This day in history: Photowalks

Photowalker at the wishing tree

This is going to be a new series of post. Why? Because I have not blogged when things happened, so now I write about them in hindsight. That way I don't feel that I am so very very late with my writings, and I can still talk about the events I want to talk about... 

Cinema becomes church - suspension of disbelief continues

I can see that a year ago this month I went on my first and second photo walk. For those not in the know, the photowalkers are a Johannesburg group (do they exist anywhere else? I have never noticed them before, but who knows...) of amateur and pro photographers who walk the streets of Joburg and its surrounds in search of a good shot. The group has been going since 2009 and was founded by Mark Straw, who seems to have an indefatigable enthusiasm for devising new and interesting places to visit. 

Giving out New Year's good luck charms

Chinese New Year

My first event was the Chinese New Year celebrations in Bronkhorstspruit at the Nan Hua Temple. Heather, who first mentioned the whole photowalker concept to me, assured me that everyone would be friendly, and that she would introduce me. As it turned out we never even met any photo walkers, although they were surely there, because the temple was crowded with visitors.

All kinds of food for sale

The centre square of the temple was used for dragon puppetry, fireworks and general celebration, while the walkway around the square was crammed with stalls selling everything from massages to orchids, swords to dumplings. The temple itself was a quiet centre of the proceedings, where we could sit and take things in. 

Just outside the front entrance was a wishing tree festooned with ribbons where people left their wishes for the new year. Photo opportunities abounded. Even though we didn't meet the photo walkers, we came away with a haul of good pictures.

Art Deco Photowalk

The splendid Benoni Springs Fire Station (thanks, Anonymous)

It was on the next photowalk where I really got into the whole thing. Meeting in the morning at a mall in East Joburg, about twenty people divided up into cars for the ride out to Springs for the first part of an architectural tour of Joburg's satellite towns. 

Photowalker in action

A local architect showed us the art deco treasures of Springs: the town hall, local schools and private houses, and on the main street a cinema turned church as well as rows of shops and warehouses - all sporting fabulous Art Deco styling. 

Glorious Art Deco in Benoni

We ended up at a locally famous ice cream parlour where we got to go into the inner sanctum, where the delicious ice cream was made. The rest of the day was spent at Benoni where a splendidly designed fire station kept us occupied for quite a while. 

I spend a lot of time walking around cities (and the countryside) photographing what I see. I guess that makes me an urban photographer. The difference between going for a walk on my own and a photowalk is like night and day: In a group there is the challenge to catch that shot that no-one else did, find an angle that no-one else has. 

But it's not just competition. In a new place I am always fascinated when I see someone else take a picture. I creep up behind them and try to work out if they have discovered an interesting subject, what it is they are looking at. On a photowalk that is multiplied, because we all stand behind each other looking at the others' shots, wondering if we can capture something worthwhile, but different. It's a constant pushing and intensifying, scrutinising and questioning of the current view point. What else is there? How else can I capture this? What am I missing?

Want to go photowalking?

Blast from the past - analog photos

A Pentax K1000 in the wild

Photowalkers also use a wide range of cameras. There are the standard digital SLRs equipped with a range of lenses from fish eye to telephoto, but there is also the iPhone, the Helga, the old-school Pentax K-1000 with an external view finder. There is a refreshing lack of snobbishness around equipment, a mutual interest in each other's choices.

Best thing about photowalking? Going to places I either didn't know existed, or wouldn't have been brave enough to visit by myself. Joburg photowalkers are on Meetup, and as it turns out so are a bunch of other photowalking groups, so there is no excuse not to get involved.

More photos here: 

2012 Chinese New Year

www.flickr.com fiverlocker's 2012 Chinese New Year photoset

Art Deco Photowalk

www.flickr.com fiverlocker's Art Deco Photowalk photoset

What I love: New Zealand

Puhutekawa trees in flower, stinging red against shady green leaves, lining the streets and filling the parks. New Zealand's unlikely symbol of Christmas (yes, they're red like poinsettias, but where is the snow?)

Caravan (caramel/vanilla) milkshakes at Fidel's, a heady mix of indulgence and cool hipsterdom at the top of Cuba Street. Watching the trendy boys skateboarding down the street, the op-shop-dressed girls flaunting their tattoos and piercings.

