Saturday night fun photographing the eclipse.

One of the first pics I got after I ran up to grab my camera was this one. I was using a 18-55 lens and soon mounted my zoom which is 100 to 300 to take the majority of the rest of these pictures.After I had put on my 100 to 300 mm lens this is a pic I got of the eclipse almost complete.

It was interesting to watch how fast the moon moved over the two plus hours that I was tracking it and taking pictures and watch the stars that acted as escorts as it moved through the night sky.

Where did the moon go? All I see is a few stars!

Everything is okay as the moon is back again to illuminate our night sky for another day or night rather.

In the end I put my smaller lens on again and got one last pic from afar of the moon post eclipse.

What a surprise when you have no idea that there is going to be an eclipse.* That was the feeling last night when the moon came over the hill on the other side of the river and I soon realized a chunk of it was missing. Particularly strange as I thought it was supposed to be a full moon. It didn’t dawn on me right away what I was witnessing and I talked briefly with two people about the “strange moon” before a third said it must be an eclipse. We were so shocked as the calendar had shown that it was supposed to be a full moon and we had been watching the moon get fuller each night at dinner so when it came up and looked like the cookie monster had started to eat it we were rather speechless.

As soon we realized what was happening I grabbed the dinner that I had been preparing and got back to my room ASAP to grab my camera and tripod and spend the next few hours tying to photograph this not-so-daily phenomenon. In fact the last eclipse I remember really paying attention to was in Mozambique in 2002 when I saw it from Chibuto (near Chókwè) in Gaza province with friends and a fellow teacher who drove us to witness the solar eclipse. As follows are some of the over 60 pictures I took some in vain and some with decent results but I soon realized that my experience photographing eclipses, newness of using my digital SLR and quality of my equipment was no match for this celestial oddity.

*Having not watched TV (what a relief) or listened to the radio or read the (printed) newspaper in over a month it is hard to know what is going on in the world. I am not totally cut off having our satellite internet connection but it is slow and intermittent at best. But I still can’t complain. So this brings us to why the eclipse on Saturday was such a surprise.

Coffee table South Africa: “Shack Chic", an interesting and controversial look at poverty, townships, dignity and creativity in South Africa

Last Sunday after church I was at the house of some church friends and I came across a a book which immediately rubbed me the wrong way and I was a bit offended that someone was making money (again) by exploiting poor South Africans and their modest living situations. But as I got past the cover and start to realize that this wasn’t just a book full of images but a collection of images mixed together with quotes, poems, stories, social commentary and seemed to have been the culmination of time, energy and research. The more I went through it the more I thought that it could either be a coffee table book for people who have never lived in or visit such situations to have out to share with their friends or a way to raise the consciousness of South Africans and others who have no real concept of how a growing population of South Africans are living. It also seemed to bring a sense of pride and dignity to people living in situations that many would find to be shocking or unacceptable. From the pages came the strong sense of community, creativity, camaraderie and resourcefulness and more that the people and places highlighted in this book possess and represent for many South Africans not shown or mentioned.

The book is called Shack Chic and if you go to Quivertree Publications you can see some of the intriguing and intrusive images that it contains. As a photographer, traveler, social justice advocate and student I went through many emotions while seeing the photographs and reading the word contained within this book and really need to look at it again to see it again with “fresh” eyes. When I got home on Sunday I went right to the internet to find out more about this book and found an interesting article from August of 2002 at BBC.com. If you go to Africa Book Centre Limited and scroll all the way down you can find the book for sale. Most of you won’t buy it from here as you are not in this part of the world but in an effort to promote photography and writing from Africa I am sharing this site. As I try to promote the “little guys” or at least the “littler” guys if you are in the Pacific NW in the States I found that Powell’s Books (a Portland favorite) has copies of the book as well. A simple search on the net will most likely find a bookstore or library near you with the book.

In my search to know more about “Shack Chic” and what people are saying about it I found an article online by Milia Lorraine Khoury which about a South African photographer, Zwelethu Mthethwa, whose work was unknown to me before finding this story. The article is academic as it was written for an art course at the University of Cape Town. In this article Khoury write an insightful and scathing section on Shack Chic and similar publications. She says, “In publications like Shack Chic…photographing has reverted back to a colonising eye. People are exoticised and ‘othered’ once again, by the scrutiny of the lens. There is an element of spectacle in these images by Fraser, as if these people are expected to entertain, and their living quarters are looked upon and perceived as curious and strange. The hyper-real colour in these images suggests an untrue depiction of reality, with the ‘truth’ element from Mthethwa’s quasi-documentary style erased.” I am very happy to have come upon this article as Khoury seems to have more insight and history into this book and others who have tried similar photography in similar communities.

