A long day

Canon G9

Paris in Red

This was taken through a glass pane on the street, nothing added, no manipulation and although it's different to my normal style, I quite like it.

A few European moments

I was recently in Berlin for a week and in Paris for less than 8 hours. Although I was in neither place to take pictures, I found the few hours in Paris to be far more productive than the time in Berlin. It must have been one of the first days of spring in the city of romance; the sky turned blue, the air was soft and warm, and the entire city seemed intoxicated with either love or the warm day, or perhaps both. There were lovers everywhere; so nice to see romance in an often visibly turbulent and conflictual world.

In contrast, and while I really liked Berlin, the city and much of the population seemed to languish in the grumpiness of winter. Pointing a camera in anyone's direction generally met with an icy stare and after a while it all seemed like too much effort at public relations to bother to continue. Besides, the camera was big and heavy and possibly intimidating. One really needs a small and good camera for this sort of work. And one that is weatherproof.

In the end, I enjoyed doing some images in the classic black and white style of the street photographer. However, I think it must be much harder to do the sort of work now that people did twenty or more years ago and back into the era of Cartier-Bresson. A post-911 world, security, obsessions with privacy and other issues have placed much more restrictions on photographers when it comes to catching the fleeting moments of a 21st century world fast rushing past to God-knows-where.


Images Nikon D700/Canon Ixus

Final Journeys on exhibition

On exhibition in a joint show with photographer Harry Lock at the Fat Tuesday Gallery, Durban, starting Feb 24.

I have always found roadside memorials interesting and sad. Most of us end our lives in a hospital bed or at home; some of us leave this world in more violent or anguished circumstances. But for me, roadside memorials are one of the few places where we share the actual place where someone died, unlike a grave, where we mark someone's final resting place.

In remembering the place that someone died, as we speed past on some highway or byway there is a message - that life is fragile and easily taken from us.

This is an ongoing project and one where I eventually hope to contact the families who are left behind, and do a photographic study.

Unforgiven

Contextually, maybe this is better seen in conjunction with "Forgiven" http://peterbendheimphotography.blogspot.com/2008/01/forgiven.html
This man had just robbed a young nurse of her mobile phone, but she didn't get it back. He had already given to an accomplice who had long since fled.