Yster Fester

Living on tribal land near Askham in the Kalahari, oom Dawid and his small band precariously balance their ancient Bushman lifestyle with the inevitable push of Western culture. The pressure has ravaged their band. Alcoholism is rife and the people of the tribe have resorted to peddling artefacts next to the road, doing San dances for tourists wearing the traditional !gai loincloth in what !Khwa ttu anthropologist Michael Diaber describes as the “worst form of prostitution” ever.

Over the years, the bushmen have retained much of their ancient and extensive knowledge of the veld. It’s an instinctive sensibility that seems hardly dimmed by time.  But it’s under pressure as years of living away from their ancestral land is now taking its toll. The young bushmen are mostly not interested in retaining the old ways, the older bushmen. They  grow up in towns, not in the veld, and only on rare occasions are taught field craft and hunting. Most of them seem to prefer wearing mirrored shades and hanging around the many bottle stores in the area, music blaring from cell phones.

I have worked with the !Khomani tribe before, photographing oom Dawid in the 90s while they were living at Kagga Kamma in the Ceres Karoo during a resettlement attempt. I also visited them here with the late dream interpreter Rozelle Mazetti, and following Michael’s career from resident Kagga Kamma anthropologist to starting !Kwa ttu a few years ago. It’s a subject close to my heart. With this dwindling treasure in mind, I visited the !Khomani tribe in the heat of January to shoot footage of them in their traditional clothing, recording their tribal tongue and searching for the elusive hoodia gordonii plant with them – the latter discovered by the bushmen centuries ago and used for its appetite suppressant qualities.

After obtaining advice from Michael on how to approach the tribe with suitable sensitivity after so many years of not seeing the Kruipers, I travelled to Askham and met first with Elias “Yster” Fester. I shot some footage of him pretending to be hunting, feeling a bit silly until I heard Yster mumbling away and pointing at the ground. “The steenbok stood around here in the shade, and ate from this bush. And a muskeljaatkat (genet) was chasing a dune rat over here.” At first I assumed he was doing this for my benefit, to add authenticity to the footage (a true professional, he is!), but then discovered he was actually reading spoor. To my eyes, there were slight indentations in the ground, and faint marks on the bush. To his, the signs told of what time of day it happened, and what the animal’s state of mind was, unhurried or pursued. Suddenly my “canned bushman” experience became very real.

We sat down in the hot veld, and my lesson in field craft started. Yster pointed out the tracks to me, explaining signs I could barely follow, indicating a dragging of a hoof indicating the slow, hot progress of a buck at midday, the crisp and finely defined spoor of the dune rat indicating early morning movement over slightly damp soil. He shot with his bow and arrow, showing the effective distance of the arrow (not much more than 20 metres), which meant having to stalk a buck to well within that distance. He indicated, where we sat, how he would have stalked this steenbok, one of the most renowned of alert animals, showing his path from bush to final clump of grass. How long would this take? Several hours, he says, not even blinking.

Because of the lack of effective range, the prey would inevitably only be wounded, necessitating in many cases many hours of running after it. And this is where the hoodia plant became indispensible – rich in moisture, the semi-bitter juice would quench their thirst while suppressing their appetites, allowing them to physically run down the wounded animal without expiring themselves.

My next stop was the 67-year-old Buks Kruiper, brother of the tribal leader. Oom Buks is no more than 5 foot tall, wiry, wily and extremely witty. His tales are tall, in the tradition of bushman storytelling, but nevertheless entertaining. He is experienced in the film industry, having played in several movies and rubbing noses with an Eskimo in a TV commercial. As a tracker, he is renowned and used extensively by Sanparks in tracking cheetahs for research. His popularity however is not shared by the neighbours, coloured subsistence farmers whose land had been largely expropriated and given to the bushmen. It was on one such farm that Oom Buks and I were accosted by the irate female farm owner, accusing him and his tribe of taking away their land. Oom Buks just shook his head, tears in his eyes and speechless in the face of such aggression. I got him away from there as quickly as I could, moving our shoot elsewhere.

Buks Kruiper's family. He is second from left.

