Diego wants to know

I have not been spared much time to write of late. I’m the first to admit it

And so when I happen upon a link to some outdated published works of mine, I get a funny feeling…

This particular entry is posted on the website Disposable Words .  where I contributed a column or 3  under the  title: In Full View. This particular tome was my take on the World Press Photo Award winning image by South African photographer Jodi Bieber.

In retrospect the article, titled: What Of The Spectacle of Atrocity, smacks of a cynical tone – or juvenile frustration if you will -

The female body is a public space

Prominent South African artist, Zanele Muholi, is a graduate of the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg whose extensive body of work  focuses a great deal on issues of female sexuality and identity, often attracting severe criticism, and at times straight rejection, as a result of the bold, intimate gaze that her camera seems to cast on the naked female form.

Take for instance the recent bruhaha sparked by our Arts and Culture Minister Lulu Xingwana who stormed out of Muholi’s exhibition opening labeling the images ‘pornographic’ and ‘immoral.’ Xingwana’s department was due to speak at the opening given that her department had contributed R300 000 toward the event. The minister’s reaction is telling of the contradictions that inform the way in which society views the female body.

Whether plastered on giant advertising billboards, in magazines, film or art – the fact remains the female body is everybody’s business. Listen to Muholi as she discusses her latest exhibition in which she poses nude in one of Amsterdam’s red-light districts: TimesLIVE Podcast: The black female form under scrutiny

My Problem with Portraiture

A Congolese informal trader, Jumbo, sells shoes on a street corner in downtown Johannesburg. © Thato Mogotsi

I’ve always found Portraiture to be the hardest style of photography to muster mainly because of the difficulty in persuading the subject to assume an attitude of comfort with the camera in the first place i.e.  to look into the lens as though they were looking into the eyes of a friend in a state of confidence. Assuming that is your aim as the photographer.

Moreover, my own experience has in fact led me to believe that, often, people (myself included) have a hard time with engaging eye-contact. There’s a tendency to mask ourselves both literally and metaphorically; to fool the camera, so to speak. Because even though we have agreed to pose for the photographer, the camera remains an ominous object we cannot control and that holds the promise of portraying us in an uncomfortably earnest light. (see above image I took in my early attempts at street portraiture)

But of-course, everything I now know about documentary or shooting people; has convinced me that the process cannot be forced in any way. I have yet to come to terms with that in my work. But I’ll keep you posted.

Best Light

It goes without saying that the first rule of effective photography is learning to capitalize on those well-lit opportunities in our everyday environments. This weekend has presented me with a few moments of perfect natural light. I think it could be due to the fact that I usually tend to whip out my SLR at dusk, seconds before the sun is about to sink into the horizon.

I hardly ever wake up early enough to shoot in the wonderfully crisp dawn light we enjoy in Johannesburg during  Summer. So this weekend, while soaking up the last of the day’s sunshine with friends on the rooftop of a building downtown; this is what I saw:

Nicholas ponders Karabo's curious features © Thato Mogotsi

A couple try to find the words - in a manner of speaking © Thato Mogotsi

And there it goes... © Thato Mogotsi

Performance Art: ‘Se sa Feleng’ by Lerato Shadi

Lerato Shadi performs at Goethe on Main as part of her exhibition entitled 'Se sa feleng' © Thato Mogotsi

Shadi’s performance at the Goethe on Main in Joburg presented a somewhat literal metaphor of the experience of being human. Intentionally so; of-course. The metamorphosis in character that is a direct result of not only the physical but also emotional and mental exertion that the world demands of us.