Seeing again..in the rainbow nation

Art does not reproduce what we see, it teaches us to see.”

• book eli the movie

-Paul Klee

Sometimes, going for a walk with the camera can show us things we might not otherwise notice. Sometimes we have to get out of our own way and be open to whatever presents itself to us.

The flight across from New Zealand is long and arduous, and frankly I don’t know how the rugby teams that travel from New Zealand to South Africa or back do it. Whichever way you do it, whether it’s through Perth or the 14 hour haul from Sydney to Johannesburg, it’s a long way across many time zones. As I entered the departure gate Christchurch airport, it occurred to me that I was going into limbo, into a space where Time has no real meaning to the traveller. Even setting my watch to multiple time zones didn’t help. I was disconnected from Space and Time, merely a unit being moved through the system. I had entered a pipeline, and until I emerged from the other end, I was really in a place between. It was only when I cleared customs in Johannesburg, and was able to step outside, to feel the sun and wind, and the infinite multi-layered subtlety of smells that is Africa, that I began to feel  I was reconnecting.

My body thought otherwise. I was a smorgasbord of aches and pains and stiffness, and I knew It was going to take several days until I adjusted, and began to feel reconnected. It took a walk on the Helderburg Mountains, observing the plants, feeling the wind, and coating my shoes with the red mud that seems so strange when you come from New Zealand with its grey soil, to feel as if I was finally here.

I wanted to go for a walk around the dorp (vllage), to get a feeling for Stellenbosch. Having been here before, I had some idea of what to expect, but the half-day I had enjoyed three years ago had slid out the back door of my memory. It was time to renew the acquaintance.

I knew something of the history of the town, the second oldest in South Africa, and the careful preservation of the colonial architecture kept it to the fore. So what better way to rebuild the memory, then to approach on foot with a camera?

My favourite method of doing this is to take a single camera and a single lens, in this case the 24-70 zoom lens, which is one of the sharpest tools in my camera bag.  Camera over my shoulder, wallet and phone, and a cardholder with a few cards. Cap, shirt, Bata Bullets. Good to go. I set off up Dorp Straat on foot. Looking, just looking.

Settled in the early 1600s, Stellenbosch contains some wonderful examples of Cape Dutch architecture. The early settlers brought their architectural style with them from Holland, but blended in the African method of roofing, with long scratchy runs of heavy black thatch. It’s surprisingly effective, I am told, but somehow creates an architectural dichotomy. For all that, it is functional and effective, and wonderfully unique.

For a time I wandered along the street, try not to break my leg in the 30 cm deep slote (gutters) which line the street, while I photographed the windows and doorways, and the trees which broke up the severe Protestant lines. Because I had come without any sort of photographic agenda, I photographed whatever took my attention; the markings on the footpath, the condiments on the table in the cafe where I stopped for a coffee, signs in Afrikaans advertising sales and specials, mosaics on the footpath, and the movement of people on the street. I wandered past a market in the centre of town where the aggressive stallholders, mostly from the north and west of Africa, did their best to draw me in and offload their wares onto me. For a really cheap price of course … but one that would be unbelievable, since it was winter, or they were having run-out specials, or they really liked me …

I moved on, ambling along the road, open to whatever showed itself. A shot here, a shot there, chimping as I went, trying to get my eye back in. Gradually the connection between scene and image began to close. Looking at the picture on my rear LCD, then comparing it to what was in front of me was beginning to make me think about what it was that made this such a special town. Looking at the architecture, comparing the old with the new, noticing Bottle Man in his rundown clothing as he pushed a supermarket trolley filled to overflowing with bottles past a late model seven-series BMW, I began to reconnect with the dichotomy which is South Africa.

On the one hand, the Cape Dutch architecture spoke of a culture firm in its beliefs, of a rigid social structure and a distinctly monotheistic approach underpinning it all. This was a direct, deliberate culture heading in a single direction. But this is Africa, and for every truth you discover, its opposite holds equal weight and validity.

began to realise that wherever I turned, the streets contained life-sized bronze sculptures of the great cats: lions, leopards, cheetahs. They crouched almost attentively, frozen in time and metal, as if somebody had pushed the pause button. Somehow their immobility echoed the proud strictures of the European culture. But all around them there was movement. People were passing, walking to and fro, moving from one place to another. Energy, life, laughter.  The contrast got my attention more and more.

Then, as I wandered past the Magistrates Court, I saw two men armed with paint rollers and 20 L buckets of white paint, having an earnest discussion about something. While they were covered in paint, the building they were obviously supposed to be painting was probably getting less than they had on them. They laughed and joked for a while, then picked up a ladder and carried it around the end of the building. I found a spot across the road and stopped to watch.

A couple of minutes later they returned, carrying the ladder in the opposite direction. More mirth and hilarity, then they put it down, and picked up their paint buckets. Perhaps this time they were going to put some paint on the walls.

I noticed a sign high up on the wall. Written in an antique font were the words Slavenhuis (1841), obviously accommodation for slaves in a previous era. So they had had slavery here, after all. That might explain the somewhat defensive nature of the Cape Dutch architecture, or perhaps the small windows were just a reflection of the price of glass back in the day. I continued to watch their desultory attempts at productivity.

Then one of them saw me standing there and noticed the camera. Take our picture; he yelled across the street, you take our picture. I moved across towards them. How long have you guys being painting this building, I asked. Long time, the taller of the two replied.

I think I understood why.

Wonderful, I said, shall we take the photograph here, and pointed at the white wall. They moved into position, holding their roller extensions and paint buckets, and the taller of the two pointed to the sign high up on the wall. Make sure you get that, he replied. So, even though they were dominated by white wall and small in the frame, I made the photograph. Then I moved closer to photograph them from the waist up. Nice hat, I said, pointing to the elongated Rasta bonnet the taller one wore. That’s where I keeps my power, he replied. He probably didn’t need me to tell him about Samson.

Then, as we walked back to the place where they kept the ladder, which was obviously in need of another walk, the taller one, noticing my foreign accent, asked, where are you from? New Zealand, I replied. Ah, he said, the All Blacks. He pointed to his partner and said: his favourite team. The other Companion of the Ladder grinned: that’s because I am black like them. The laughter broke out again. Then the pair of them moved away behind the scenes, presumably to stop the ladder from stiffening up.

Later, as I looked at the file on my screen, the word snapshot came to mind, and the photographs made by Richard Avedon, when he travelled around the United States, photographing oil workers, carnies, and the sort of people who would never normally be the subject of photographs. His direct, neutral and unprejudiced vision elevated them to an iconic status. It was he, after all, who invented and developed the white studio. In bringing to the field the technique he perfected over many years as a fashion photographer, he was able to allow the subjects to be themselves, to show themselves as they were. Unconsciously I realised I was trying to do the same.

But the word snapshot also came to mind. In the encounter with the two workmen, I was also making a snapshot, a one-off observation of life, and the relationship between these two men and their culture, and the one in which they found themselves. The sense of one-off had a quality of the Polaroid in it, and that influenced the post-production.

Paul Klee’s aphorism was holding true yet again.

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Published on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009, under Thinking about Photography and Art