Flat Whites at Felix, and any of the other cafes sprinkled liberally across a town where Starbucks thankfully can't get a grip. There always seems to be a fern leaf cocoa-ed onto the milk foam, and sometimes there is a chocolate fish (or fush).

Blue sky, blue water, the promise of penguins and dolphins in the bay, a stretch of sea put to good use: swimming, sailing, canoeing, and a matchless view to the far mountains thrown in. You can't beat Wellington on a good day.

Hobbit obsession taken to another level: an overused Gandalf welcoming visitors to the cinema, dwarves scrambling across the roof of the post office headquarters, hobbits plastered on placards, an invitation to orcs, trolls and wizards at the local bank.

Corn fritters, all hot and chewy, with sweet chilli sauce and a pile of fresh green salad. Only one amongst many superb New Zealand Sunday brunch choices, with pancakes, eggs Benedict, full English, burritos - the best breakfast ideas from around the world, handily collected in one menu.

The Tui - a bird with a song like a broken gramophone, a beautiful tune ending in a horrid screech.

Christmas in summer; I am a grinch, but Christmas on the beach, with barbies and sun, swimming and ice cream, that's a Christmas idea I can get behind.

Three degrees of separation - Everyone seems to know everyone else, or is friends with a mate of a cousin of a colleague of everyone else. It makes for easy connections, for mutual help, a common purpose. It makes for nosy neighbours, too, I expect.

Cairo

Dogs barking, car horns tooting, horses' hooves clip-clopping on tarmac, the whistle of the traffic police. 

Cairo is Cairo, ever noisy, ever hazy, ever warm. Underneath the easily distinguished high notes lies the bass line: the steady stream of car engines, the wailing of traditional music, the bumpy beat of Arab-pop from the brightly lit barges on the Nile below our hotel window. Cutting though the haze over the water the orange streetlights, decorative strings of fairy lights in blue, red, white, purple and green pulse with an inner rhythm. Reflections of hotel up-lighters shimmer on the rippled water surface below concrete facades topped by the names of hotel chains (Sofitel, Novotel, Four Seasons) and iconic penthouse restaurants. 

It is a pleasure to be stepping out of the air-conditioned airport arrivals hall into the sewage scented, heavy air, into my spiritual home - as Stuart calls it. "What is it about Arab countries that you like so much?" he asks me as the taxi weaves drunkenly between motorbikes, trucks and bashed-up cars through the dark streets. It's dark, yes, it's 9pm already, but wherever there is a flash of light there is colour: neon strips lighting fruit piled high on low tables, lurid packets of cheap goods teetering by the side of a tiny shop, car mechanic workshops, magazine and cold drink sellers. There are people talking by the side of the road, women walking arm in arm, some with and some without headscarves; there are broken down cars in the middle lane, some blokes gathered around peering into the engine bay, hazard lights flashing; there is washing hanging from rickety lines below high windows set into crumbling walls; heroic wall paintings depicting pharaohs marching with revolutionaries, a spray painted slogan: No to SCAF (the dictator-era military council); a medieval citadel rubs up next to a 60s brutalist housing development, ancient walls looming over water-stained wrecks. There is chaos and there is life. 

I have been feeling dull, leaving first Brighton yesterday and today London.  But then the plane descended into Cairo, the city laid out in orange lights under a misty night sky. Busy and calm at the same time, there is so far no indication of unrest, of demonstrations, of protest. I am suddenly gripped by a great interest in finding out how people here feel, how they think of what is going on in their country, how they see the future. 

Hyde Park

A wash of cloud has been gathering all day.
Occasionally the sun elbows its way through their bulk, shimmering the yellow-leaved trees, sparkling the lake surface. By now the grey has dimmed the afternoon, reflecting in the water, matching the pales of swans, ducks and herons. It's late afternoon, the park is populated with joggers in fluorescent jackets, Arab families - black-wrapped women, baseball-capped guys and fidgety children feeding the ducks. Gulls and pigeons vie for scraps of bread, teenage cygnets aiming for dignity while bullying their ungainly bodies through the flittery birds.
Hyde Park has been the centre of our world this summer. We walked here, watched the Olympics here, cycled Barclay's bikes criss-cross on our way to the West End or the V&A. Catching art, as ephemeral as the Serpentine pavilion and as permanent as the Peter Pan sculpture, we discovered new corners, made connections along new paths, tested every cafe, every tea stand, every snack hut. It's not been much of a summer, but there have been enough sunny days to make the exorbitant rent that puts us near the park, worthwhile.

