Sundaze in the Scumm

Haven't posted anything in a while & thought I needed an update or 2...


I have been trying to shoot as little as possible in the last lil while coz I have thousands of photo's in my "To Do" folder & needed to catch up on those a little. So I've limited myself to Sunday skate sessions in Sommerset West & Strand.

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SUNDAY 3rd August

Sunday the 3rd I got a ring from Sam Clark & he was rolling at the rink in the scumm & I went through to shoot the plankers on that side with him. After a lil warm up at the rink we moved on to HHH where Matt & Andrew hit a lil down rail (check Sam's blog for what went down there). I have had some bad experiances with school "breakins" & wasn't too keen to jump the fence just for a shot & thought I'd leave that one to Sam. After some serious determination on Andrew's part he got a sick K & landed on some sketchy boards & Matt got a nice feeble.

From there we went to a bench at the Strand Library that Keiran (A.K.A The Rat) had his eye on & was quite late so the light was getting really nice & the spot is pretty photogenic, so I was amped to get some shots.


There was a light near the bench & it was casting a shadow right over the middle of it, so had to shoot him right on the ends not to have a black line over him, but managed ok & that was about the worst of the worries, until I started to shoot with the sun with the 10.5mm. Then I had my own shadow to deal with... so crouched super low so my shadow stayed under the bench & stuck my arm out with the cam & thumb on the shutter... it worked pretty well & kinda dig my shadow on the floor in a few of them. Unless you know what it's from you cant really make it out & is not too distracting.

After that Sam was keen to do some tricks of his own & pretty quickly we had another shoot on the go with us just messing around... that took us to dark & ended our Sunday session.

Keiran waxing

Keiran- K

Keiran- K HDR

Keiran- Switch K HDR

Keiran- Back Tail HDR

Most of the crew- Sam, Gregg, Koos, Keiran & Andrew

Sam & Berg pulling off some circus stunts... took them quite a while to get the coordination for this one.

Some more of Sam & Berg fooling around

Gregg showing us his power moves

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SUNDAY 10th August

Last Sunday (the 10th) I felt to go for a roll myself again & have been neglecting my skates way too much, so went to go pick Koos up & we were off to Gants Center between Strand & the Scumm. I wasn't that keen for rails or anything like that, just wanted to find a lil something nice to skate & was hoping to find something I could get a bit creative on, but after driving around in Gants for a while the best thing I found was a hump to launch & just felt like skating something so we decided to check it out. The run up had a bit of a loose gravel on the road & then the brick run up was pretty short, but not too much of a problem & was managing ok, so got the cam out & started to look for a good angle or 2 & found that this spot was damn tricky to get what I was hoping for. Got 1 straight on shot just to show the distance of the gap, but wasn't too keen on that angle & settled for a shot from right against the wall. I set the flashes up & showed Koos what I wanted & he was my trigger finger for the spot.

After a few more warm up goes & shots I was pretty keen to get a shot of a parallel grab & after struggling for a while I realised it was easier to do it switch coz of the way the hump was throwing me & once I realised that we got the shot I wanted in 3 or 4 goes & was done with that spot.

Me- Mute

Me- Parallel

The ramp was next & just to roll, get a few shots, chill & get shot. As we pitched up AD did too, so was amped to have someone to shoot & talk shit to. Got a few shots of him & the other local kids riding & then it was over to Koos again coz I wanted to roll more. So was a nice happy go lucky shoot & left it pretty much up to him & just asked for a few specifics which he got perfectly.


Once we were pretty much done & it was really dark I got a few shots of AD on the dark ramp with the graph colours just coz it was looking nice & dramatic, blinding him a few times in the process... it started to get a bit chilly & with the ramp being metal it gets moisture on pretty quick & that is not so much fun & he slipped as he got to the coping & we decided to call it a day.

Kenan- K

AD- K carve

2 of the few I shot at the ramp

Me- Cloudy

Me-AO Fish

Me- AO Top Acid

AD- indy

4 of Koos' shots

AD- backside Carve

AD- Back Smith

AD- Back Smith

Thanks to Koos for shooting me, amped to have some shots of myself again.

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Mr. Philthy Norton

Got a message from Phil yesterday & he was keen to get some shots at the Bel Air dirt jumps for his sponsor BMX Direct. Bel Air is in Somerset West & is a great spot for shots at any time of the day, but I was keen to get some late afternoon shots & have the sunset colours in the BG. The sun sets right in front of the main jumps landing, so we had to wait until it had set properly so Phil didn't get blinded by it.