On my final day on shoot, Yster took me back to Askham to meet with Oom Dawid Kruiper. Strangely enough, he remembered me from the shoot we did in the 90s. Sitting with him under a lone camel thorn on a blanket, the heat now a humid 41 degrees, it was like stepping back into African history. The only difference was that we were meeting as fellow human beings, not as the hunter and hunted, the appalling memory of these people being licenced as game that may legally be killed by farmers not far away from my mind. Did we actually do this?

We were now hunting hoodia. And the only place where we would be able to find it, was back in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, 80km away. The !Khomani have access to a section of the western park where they train youngsters field craft, tracking and hunting. Oom Dawid offered to take us there – he was convinced he saw some hoodia between some dunes. I jumped at the opportunity – I would see part of the Park that is closed to the public, a once-off opportunity sweetened by the fact that I was being guided by the original inhabitants of this land. It does not come any more real, any more authentic.

Yster with the hoodia plant

But it would not be that easy. Did I mention hoodia was elusive? Over the dunes we went, in lion country, with literally one arrow and a bow as protection. I was banking on the fact that I was the youngest and probably the fastest, in case of being chased by lion, but ten minutes into our search for the plants, I was panting badly and dragging my feet and tripod. Lion food, no doubt.

Yster found a plant. It’s spiky, like a cactus, and in springtime carries oddly pink or lilac flowers. Using his arrow head, he cut a section, skinned it and ate the flesh. Inside, it looks like a cucumber – juicy and green. And bitter, apparently. Stupidly, I did not taste it – in hindsight, that would have perfectly rounded this privileged experience. During our shoot, Oom Dawid wandered off into the veld and returned with a carrot-like root, apparently also extremely rare. He was very pleased at finding one, which he uses to prepare medicines. He talks about his preparations, and I quickly realise he is famed for most notably those that, shall we say, rival the effects of Viagra.

Walking the veld with the 76-year-old tribal chief was as intense an experience as I could ever have hoped for. Thankfully, I could record this in sound and motion, as most likely, it would be one of the last such opportunities, as time and reality catch up with their ancient ways.

Oom Dawid, Yster and I at the hoodia shoot

Powered paragliding is one of the most convenient photography platforms. And when someone else can do the driving, it’s even better. Such was the case this week when I hooked up, quite literally, with PPG instructor Keith Pickersgill, one of the doyens of the sport in SA. He needed a passenger, I needed some footage, and the weather was perfect for an afternoon tandem flight.

I had long ago sold my own paramotor, but kept in touch with the current batch of pilots, with the result that I get to fly quite regularly still. As always, it’s a thrill to take off on level ground and change your perspective on the earth. But clutching a very expensive video camera makes one a tad nervous. Hence I had a very thick bungy cord attached to the camera, and tied off onto a carabiner, ready to roll.

Armed with a brand new bluetooth headset, the comms between Keith and myself was wireless and wonderful. Launch went fine, even with my precious cargo held at arm’s length and out of the way of the bar in front of the cage. We set off from Dolphin Beach and followed another pilot at close quarters for some air-to-air footage, then flew out to the stranded Seli 1 to shoot some overhead material of the ship. The air was slightly bumpy, and the footage not entirely smooth, but I got a good idea of what angles work for this platform.

See a standard definition video from the flight:

See a high definition video from the flight:

Interviewing Distell director Duimpie Bayly

Two days, non-stop shooting, not a moment off our feet. That’s the Nederburg Auction for you. The icon of SA wine auctions, held at Nederburg in Paarl, is an unmissable event – if you can get an invite. It is that tight. But then again, you rub shoulders with the who’s who of the wine industry and the higher strata of Cape Town social life.

Fellow Safrea member Michal Wozniak and I shot the event for the Nederburg Auction over the two days, using an EX1 and EX3, with the auctioneer Anthony Barne wirelessly mic’d.

Between the two of us, we could cover events in the main auction hall and chase after people we wanted to interview on the fly, although running with tripod, microphones and camera proved tricky! Low light in the auction hall also made life a little harder than what was needed, and necessitated shooting at gain+3 at times. Still, the cameras performed really well with the unavoidable noise well within control.

The production was edited at two stations – the rough edit on my machines, and then fine-tuned by maestro Ruan Neethling.