I have tried to share some of my impressions, allow you to find images and more information online and given you the words of Milia Lorraine Khoury which really seem to put the book in a more appropriate context. My suggestion is to buy or borrow the book and see what you think. I would love to hear from any of you that know this book or find it because of this article. Send me an email or leave a comment below.

South African Heritage Day and Mozambican Armed Forces Day.

Yesterday, September 25^th, was a holiday in South Africa and Mozambique. In South Africa Heritage Day was the 24^th but it was observed yesterday and yesterday, the 25^th, in Mozambique was a holiday for Armed Forces Day. I spent yesterday at the Funda Community Center in Diepkloof, Soweto as a guest invited to watch song, dance, drama, photography and other presentations by a youth group called "The Learning Together Project" who has spent the past few months learning about, debating and celebrating the South African Constitution which turns 10 years old on December 5^th. This group mostly made up of teenage students along with adult leaders first started meeting at Constitution Hill and after a number of meetings there moved to Funda Community Center, where I took part in the celebrations yesterday. I hope to join this group in October after the school holiday this week and work with them as the discuss topics such as racism, education, violence and gender relations and use art forms such as dance, photography, acting and music to ponder these issues and communicate messages. I took few photographs but my friend Iqbal who invited me to the event was the official photographer and thus I hope to get some images from him that I can share with you. I hope to write more about this group in future blog entries.

As for Mozambican Armed Forces day and other national holidaysI think anyone who has spent a significantamount of time in Mozambique, traveled the country a bit and knows some of the names of schools, towns or streets would be able to easily tell you the dates of some of the holidays in Mozambique. From Maputo, the capitol, to Chókwè, where I lived, there is a town called 3 de Fevreiro and I know of schools named 25 de Junio and streets like 7 de Setembro.

To learn more about holidays in South Africa you can visit http://africanhistory.about.com/library/bl/blsaholidays.htm. For more information on the historical significance throughout Africa of days of the year you can visit AfricanHistory.about.com. Also to see what other holidays are observed in Mozambique you can visit the Mozambican Embassy website.

More pics of my place....

Here is the office from the outside which I showed a few weeks back when showing pictures from around the property where the Smiths live and ETC is housed. This is the office where I work and live and try not to go stir crazy. My room (which you will see pictures of below is in a loft above the office.

In front of you is Ben’s desk to the left, the stairs that head up to my room/the loft and to the right past the stairs is my desk. Past the stairs and to the right is the kitchen and to my front and then left (in front of Ben’s desk) is Linzi’s office and the bathroom.

Here is Ben sitting at his desk and working hard for sure. Ben is always dressed up whether in the office or out training or doing sales.

Here are Ben's and my desks looking from the door that goes into Linzi's office. On the wall you above my laptop you can just barely make out a women chopping wood with a baby on her back. This is the infamous photo taken by Lazaro Chauke my photography student in Mozambique. He took it while participating in The World Through My Eyes and it was featured in the August section of the 2006 calendar put out by the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer group in Madison, Wisconsin. Marcilio also has a picture on this page but it is a smaller one. It was so great to have it up in August and the June page had two great pics from Tanzania my father and my sister!

Now lets go up the steep and small steps to my room.....be careful not to hit your head.

Here is my bedroom in the loft above the office. You may be saying to yourself nice room and I agree but.....

not necessarily a lot of headroom in my bedroom. That is right I would need about another foot at least to be able to stand up in my room. Yes, I am tall but the ceiling is low and at its highest is just over five feet high.

From my room/loft you get a view of Douglas at his desk working hard or playing cards....he loves Solitaire.

Heading back down the stairs and going under them we get to the kitchen where I fix my 5 Star meals. I do my own cooking and can’t believe how many more options I have here to when I was in Mozambique but yet I still love some of the special dishes from there and most of the fruits and veggies from there were better in my assessment.

Leaving the kitchen and walking across the office we come into Linzi’s office off of which we can get to the bathroom. Linzi has two big dry erase boards on the wall...

of the office which serve as an oversized calendar to help us keep track of coming trainings, sales calls, etc. She only had one when I first arrived and has added another since. I guess my presence has brought in so much business that we are always busy writing on the wall. j/k

I would have put a picture of Linzi here but she is rarely in the office as she is usually out training, doing sales calls, giving a talk or running errands. She is a busy women but in her absence I have elected to put another picture of Douglas so you can our resident Rhodesian...um I mean Zimbabwean up close. Doug was born in Zim but has been in South Africa for over 20 years now.

Finally turning to my left and taking a picture looking out of the windows by Doug’s desk you see his fountain, car and Jared’s car. I will post other pictures taken in and around the area tomorrow.