I went to pick Koos up after work & the light was disappearing fast so we missioned as fast as possible to the jumps & got there just before it was completely dark. The jumps are under huge pine trees so it gets dark really quickly there. Phil had a few tricks in mind & there was hardly time to do them all with the light just about gone. I set up as fast as I could & had a warm up shot or 2 of him just getting some air & then it was down to business. 3 tricks needed to be done & shot in a matter of minutes & 1st was a 360 X-up... laced 1st try, I'm stoked I got the timing right, because looking through the viewfinder I couldn't see him against the trees at all, but could hear the bike whizzing through the air & clicked as he reached the peak of the jump & that was it. Next was just a nice big whip & 3 goes gave us 2 shots because one of my flashes didn't fire on the one shot for some strange reason.... then Sam & Henri came just in time for the last trick & by that time Phil couldn't see the landing at all. This was the trick Phil was after & has been getting them dialed in good & proper the last few weeks & it definitely paid off. 1st back flip he laced, but I cut his wheels on the top edge of the frame, coz I wasn't looking through the viewfinder & didn't aim high enough so he had to give it another go for me... I was a bit miffed that I missed it because it was dark & he made it 1st try & knew it would be difficult to do it again under these conditions. 2nd go I made sure I was going to get him in the shot & moved back a little, he laced it again & this time I got the timing even better than the 1st so was stoked!

So that was it... we came... we saw.... & we left.

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Some pics from the shoot.

Warm up boost


360 X-Up


Sunset Whip


Black Flip


The Crew... Henri, Koos, Phil & Sam

Chris on Campus

I got a call from Chris (the man behind the Stellenbosch Skatepark) on monday afternoon to go shoot/session a rail on the edge of Stellenbosch University. I was keen to have a late afternoon street shoot & try some longer exposures with my flashes with some lights in the BG.

Had a good shoot at the rail & was running around like a headless chicken changing the lighting setup for just about every trick & getting back to the angle I wanted just in time to catch him. There is a tree on the one side & a light pole on the other & made it nice & challenging to get the lighting right. One of the BMXers, Jo was filming, so I had a partner to talk nonsense with while we shot.

After we had finished with the rail I wanted to get a shot of him gapping a nearby 9 set of stairs...
We got a bit distracted from that mission & started to play with longer exposures of him gapping over & tapping a pole on the way. As we finished that we went to get ready for the gap, but heard the familiar voice of the campus security telling us to leave.... and so ended our little evening session.

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A few pics from the session.

Gap from the path on the left to royale

Gap from the path on the left to royale

Royale to topsoul 180

Royale to topsoul rewind 3 out

Fastplant the pavement to back farf the rail & hopped over to top acid. This was one of the most difficult shots, had to get the whole spot with a good angle to see him & I only have 2 flashes. Need to invest in a 3rd one, coz a rim light on him would have made it so much better.

Wide shot of the pole bonk (manual HDR in pshp)

Pole bonk with slow exposure & a bit more movement

Parallel grab pole bonk

Thanks to Chris & Jo for a good session.

Natural Selection

The weather in the Cape has been rather miserable the last few weeks with the sun trying very hard to make an appearance & not very successfully, so in looking through some of my photo's I decided to brighten up my page with a few of my favorite nature shots. A completely different aspect of photography to the action that I'm also extremely passionate about. Living on Nature Reserves my whole life & having an ecologist for a father has grounded me to enough to appreciate the delicate intricacies of nature and the love of open spaces.

Rock Kestrel at Eagle Encounter (near Spier) taken on our macro workshop with a 105mm.



A crab in De Hoop came to see what we were up to. Shot with my 70-300mm & lit with an SB-24 on sync cable.



Baby Olive House Snake my dad found in the garden. Shot with 105mm & lit with 2 SB-600's



A bee drinking from a fountain in our garden. Lit with SB-24 on sync cable.



This dragonfly was a great model & let me get really up close & personal.



A tiny fly brushing the pollen off a flower in mid flight. Shot with a 105mm (& some patience)



A thin male mantis in our garden. Shot with a 105mm



An abstract macro on a Sundew leaf. Shot with a 105mm



An abstract on a March Lilly. Shot with a 105mm



One of my very 1st macro's of a flower in our garden. Shot with a 105mm



Experimenting with refraction in De Hoop. Shot with a 105mm



Playing with refractions of a tiny flower in drops on a spider web. Shot with a 105mm



Belville & Lions Head from Muratie Wine Farm. Shot with 70-300mm



View over the Cape Flats toward Table Mountain from Sommerset West. Shot with 70-300mm



One of the wild horses in Aus, Namibia in the late afternoon. Shot with 70-300mm



An HDR of Simonsberg from Rustenberg wine & dairy farm. Shot with 16mm fisheye



Vineyard detail from the Helshoogte Pass. Shot with 70-300mm



An HDR of the De Hoop Vlei. Shot with a 16mm fisheye



De Hoop Dunes. Shot with an 18-35mm


Storm over Strand from Gordons Bay. Shot with a 70-300mm



A female ostrich from a nearby farm on De Hoop Nature Reserve. Shot with a 16mm fisheye


Luminography (light painting) with my SB-24 on an old abandoned bakkie in Sommerset West. 30 sec exposure & ran around in the dark triggering the flash manually. Shot with 16mm fisheye.



A self portrait of sorts. Me refracted in drops on a spiderweb... after trying with a few different flowers & though about trying this & managed to get a few. The pink BG is my skin behind the drops... was really early in the morning, so I wasn't looking my best, but like the pic & thought I would share it.