Cork and water

One of my favourite summer event in London is the Serpentine pavilion. In its 12th year, the surprisingly permanent-looking structures are erected in the spring and dismantled in the autumn. They are variously strange and awe-inspiring. This year's is a reference to the pavilions that have come before. An archaeological dig of sorts, the 12 pillars represent the past structures, while geometric cork blocks wrap around the remnants: leftover cables, plinths, foundation pieces. All is covered by a flat metal disk collecting rain water, making visible the ground water that normally remains underground. How appropriate in this deluge of a summer!

Best of all, stools shaped as champagne corks. A hint?

 

Boris Bikes

Boris Bikes ready to go at Hyde Park

At last- a day without rain. For weeks it seemed as if spending the summer in London was a really bad idea for someone who eshews socks and umbrellas. I am not a fan of weather in general, preferring the bland simplicity of Dubai's perma-sunshine to the chopping and changing of London days, where rain is followed by blinding sun by lowering grey clouds by howling winds. It's July, and finally I am confident that I can go out and not catch a cold. A perfect day to take a Boris bike for a spin.

What is a Boris bike?

Barclay's Bikes, as they are properly called, are clunky upright bikes, built like tanks (23 kg, chain and mud guards, puncture-proof tyres, built-in dynamo, brakes and gears courtesy of Shimano) and liberally labelled with the blue and white logos of Barclay's sponsorship. Boris bikes are named after the London mayor who introduced them in 2010. They are niftily designed to withstand daily punishment by tourists as well as commuters and casual users, with hiring prices cleverly planned to encourage short trips over day-long tours. As an addition to the tube/train/bus network of central London it is to the designer's credit that they are so popular that on a sunny day they are impossible to come by.

Find a station

So how do you use one of these chunky bikes? Where do you pick one up? How do you pay for the ride? As with many activities lately, it all starts with an app. Barclays themselves have designed a very functional iPhone and Android app that looks for docking stations in the vicinity, tells me how many bikes and spaces are available, even lets me plan a ride. At a docking station I can pay for a bike, check the map and dock my bike when I'm finished with my trip.

Barely a bike left...

Card or key?

I am an annual member for £45 per year, so I have a key to quickly free a bike. Before I joined the scheme, I slipped a debit or credit card into the payment point to print out a 5 digit keycode to use on the bike rack's keypad. Having a key has made grabbing a bike so much faster, rather than having to click through the multiple choice screens, accepting terms and conditions, choosing the number of bikes, and receiving the I can be on the bike in seconds.

Planning where to go

The iPhone app lets me plan my trip. I can choose from speedy, steady or quiet route types, and Google map will show me the way. A nifty built-in timer will tell me when my free 30 minutes are up. It would be nice to have turn-by-turn speech instructions, so that I wouldn't have to stop at junctions to check the map or try to memorise the route, and a phone holder in the handlebar would also stop me from getting lost, but built-in GPS units on each bike may be too much to ask for.

Set it up

The bike, for all it's clunkiness, can be adjusted to fit. I set the bike to my preferred height by the numbers on the saddle stalk. There is a holder for a bag welded to the handlebars. No back wheel rack means I can't carry heavy shopping or multiple bags, so I have started to travel light - and avoid wearing trailing scarves or bulky jackets lest I garrotte myself in transit. I check the brakes, pedals and bell and off I go.

The welded bag carrier

Join the Maelstrom

I am ready to join London's crazy traffic. Londoners are more competitive than most other city dwellers I have encountered. While in other countries road traffic can be a free-for-all, a mess of different driving styles like Dubai, hindered by a complete lack of signage like Addis Ababa or just a general flouting of the rules like Nairobi, London has an air of repressed anger funneled into intense competition between the different classes of travellers. Everyone uses and abuses the rules to their own benefit: taxis dash down bus lanes, cyclists run red lights to get the jump on motorised transport, buses squeeze their huge bulks into gaps in the traffic flow. Pedestrians are hyper-alert to any movement around them, as neither the cyclists nor the motorised faction take any prisoners. None of the dreamy jaywalkers of Joburg CBD, if you are walking in London you better have your wits about you.

