Monday, October 16, 2006

Joe Don't Live Here No More.

Thank goodness for coffee. Thank goodness for good friends to drink it with, albeit at a godawful time of morning. Thank goodness for contacts that know you, can dig the way you work, and subjects that respect you (and get that you respect them)... and most importantly, again, thank fuck for coffee. A day after an exhibition, and a helluva party following it, and there I was early Monday morning, slurping java in Kloof Street, Cape Town, with three shoots ahead of me before my plane left that afternoon, and little or no schedule.

The shot above is of Sibot, for SL Magazine... thanks to Sarah Callow for understanding my guerilla warfare approach to location shooting. Thanks to Duncan,who helped make it happen, and thanks to Sibot for playing along and kicking together some really grand ideas. Straight after that, I shot his parter-in-crime (at-times), Markus Wormstorm... sadly, that shoot has yet to be used, but when it does, I'll post it. But thanks to Markus for being a good sport... he's not one for bubbling over with joy at having his picture taken.

Then not that much later in the day, I was hanging off the side of a building overlooking District Six, shooting Faith 47... for Marie Claire Magazine. Never saw that one coming. Thanks for Faith's insisting on having me shoot her, and thanks to Marie Claire's people for understanding... on top of this, their art director was new to town, and got lost on the way to the shoot. With me on the way to catch a plane, she had to let me go for it... both she and Sarah put a lot of faith in me in what was a pretty high-speed weekend. Not forty minutes later, and I was winging my way back to Jo'burg, annoying Warren by talking whenever he settled into his iPod, and working on the shot below on my laptop...

Dylan Muhlenberg, of GQ Car, had set up this shoot for me on the Saturday, while the Nighthawks were busy hanging their exhibiton; we rushed off (in the middle of work) in time for sunset on the local driving range, where I shot this guy as men in ugly pants hit tiny balls at me. Fun. By the way, it was for a piece in the mag know as "My Car is My Office" and the driver up front is called Office. Not unusual, to have a non-traditional English name (when your average Whitey cannot get his tongue round the actual Xhosa one), but it was fun watching Dylan try and convince the dude's mates that he HAD to know his real name, as publishing it just as "Office" was not going to fly with his editor.

That done, I had a coffee on the plane, kissed the possiblity of sleep goodbye, and watched Zander and Becs do it instead. That, and annoyed Warren some more... weekend done, back to work on Tuesday, and the first A Nighthawks Project exhibiton under the belt.

Later.