Spring Time

Hi there , an another month is over. The spring is in the air and the cold South African winter is almost gone. And because of that the Emfuleni municipality and some others are joining forces by organizing various events throughout springtime that will be from the end of August to October 9. The opening of the events month called 'Carnival” was a boat tour on the Vaal river. That was really nice with food beverages and more than three hours of speeches. Next month I will follow this up.

It was women's day here in South Africa. That is a public holiday on August 9. This commemorates the national march of women on this day in 1956 to petition against legislation that required African persons to carry the "pass", special identification documents which curtailed an African's freedom of movement during the Apartheid era.

Because it is only one day the South Africans typically extended that day to a whole month. So I did a bunch of official women's day (month) celebrations at a magistrate court, university and a police station.

Official was also a tree planting ceremony in Zamdela township near Sasolburg, where local entrepreneurs symbolically were planting a few trees for a good cause. Yes people world peace is just around the corner. Although I made nice pictures by using my wide angle lens and making the pics from the ground up the whole subject was too corny for me.

Me and Lazie went also to Evaton township to make some nice pics of the township life. Good stuff. 

I made good pics that tells the stories and captures the new South Africa, I will post them on my website and Flickr.

Sien jou volgende maand

Round up July

Well hello. The month is over, so here's is summary of what I did this month on the photographic field. At the beginning of the month I got a call from a friend who said that a union strike was in progress. I went to the industrial area. When I arrived they were already busy with dancing and singing joyfully( I like these strikes).The employees of several steel companies wanted a 13% wages increase instead of the 7%, what they were promised. There are a lot of strikes here in South Africa, so this was not something special.

I also worked on various projects including the “Evaton” project which I try to discover the township Evaton.

And there was the New Life Centre project that I mentioned in a my previous post. I came in contact with the shelter because there was a fund raisin event at the beginning of this month I will do a follow up, but then with a different shelter. In township Sebokeng was a riot going on. Lazarus a local journalist which I do a lot of stories with and I went there and found a little xenophobia going on. Just after we arrived they arrested a man of Ethiopian origin because he allegedly raped a 10 year old girl. The local residents became furious that followed with several molestations on Ethiopians which a man was slightly injured. I made also pictures of arrests that were made after illegally tapping of electricity. The police invited us to join them, that resulted in a real police escort, that was pretty cool.
On the lighter subject. Omo (the washing powder) had an contest and asked me to make some pics of the winners of ZAR 10000, congrats.
During the weekend of 16 and 17 July, me and my girlfriend went away for the weekend to a game farm. The main reason we went there was because I was going to make a cover story about game hunt. In July the hunting season is in South Africa is fully in progress, so that was two whole days of being very quiet and concentrated when I followed the hunters. The cover story is now showing on my website, link here. As title “Survival Game”

At last there was Mandela day, Tata Madiba ( Nelson Mandela) was managed to become 93 years old, the man celebrated his birthday with his family and the country were doing good things for the community like providing goods for homeless shelters, painting churches or... whatever. This is just once a year, so for me I find it too hypocrite to mention.

See you next month.

New Life Centre

Hi all, Some times I can't stop to thinking of...why I'm doing this. But why not?

A few weeks ago I went to A shelter for children from 5 to 17 years old. The New life Centre is a shelter that currently has 18 children. It is running by Anton & Veronica Mocke. They are the good people who take the children from the homes that became to hardrd to live anymore. Because of several reasons. Drinking, drugs, abuse or all of them.

I went a few weeks ago to make cover story and what I saw were beautiful children, spontaneous, motivated and full of dreams. Everyone got their own story, from worse to very worse. Harry 16 years old is living at the shelter because he was a bad boy. He did drugs little crimes and ran a few times away from his aunt where he stayed. When you listened deeper to his story, he added that when he was 5 years old his father murdered his mother and sister when he was drunk. before he killed himself.

The shelter don't get any support from the government because the law don't allow to support "white' shelters.
cause the black empowerment law.

Evaton

Evaton is a township about 60 km south of Johannesburg and north of Sebokeng. It was etablished in 1904. and is on of the few remaining townships, which residents still enjoyed land tenure or property rights before freehold
property rights were formerly restored to Africans.  
Evaton was originally a freehold township and, although most owners were forced to sell properties.

Its a running project so... more in the future. I've posted some pics on Flickr. 

Back 2 Siboneli & Municipality elections

I'm went back to the Seboneli school for the Visual Impaired. I made school photo's about the children. It's a bit struggling to get the pics right cause of course the children are blind, deaf or both. For me it nice to see that children are take care of. The school is nice and clean, the teachers are very helpful and patience and my contact Sam Boshielo is a nice guy who take good care of the children. The school also has a hostel because the children are coming from all over the country.

May 18 election day for South Africa. The citizens above 18 years are then allowed to vote for their favourite party in the 3thrd annual municipality elections since the end of the Apartheid

The ANC dominates the governing system of the country, but by the many (corruption) scandals, broken promises and questionable decisions many people begin to doubt the party that freed South Africa from the apartheid. Many people thinks that South Africa is not the democracy that they were hoping for. Experts believe that these elections will bring several changes

I did a photo report about the volunteers from the ANC operatives in Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg. The volunteers in the run up to the elections of 3 hours at night until late into the night trying to voters to win. For these people, the ANC is the only party that can help South Africa and especially they criticize the other parties.

When you vote for the ANC, Also you are choosing to go to heaven. When you do not vote for the ANC You Should Know That You Are That Man Who Carries choosing a fork ... people who cooks. 
 "said President Zuma

Watch these pics on my Flickr account.

Story about South Africans hidden poverty

I'm doing a story about the white poverty in South Africa, a story about a lot of white South Africans whom are living under the povertyline. It's about 10% of the white population in South Africa. There's a law that people who consider themselves the designated  party get priority for a job. Some people say that the a lot of people are 'victims of reverse-apartheid'
For me as a outsider I find this very awful. It is becoming more awful when also a president takes sides, but for me I find it a type of revenge what the government is doing here.
The world said that the apartheid in South Africa is over...not entirely. It has moved to a another level of civilisation. 
This is a silent problem, that must be cared of.

I also linked a photostory from Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly who went to South Africa and made these pictures.

The polaroids of Jamie Livingston

Jamie Livingston was a New York-based photographer, film maker and circus performer. Between 1979 and 1997, he took a single picture nearly every day with a Polaroid Camera.
In 1979, Livingston received a Polaroid camera and after a few weeks noticed that he was taking about one photo a day, which subsequently evolved into the Polaroid a day project.
Livingston's Polaroid a Day charted his experiences with a brain tumor and his subsequent engagement and marriage. The day-to-day often took precedence over more unusual subjects. His photographs in and out of hospital continued up until the day of his death. He died on October 25th 1997 age 41.

Some polaroids became missing but 6,697 Polaroids remain.