Phuthu Stay Phut, Don't go!

How do you know when you love someone? I asked Jeremy this question about 10 years ago when we were still dating because the words “in love” seemed so intangible at that point and my left-brain needed a logical explanation of the term.

“Well, it’s when you feel like you would do absolutely anything for that person”, he said. And although I can’t remember where we were at the time or when exactly it was, I’ll never forget those words. I can’t. You see, I am reminded of it every day…. I know this is kinda sounding like a soppy post, but please bear with me, I hardly ever write soppy stuff guys. Suck it up (I wanted to add Biiiiiiiatch onto the end of that but thought it may offend some readers).

I just had to share this one thing with you – The other night, after arriving home after a late Cape Town flight, Jeremy grabbed his headtorch and headed down to the office, crawled under the desk and went to see if he could diagnose my computer woes. When I saw him hunched under the desk, I smiled, sighed contentedly, and then grabbed the camera  to document what a lucky girl I am. And that’s the soppy story over…Ta-daa!

Whilst not as exhilarating as mountain biking, hiking still has its good points, especially when you’re pregnant:

1. You don’t have to carry a backpack – hubby carries it all

2. You get to stop a lot – We just couldn’t risk peanut getting into oxygen debt now could we. It has absolutely nothing to do with me being unfit or anything.

3. The hikes are not too long – again we wouldn’t want peanut (actually it’s more like a cashew nut) to get into oxygen debt.

4. You get to stop and eat at the top!

We went to Shongweni this weekend and before we could even get to the rocky path that led us up to the cliff, we had to walk through the Dam Wall tunnel. Well, I did a seriously fast, crouched, run-walk because there were spiders, big ones, along the entire length of the tunnel which was lit sporadically with 60 watt bulbs. It was spooky but I suppose it could have been worse – bats, snakes and toads also like dark places. Aaargh! Needless to say that on our way back, I had no qualms about wading through the river to get back to the other side.

This is the stopping and eating part I was referring to in point 4 above.

This is the dozing off part which I failed to mention in the list above,..

And this is going back down the path – I love working with gravity. The building in the top part of the picture is the dam wall – beautiful on the outside but prime real estate for orange and black spiders on the inside….

I went to Pinetown Boys High School (yes I’m admitting that in public!) We had an insanely extroverted, fun and definitely certifiable art teacher, a Miss Johnson. At our school we had an ancient disused darkroom which she helped me to get permission to use. The equipment was old, the paper and chemicals even older but I eventually figured out how to do my own black and white printing. Watching the image slowly appearing on the paper in the bowl of chemical developer was really exciting!

In my matric year, one of our projects was to paint/draw/photograph life in Durban city center. So one day, a friend and I caught the bus into town on a mini artist’s adventure. Armed with my new camera bag my mom had just bought me and my old Pentax Spotmatic I was ready! We spent the day wandering around town and it turned out to be one of my most productive days out. Below are some of the images I got that day.

This picture remains one of my favourites to this day although no-one else seems to like it. I love the composition, how it’s divided into thirds, the different textures and the point of interest in the fisherman.

This one is also one of my favourites. In those day’s no-one seemed to mind the taking of photographs in the harbour. I don’t know if it was allowed or not but I snapped away merrily anyway….I love the depth of field and the bold outlines of the 2 guys.

This one was taken in the centre of town of  part of the old station which has been restored and I think is now part of the Tourist Information Centre.

It was days out like this which really motivated me to take more pictures, as a rule, if I got one image out of a roll of film that I thought was really good, I had had a successful day.

It was the definition of a “really good image” that was to become a stumbling block later on. What was a good image? I still cant really answer that question.

More about that next week……..

I got our Dusi 2010 photos in the post the other day and I couldn’t help but notice the difference in our facial expressions on one section. The pics were at Ngumeni Portage, after a long uphill and then a loooong downhill….

Here’s me:

Cool, happy, chilled….and I might even go as far as saying…fresh.