Throwing a group of amateur cyclists into the mix has interesting results, specially since - unlike other first world cities - London has barely any dedicated bike lanes. Marking yourself out as a Boris biker means labelling yourself ignorant of the unwritten rules of London traffic: every second counts and there is always someone who is willing to overtake you. Don't hope for mercy, because getting there fast is serious business. Boris bikers often dawdle, they may be lost, or vague as to their direction, they are inexperienced cyclists. Their bikes are heavy and unwieldy, so they are slow to react. And the stigma of the Boris biker can not be hidden, it is a blue flag of shame.

The blue flag of shame

One thing I have learnt from the Boris bike scheme is that Londoners are desperate for a new, easier way to get around town. Taxis are expensive, buses slow and the Tube crowded and hot. Commuting by bike is not an option for most Londoners, the distance from their home to the office is just too great and traffic on the main trunk roads into town too dangerous. But for getting round the city you can't beat the bike. I would be reluctant to lock up my bike in public in London, lest it is stolen or removed, but the Boris bikes are designed to be placed in racks rather than used all day. The first thirty minutes of each trip are free, with prices rising steeply for longer journeys, thus discouraging bike hogging. No daytrips along the canal with this scheme, or leaving the bike outside while dashing into a shop, but definitely a quick dash from Oxford Street to Hyde Park for lunch. For casual travellers, or non-Londoners who just want to go for a spin, the system is perfect.

Problems

The bike scheme was intoduced in July 2010. To begin with the fully automated system of hiring and replacing bikes was flaky. The scheme is run by Transport for London, who control all local public transport aspects. But the actual operation of the scheme is outsourced to a private company, and the setup costs heavily sponsored by Barclays. The various layers of management initially resulted in an unreliable process, with people complaining of not being able to hire bikes and being charged random amounts if they did manage to get one. Two years later, and running 8.300 bikes and 15.000 docking stations with a recent expansion eastwards, most complaints relate to the incredible success of the scheme, which regularly results in bikes being unavailable, specially in the West End where pressure comes from Hyde Park tourers and West End party people heading out of Zone 1.

The logistics of the scheme are dazzling: broken bikes need to be identified and fixed (bikes get an inspection on average every two weeks, and numbers of destroyed or stolen bikes barely reach double-digits after two years); bikes need to be relocated to busy areas when a wave of customers have left them stranded in the wrong part of town (the company uses electric vehicles for this so as not to negate the carbon savings from all the cycling); vast numbers of payments have to be processed properly with custom hardware (keys, docking stations) and unreliable humans in the mix.

The future

London's bike scheme is not the first in the world. Many other cities have offered impromptu hire bikes to their population, from Amsterdam to Montreal, many with much superior biking infrastructure, prioritising human-powered traffic over cars. Such is the pressure on transport options in London that any new choice was going to be taken up enthusiastically, by commuters as well as casual users and visitors. The London scheme is simple and effective, now it just needs to bring about a shift in priority towards cycling versus driving. London has shown that this can be done with the success of the congestion charge, gently but firmly forcing car traffic out of the centre of London. If the next step is to pedestrianise the city and focus on good bike routes, London could amost become pleasant to navigate. I am certainly a fan, alreay regretting that I brought my own bike to London with me.

More from the creative frontline

Talking about making things: since my iPad is my new best friend, I am constantly discovering apps that allow me to create in materials I used to use, but haven't for a long time. I used to be hooked on screen printing. Something about the logic of layering inks, the mind twisting required to think back to front and in mirror image, put me in a special frame of mind. The only problem is, screen printing requires a lot of space, inks, tools, drying racks...

Enter LetterMPress. Yes, I know it's a letterpress simulation, and therefore mainly for text-based prints. But the same brain-scrambling effort required to put together a decent print makes it better than any game for me right now. Only $2.99 to the end of the month. 

What I'll Miss - Germany

It's been almost two years (and too few entries on this blog, alas), so it's about time we moved on from Germany. Packing up our stuff has become a well-rehearsed affair, the only novelty lies in the items we sell off this time and whether everything goes into storage or gets shipped immediately to the new destination.


This is my third attempt at living in Germany, maybe my last. What will I miss when I leave?

