even post a few of the photos on your blog and link to the photographers Flickr page.

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This week we have the pleasure of chatting to one Steve Crane. A very proficient photographer and “long-time” member of the SA Rocks Flickr group!

How long have you been taking photos for?

Most of my life, on and off. As a young child I used a Kodak Brownie that belonged to my mother and later was given my own Kodak Instamatic by an aunt. I think that broke as somewhere in my teens I bought myself another Instamatic. In those days I wasn’t conscious of an interest in photography but simply wanted to record events. My real interest started in my early twenties when I bought a used Pentax Spotmatic-F SLR and a few lenses. I started reading books and learning more about the photographic process but sadly, a few years later when I had a young family to support and times were tough, I sold that camera, something I still regret today. That must have been in 1987 or 88 and it was only in 2000, when I bought my first digital camera that I rekindled my interest in photography.

Favourite subject matter?

I enjoy photographing all sorts of subjects but would have to say that people are my favourite. I like nothing more than strolling around at the beach or in the streets taking candid photos. I also have a love for aircraft that goes back to my teens and thoroughly enjoying photographing them at airshows, which sadly are few and far-between in South Africa.

What camera equipment do you use?

My current main camera is a Canon EOS 30D digital SLR. I have a selection of lenses but have yet to be able to afford truly top quality glass and my lenses are very much from the lower, consumer end of the market. I also have a 1980s vintage Praktica 35mm SLR that I like to use from time to time. Being fully manual it forces you to slow down and think carefully about every shot you take. I’m always browsing through secondhand stores on the lookout for old cameras and last year found an old 35mm rangefinder that I added to my collection. Then there is the Canon digital compact that I carry around most of the time so that I’m always able to record anything of interest I see, even if I wasn’t out with photography in mind.

What is the most interesting place in SA that your photography has taken you to?

I don’t really travel much so this is a difficult question. I think that having an interest in all things military, the most interesting place I have visited was probably the old naval gun battery above Simonstown. I would have loved to spend hours there photographing all the detail of the rusting guns but there were some dodgy looking characters around so I thought it prudent not to stay too long.

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Trying to keep up with my decision to conduct more interviews and to help out the incredible photographers in the SA Rocks Flickr group, I present to you andreinafrica, AKA Andre van Rooyen:

My start in digital photography came in a roundabout way. I was Googling wallpaper images, and came across an amazing image of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, covered in a layer of cloud, with just the very tops of the towers showing. The photographer was John Curley, of the San Francisco Chronicle, and of Flickr. Following the rabbit-hole led me into the online world of photo-sharing, and suddenly, the digital camera which had *not* been at the top of my to-buy list, was calling my name.

What followed was a mad 3-month dash. Purchase camera (Polaroid i532 PNS), sign-up (Flickr Pro), shoot and post anything that would stand still long enough, discover camera limits, purchase new camera (Fuji S5600 super-zoom), shoot and post anything that would stand still (and some stuff that wouldn’t!), discover more, different camera limits, all the while being inspired by the amazing photographers on Flickr, John Curley, Joe Cantoni, Kristin Hayes, Paul Bruins, Lisa MacDonagh, Deborah Lattimore, and many, many more…

Then, only 2 and half months in, I took a huge deep breath, and purchased yet another new, better, camera (Nikon D40 DSLR)… And suddenly, I was home…

You’ll often hear advice about buying a camera, that goes like this:

Pick it up, handle it, shoot a few, you’ll know what fits right.

Wise words. Handling the D40 felt like a hand, severed at birth, had been re-attached. Overnight I went from searching through my card for images that pleased me, to regularly shooting images that I could sit and stare at for ages… A very happy puppy, I was

That was a little over 17000 D40-images, and 12 months ago. It has been, without a shadow of doubt, the most rewarding, artistic, me-thing, that I’ve ever done. Actually, it’s pretty much the only artistic thing I’ve ever done, and that alone has been a revelation for me.

So, what do I like shooting and why? When I signed up on Flickr, I choose the name ‘andreinafrica’. Flickr has grown exponentially in the last year, by numbers and by countries, but back then the overwhelming majority of Flickr shooters were Americans (or at least it felt that way…). I wanted to show some of *my* Africa. That it is, as good, and as beautiful, as anywhere in the world, and perhaps even better, and more beautiful, if you know where to look

What a ride 2007 has been. The gorgeous places I’ve been, the amazing things I’ve seen, the wonderful people I’ve met. I went pretty much everywhere I could in pursuit of the photo’s I knew would showcase South Africa. The Golden Gate Highlands in January, the Kruger Park in February, the Little Karoo, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and Cape Peninsula in April/May, the Waterberg in July, the Bluff in Durban in August, the Pretoria Photomarathon in September, the Expressions of Cape Town exhibition in the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town (Yay!),the Cape Peninsula and the Cape Wes-kus in glorious summer, in October. 850-odd Flickr posts. Wow!

Now that it’s a little calmer and I have a workflow, and likes and dislikes sorted and identified, I can say that my first love is seascapes and landscapes, preferably at sunset or sunrise. Wildlife is next on the list, followed by lunar-photography (or lunacy, as the set is named I’m notoriously resistant to people photography, with failures (retirements-in-disgrace, actually) in pretty much any form of people portraiture… Ah well, in another life perhaps

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