Went to a gathering of geeks (Netweb event hosted by Mongezi) in Capello’s in Ghandi Square. This is way into Marshalltown in Johannesburg and is quite a drive from Pretoria especially with the usual highway traffic. I loved the red lighting in this location and took some shots in the cafe. Not the best of cafe’s, I must admit, for they closed the kitchen by 7pm. Who eats supper before 7?! Anyway, the positive light of all this was the photo of Telana (the first photo). She owns an idea called “matchstick for an office”. An interest concept of giving one gift for another and then to hopefully arrive at an office (more here on http://onematchstick.blogspot.com/).

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While Vimage Media runs in its own pace, I envision that it will start to grow in new areas and interests. In order to propel this, I’ve been speaking to a photographer named Disa (Dee Photography) who I met when she brought us Sylvia. You may notice a few posts of photos with Sylvia in the previous posts. Disa works through a fantastic network of people and has worked with some prominent people in South Africa. I loved her work and just meeting her, I could see how she likes her photos. Over the next few weeks I drew up an idea to work alongside Dee and she has agreed to work with Vimage. This collaboration will be huge for both of us. As it happens, it was her birthday recently on the 14th June. By accident, I called her on that day to find out she was having a party! She asked me to come and in the excitement, I bought a fine bottle of wine by Nederburg, a sauvignon blanc merlot, 2007 (yes, its a good year). I arrived at the party and we had a great time discussing how we could work together and for the first time I felt a synergy between us to get things going. I even brought my 5D Mark II camera and showed how I did my work. In that process I snapped a few photos of the birthday and it was joyous for everyone. The children were wonderful models to say the least. They were especially chuffed to see photos done in black and white.

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It’s the Easter weekend and having quite bit of time to myself, I was able to reflect on my photography and started looking through my old photos. I discovered some gems and I was able to see my photo work growing. This is not necessarily by the quality of the photos but the growth of the photographic eye. This was a time when the name, Vimage Media, wasn’t even in my head. I remember buying my Canon 400D (sometime 2007), my first and still my trusty current one I use today. I chose the Canon over the Nikon not because it was better (they are basically the same and yes, I said it!) but because I had an older point and shoot Canon. It was just a transition, a knee-jerk purchase, if you will. I wasn’t really clued up about the camera or the lenses so I asked around for advice. The first lens that I purchased was the Canon 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM. This lens turned out to be quite good at a great price. An excellent starters lens even though it wasn’t quite wide enough on the cropped bodies. I still remember the first photo I took with this SLR, a picture of my mom taken at home in the dining area. The lighting is provided through the windows behind me.