• The bread, dark and heavy with grains, sold by the local baker women who are almost friendly after all this time of me shopping there every day.
• The eco-greengrocer round the corner and the fresh produce, including the wide variety of cabbage, root vegetables and apples. Despite being open at seemingly random hours and only taking cash, I always look forward to checking out the season's fruit and veg.
• The Folkwangmuseum. Once dubbed 'The Most Beautiful Museum in the World', it is glamorous, airy, and full of amazing Expressionist art. Shame about the cafe that can only be visited after paying the entrance fee. 
• Popping in to my mum's on a whim, for a cup of tea and a long chat. Anytime.
• Trains that run on time. Really, they are! And cheap, clean and stylish to boot. How romantic to know that I can get to Berlin, Moscow, Vienna, without even changing, directly from Essen Hauptbahnhof. Not to forget the iPhone app that let's me look up timetables, the BahnCard that gives me money off the ticket, and the promptly answered phone line with accurate information. Take that, British Rail!
• Our glorious flat, the big windows with the hot summer view over the forest, the long desk in the office, the projector and screen for watching movies on the squishy sofa. 

Best day ever - since Tuesday

In the morning we got up extremely early to watch the sunrise at Fish River Canyon. On our way we intercepted a few hares, long ears flying, and an owl, grey as the dawn. We arrived at the canyon just as the sun turned crimson behind us. From the viewpoint we looked out over a vast range of cliff faces, sloping hills of red rubble sliding inexorably down towards the pale winding river at the centre of the valley. All around us eroding peaks touched by the first light of the day. Slowly, the hot sun appeared over the horizon, the sky changing from washed out grey to pink. The canyon walls lit up in stages, layers of different coloured rock revealed in their crumbled glory. Eventually the walls started reflecting in the still waters of the Fish river as it took on the colour of the morning sky.

We walked along the plateau to get another view. The rock under our feet had broken into geometric blocks and flat, shingle-like pieces, red, black and quartz white. To our left the canyon wall fell vertical for a long time, before sloping off in a bed of decayed rocks. At the end of the plateau we discovered the start of the four day hiking trail, a sign warning that no-one is allowed onto the trail without a permit. This is one of the more difficult hikes, and the start was not very inviting, anyway, as it bent steeply down a precarious slope, edged only by a rusty rope. How anyone can carry six days worth of food and equipment and make it to the bottom without a fall I have no idea.

In the afternoon Merryl and I went horse riding, And what a ride it was, topping the day with another great adventure. We were an hour early, due to the fact that despite being in Namibia for four days already we had not worked out that it's in a different time zone from South Africa. We have been travelling by the position of the sun in the sky, leaving at first light and stopping as it got dark, so hadn't noticed the change.

We were looking forward to a good ride, as we had told the rangers we were both experienced riders - the last few rides I had been on we had been in the company of first time riders and I was ready for a good run. The ranger took this to mean we could handle anything, and gave us two horses that had been left in a field for the last five months, and had forgotten what a ride was meant to be like. They were wild and at the first sign of a flat stretch of dry river bed they were off. All they wanted to to was run like the wind, and they were unstoppable. Unfortunately there came a time when horse and I parted company, and I landed hard, scraping my side, bruising my hip and shoulder and ego. Nothing broken or badly injured, even the camera I landed on survived. I guess 'experienced' was an exaggeration. Nothing for it but more practice.

A very very late sound

I have been trying to figure out a way of blogging this since last November, and I have finally worked it out. It's not much, but I hope you will like it as much as I did. Here it is, the sound the Arlanda train station ticket machine makes when you operate the touch screen.

Yet another use for the Pogo

So I mentioned my cool photo toy - the Pogo printer from Polaroid - before, but with our travel prep in full swing I came up with yet another useful application for it. We have a set of 6 ammo boxes filled with stuff stacked on a shelf in the back of the car, but they are black so it's impossible to see what's in which one without dragging them out and looking inside. Instead of writing labels I photographed the content, printed a photo and used the sticky backing to glue it straight to the box. Voila.

Skype is good for travellers

I can't begin to explain in how many ways Skype is keeping us connected right now and how much we are going to rely on it on the trip. We have had an account with Skype for years, although we had a bumpy start when they ate some credit of mine a few years back. But lately it has got more and more handy.

