Community Chest

Every year, I do images for the Community Chest, an umbrella charity body in South Africa. It's been an important organisation in South Africa for many years, and it helps a wide variety of institutions and those in need - from the aged to the very young, from people whose bodies are just too old and tired to do what they once did, to those who are mentally challenged. It can be an emotional, yet rewarding job to enter into the lives of people with a camera. Cameras shield us temporarily from emotion, but with some of the images I shot this year, especially kids with autism, it was hard not to feel drained and tired for a few days after the visit.

But I'll let the images do the talking...

Nikon D700

March in July

There is something quite unique about covering a protest march. I've done it a good few times, and the emotions are always the same. Most of the marches in Durban end at the City Hall, so one always arrives in that area about a half an hour before the march does. By this time, the streets are blocked off, and for the big marches, like this one, shops close. There is always that weird and eerie silence in the air; no traffic and very few people as office workers scurry inside just in case it turns ugly. It's like that dead calm just before a big storm, a city in near silence.

In the distance, down the street you can just see the marchers but you can't really hear more than a vague and deep droning noise. In front of them the blue lights flashing of numerous police vehicles. As they get closer you can hear the loudspeakers of the march leaders calling slogans and waiting for the people to reply, in one voice. Then the police vehicles dash up the street towards you, sirens on full blast and blue lights everywhere as they scan the approach for any kind of difficulty. It's here!

Then the first wave arrives, ordered together by the marshals in a box-like formation, chanting in a rhythmic way that you can only really experience in Africa. It's alluring and inviting, and for a moment you forget you have a camera in your hand and you almost want to allow yourself to get mesmerised by the sounds and join in. They come wave after wave, and gather in front of the City Hall in their thousands, to listen to their leaders, and chant. Mostly it's peaceful and good natured, sometimes it isn't...

This was part of a 5-day nationwide strike by city workers for better pay. It left a very dirty city, with bins overturned everywhere and litter uncollected. But it was peaceful and mostly good-natured. It felt good to be out in the streets with a camera, ironically feeling free and safe in the middle of a march of thousands.

Nikon D300

End of a day in the City

A Dry Season

Maybe it was the raging flu, maybe just a reflection of my mood or maybe it just is as it is, but the small towns and farmlands of eastern Free State, South Africa, seemed lonely, poignant and forgotten. Once the heartland of agriculture, I saw a good number of abandoned farms and half-forgotten small towns in this area, just about 100 miles south of the wealthiest city in the nation, Johannesburg.

The roads are scarred and littered with potholes like a wierd skin disease, houses are for sale on every street, and the small village of Edenville has no water; it has to be brought in by big tankers. In the small town of Koppies, what was once a beautiful municipal swimming pool stands deserted and wrecked. It hasn't seen water or the happy sounds of laughing kids for years. It stands opposite the Paradys Hotel (translation : Paradise) which seems far removed from Eden or Paradise.

Small towns are important; they are the engine of rural areas and the nodes and meeting places of once thriving farming communities. I found it sad to see them as I found them, on a winter's day in June 2009.

Comrades Marathon 09 - The race within us

The Comrades Marathon is one of the world's great ultra marathons, run between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg annually, a distance of nearly 90 kilometers. The field of some 12 000 runners includes the serious gold medalists and those who are there with friends, office colleagues and club members. The real comradeship of the race is with the ordinary folk, the majority of entrants, helping each other along, giving encouragement just to get there and make one more agonising step closer to the finish line. Some people dress up, others run for a cause or charity, but most run against themselves, not against someone else. It's the ultimate endurance challenge and for some, the toughest personal challenge adopted through one's own free will and the desire to succeed. It's full of joy, laughter, tears, pain, smiles and the support and cheering of complete strangers who come to marvel and wonder why anyone would ever consciously inflict this on themselves. It's a great day that somehow symbolises all our hopes and dreams, personally, and for a greater sense of unity and hope in South Africa, a country with a past characterised by division rather than comradeship and togetherness.

Camera D700