Life in a township is not easy for children.
Portrait of Zacharias
Tag: township
Gina; the township shepherd variety
A bit of livestock in a township
Two landscapes and a township
In and near Caledon, Western Cape, South Africa
The Wall. No chicken tonight guys …
25 Years after the Berlin Wall came down a new wall is erected in the outskirts of our village. The municipality wanted to buy land from a chicken farmer for the extension of the ‘location’ (township) but the chicken farmer was not happy with that; afraid that more chickens would be stolen by poor hungry people. After 10 years of negotiation an agreement was signed. The land sold but a wall erected to keep unwanted intruders away from the farm.
Winter in South Africa
Collecting fire wood for warmth in the ‘location’ (township).
Soccer: US-shoes versus Stanford feet
I’m not a sports photographer and I will never aspire a career in this specialization. But I was asked to shoot some pictures this afternoon at a soccer match. The local Rotary initiated a volunteers program for students from the USA. These students had a busy week; creating a garden at a school in a township, washing dogs with tick/flee shampoo and diverse other ’empowerment projects’. This afternoon they celebrated their weekend with a soccer match against a team of ‘townshippers’. It was like US-shoes versus African feet. Despite the shoes the students were no match for the locals. And at the end of the match, a group photo of both teams and food for all.
Friendship in Stanford.
Took this shot last month. These little guys showed me around in their location (township) near our village. Forgot their names (Xhosa names are sometimes difficult to pronounce; especially for relative outsiders) but they turned out to be great guides and great friends. I learned and experienced a bit of the harsh conditions quite a few people in South Africa undergo on a daily base.
Out of gratitude for their warm and personal hospitality:
A few loose ends
I just figured out that I delete about 9 out of 10 pictures while they are still in the camera and once filed on the hard disk I delete about half of the ‘chosen ones’. And still I am in doubt about the ‘left-overs’. That also applies for the photoshopped elements (“imaginaries” as I call these). Normally I erase about 6 or 7 out of 10 after finishing them and later 1 or 2 others by review. Of the latter ones here a few examples plus a few examples of pictures which, on third/fourth thought also will be trashed…. Still a long way to go but (originally a Dutch expression) “Practice makes perfect”.
The image above is a photoshopped ‘cross breed’ between the flowers of a cactus and a succulent plant from South Africa. The large picture below is that of ‘Township mothers in South Africa photographing the future for later’ and is an impression of the graduation ceremony and township/location visit I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The second imaginary below is what I named ‘Traditional values’
Herman van Bon Photography 