To start with we use SkypeIn, which gives us three local numbers in different countries. We have a landline number in Germany my family can call, one in the UK for Stuart's family and our friends, and one in Wellington for Merryl's gang and everyone we keep in touch with there. This means that people in those countries only have to call a landline in their country, not the expensive South African number. As a result people actually call us, which makes us feel more wanted ;-)

The money we spent on a Skype phone that doubles as a landline (it's hands-free and the base station connects to the router. Looks just like a normal phone) has been so worth it. All our international calls go through SkypeOut, where we pay a monthly fee for free calls to lots of countries. Stuart can make his conference calls, I can chat with my mum - brilliant. The phone displays all the Skype contacts which sync with Addressbook on the Mac, so we don't have to type in numbers. It also displays voicemails and any missed calls we receive via Skype. This alone has made it so much easier to use Skype to make calls. Before I was never logged in on the computer at the right time, and the sound quality is just like a normal landline call without having to dig out the headphones.

When we are on the road, we will have a satellite phone for emergencies, but people will still be able to leave us messages on voicemail, and since we get an email notification we can actually respond when anyone pings us. I am also hoping that we will be able to make use of Skype on the iPhone when we are at a hotel or other place with wifi.

I know this all sounds like a sales pitch, but after years of not really seeing the point (we had 2 hour long international calls for NZ$5 from New Zealand and pretty cheap rates from Dubai to most of Europe, so weren't too bothered so far) I am now a total convert. The only problem is that calls to Dubai are still really expensive, so it's not been an option to call anyone there.

Africa Travel Books

We've been stocking up, and if you're interested, here is the list. We have found the Bradt guides to be the most detailed, but the Rough Guides are still the funniest.

My latest obsession

daytum.com/fiverlocker

What I love about Germany part 4

So I am returning from a weekend in England on a flight that is arriving late into Düsseldorf at 10.30pm. It's a good hour on the train till I get to my bed at the best of times and now it's late at night. I am prepared to spend 80€ on a taxi. As it turns out there is a regional train with one change to Recklinghausen AND a bus that will get me to within 5 minutes walk from home. All for 10€! Pretty cool. And that's not even to talk about the fact that you can buy an all areas ticket for the month for about 80€ - which even let's you take friends along for free on the weekends. Or the cool Fahrplan (Link opens iTunes) iPhone app that can tell you where the nearest bus stop is and what time the next bus is due. I have always been convinced of the value of public transport. It is an efficient way to move people, it keeps down pollution and gives me time to read and think.

What I love about Germany part 3

Fairs are great. They happen at every -generally catholic - holiday, Easter, carnival, All Saints, specially around spring and autumn times, as if to bracket the outdoor and indoor parts of the year. There are rides, of course, big swirly scary gravity-defying ones that make me green round the edges just looking at them, neon lit with speeds too fast for the human organism; old-fashioned slower ones that are more my thing: the big wheel, bumper cars, Kettenkarussell (the one that looks like a spinning top with seats on chains hanging from the sides).

And candy floss, candy apples (I prefer their German name Paradiesapfel: apple of paradise), chocolate waffles, ice cream, licorice and if I'm really lucky, Turkish Honey.

As a bonus this time we had a firework display. Brill!

What I love about Germany. Part 1

Mineral water in crates. You return them to a machine that counts how many bottles you have and gives you your deposit back. All sorts of recycling including batteries. There are collection boxes in the shops next to the rack of new batteries. Brilliant. Train stations and airports have bins where you can separate paper, plastic and cans.

What I love about Germany. Part 2

First of all I have to say that this is a new experience for me. Loving anything about Germany has taken me about 20 years of living somewhere else in the World. But there is one thing I learnt: nobody makes rolls like German bakers. I have no idea why. Cake, bread, anything else you can get in other places, different styles, but just as good. Not so rolls. They are crunchy on the outside and soft inside. Yum. And I'm not saying this because I have a baker in the family nowadays.

What I'll miss - part 2

Caramel milkshakes at Fidel's, hanging out with Stuart after work and Leo any other time.

What I'll miss.

Ice cream on the waterfront at Kaffee Eis. When Stuart worked at NZX we would meet there for an afternoon break. There is nowhere that has better ice cream or more interesting flavours: chai, ferrero rocher, passion fruit! I just wish they had more reliable opening times.