And here’s Superjerm…

…at his sexiest…

Okay but he did have the back of the boat which is a lot heavier than the front. But still.

So, the boss lady said I could have my own weekly contributors slot on Phuthu.co.za, finally she has realized my worth as a writer!

So I think it will be about my other love (or hate, I’m not quite sure), photography. The thing about photography, it’s a moment in time frozen forever, sounds cheesy I know but think about it, that moment can never ever be repeated, that image can never be re-created!

I’ve had an interest in taking pictures ever since I can remember. When I was sixteen, me mum bought me a second hand Pentax Spotmatic which was older than I was! It was a fully manual 35mm film camera that I thought it worked really well! I collected a few second hand lenses and delighted in trying to get the lens as long and as professional looking as possible by adding, 2x converters, lens filters and lens hoods. I figured that the longer my lens was, the better a photographer I would be. They now tell me that size doesn’t matter so that’s a relief……

Having a fully manual film camera really taught me the fundamentals of photography, from aperture to film speed etc. I had a little book (I still have it today) written by John Hedgeco on holiday photography that I must have read 20 times. The mystery of film was that you would never know how your shots would turn out, it was quite an anxious wait at the 1hour photo lab to see if any of your images turned out! (actually I think 1 hour labs came later, it probably took 3 days back then!)

Below is one of my first black and white images, I was a particularly proud  sixteen year old back then, I thought it was a masterpiece! There was no doubt I would become a famous photographer! If you look carefully can you see me sitting on the lounge floor with my camera on a tripod and my faithful Labrador ‘bracken” sitting with me.

The school years ….To be continued next week…………..

We descended on Cape Town this weekend, along with 40 000 other Argus competitors and their families. We hired a car which was terribly non-descript, so much so that we lost it whenever we parked it anywhere hahaha. Tip: Don’t choose non-descript car.

We stayed at the Garden Court in Woodstock, thanks to Dutton Plastics. And it was here at the Garden Court that I discovered 7 things:

1. I love buffets
2. but only when I’m real hungry…which is all the time.
3. Green jelly tastes much better when you take it from a buffet. With a tablespoon of cream.
4. You need to put your bread through the toaster conveyer twice to get a good Maillard reaction.
5. Tea with 1 Cremora sachet and 2 mini-long-life-hotel-milks deliver a darn good cup of tea.
6. Eat baked beans in moderation.
7. There are a lot of French people in Cape Town. They didn’t mind the croissants either. I thought they would have been fussy about that but I saw them piling them up for breakfast. Swear.

I really didn’t spend that much time at the buffet.

On Saturday we drove our little non-descript around the peninsula and stopped at the Salty Sea Dog in Simonstown for battered hake. My little soul was dancing in her tap shoes.

We also stopped off at Cape Point which was like Durban beachfront on New Years Day. Packed! But it was a good walk and we succumbed to the role of tourist by taking pics of everything really.

At 6.15am on Sunday Morning, hair blowing very sexily in 40km/hour wind, we stood on the bridge just below the hotel and tried to get a glimpse of Lance Armstrong.

Whhoooooosh. And they were gone. All I know is that he is somewhere in this bunch. Who wants to play Where’s Wally?

My man started at 9.00am whilst I tried to navigate little non-descript to the Waterfront 4km away. I had a GPS and still got lost. I had the women’s voice going:

Enter roundabout and take first exit

Recalculating

Turn left

Recalculating

Recalculating

The recalculating representing all the times I was ignoring the directions. It was definitely a liberating experience. Who needs a GPS anyway? Pfff.

Shopping was so not on my to-to list so I listened to the musicians and enjoyed the sunshine.  Aaah they impressed me, they just keep singing for hours and then I couldn’t resist anymore and bought one of their CD’s.

My man loved the ride, he checked out the scenery and chatted to people and didn’t even make mention of the gusty wind. What a trooper!

Well done to Juan and all the Dutton riders!