So the holiday season in South Africa has come and
gone. As normal, great summer weather
was had on the South Coast. Great for
vacationers, not so good for landscape photographers. With the blessing of our South African
sunlight and skies, comes the frustration of harsh light and the lack of
clouds, especially in the mid-summer days.
At least it got me, eventually, to start experimenting with
astrophotography. We have very little
light pollution in this region, but it will still take a while to identify the
right landscape features in relation to the "milky way" as I envisage
to take. First attempts, not to bad, but
definitely not the final results one would hope for. As with all the different aspects and
subjects of the photographic craft, one will have to "walk the road"
to gain the experience, "feel", technical capability and vision for
the specific task at hand.
With all of the
summer vacationers gone,
I am left here, practically alone in our little holiday
village of Cape Infanta. Good time to
get one's mind around 2014, some contemplation, some planning and some
"quiet" time . Sounds strange
to do this at the beginning of the year, and not the end ? Well, in my life, November and December is
normally chaos and kitting up for the family vacation. We are all tired and trying to close the
various "chapters" of the preceding year. Following the wise management principal of 2
thirds planning and 1 third execution, I treasure these quiet times at the
beginning of the year, planning and contemplating on whatever scale is
needed.
On the photography side of things, an exciting year lies
ahead. Since June last year it was a hectic ride to create substance to the
joint venture "PhotoSpace", which offers large scale canvass prints
of a selection of my more "arty" photographic images. Aimed at the interior decorating home and
corporate markets, we had a hectic six months to develop marketing and delivery
structures. We had great exposure and
sales at art exhibitions and markets, particularly on the West Coast of South
Africa, and was even featured in a travel and lifestyle magazine (check out the
Media gallery at www.africanskiesphoto.net). This has made me think, how many phototogs out there realize that
capturing great images are only a part of what is needed to be able derive your
income from photography ? So many new
entrants into the industry, some extremely successful and some extremely
creative phototogs being left in the cold (as far as monetary results are
concerned). It is a long slog through a
mine field, but its a case of "Aluta Continua ". My own elected direction within photography
is somewhat in the middle of Landscaping and Fine Art Photography, but definitely
very much on a dynamic and changing development
process. The results in the Art
Lounge on my website is a result of this.