View the final production here, and visit the Auction website to watch the pre-auction clips we produced for the event. Pictures on this page by Matt Stow.

Yeah right.

There’s nothing quite like panic and unpreparedness to galvanise you into action. I hate it, of course, and bitch about every moment while struggling with adverse weather, non-perfect light, stands blowing over, people unceremoniously commandeered from work stations and supervisors not happy about the work delays …  But in the end, somehow you pull it off. Against all odds. And herein lies the problem – because the commissioning editor thinks you can do this all the time and keep calling at the very last minute.

Maybe you can. Maybe you do. It’s just dicey and it certainly does not add years to your life. My fear is that some day, it just won’t all come together. But then again, I suppose if it is impossible to get the shot, you’d still pull off the impossible. I try not to think about it, and will cross that bridge when I get to it.

This shoot involved Transnet workers on a railway. The brief was to make it gritty, dirty, tough. I chose a 200mm Nikon f2.8 lens for the job to compress the perspective and separate the person in the foreground from the back. The sun was camera right. I exposed for the highlights, then added a Quantum flash camera left to fill in the shadows, and added a Nikon Speedlight camera left and behind the subject to give a bit of wrap and edge to the right side of his face (camera left). That added a 3D feel, and again helped separate the background out. I added a bit of bleaching and tonal contrast to the image to accentuate the gritty details on the gloves and stones between the tracks. Shot at f6.3, 320th/sec on focal plane shutter.

Talk about being photogenic. Some faces are just easier to photograph, and then, some pieces of furniture just turn out more gorgeous than the next. Such a case was these items from Bloc Outdoor in Cape Town – chunky, solid balau wood furniture that just look great on camera and were so sweet to shoot.

We shot this in the Bloc showroom in Woodstock. For once, I had some space to work with. A white vinyl backdrop suspended from the cable trays served to isolate the items, and four Bowens Esprit heads lit the items. We used softboxes for accent lights to pick up the flat surfaces, and a bounced bare bulb reflector at the back lit up the backdrop. Finally, a white umbrella in front set at low output just filled in the shadows to minimise electronic noise in the darker areas.

This last weekend, we did a shoot to showcase some of his designs. The models were classmates, the make-up done by one of his teachers.

Hugo is absolutely in charge – he knows, he feels colours, he mixes textures, he even positioned models in front of this and that to match colours and textures, helped them pose, suggested head and leg positions that made the body lines better … I learnt a lot, and in the end had my work halved through his brilliant directing.

He does not even have a driver’s licence, and had his school teacher drive him and his classmates out to Philadelphia. The teacher was also hairdresser and MUA – and did so brilliantly, claiming it’s the first time she’s done this. The models were first-timers too -  except one – and with a little bit of direction from us very quickly got into the spirit of things, going over the top with facial expressions and body posture to match the sometimes outrageous outfits they were wearing.

Next move – he wants to oursource the actual stitching of the dresses while he focuses on design work. Big thinker! I’m blown away by so much natural, unshaped talent. Where do the kids get it? (I call them kids in revenge of them calling me “oom” (uncle) all day. Serves them right) Imagine where they’ll be in a few years if this raw talent is pushed in the right direction.

We chose Philadelphia as the area is quaint, quirky and offered loads of off-beat spots – a perfect backdrop for the wardrobe. It also has narrow streets and white, north-facing walls (huge reflectors) that made lighting a dawdle. I used a Quantum flash to add a light line down the side of the body on the opposite side to the sun, slightly from behind for a bit of light wrap to the front, just to help give a hint of 3D and depth to the bodies. Coupled with a short depth of field on the Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 fitted with a polariser to cut the light down to 250th f4, I managed to sync the flash to the D700′s flash sync speed.

Hugo Amos in centre with models and teacher (right)

Shooting with a Nikon D300 and D200 didn’t help either – the clarity, in my opinion, was just not enough. I turned instead to trying HDR photography, and tried retaining some of the highlight detail and opening up shadow detail that way, but this was equally frustrating. The software was just not good enough for a subtle result.

Early morning at Langebaan Country Estate. These are special moments, usually windless and quiet, yet you hardly notice since that magic light's effect only lasts literally a few minutes during which you scramble frantically to get into your "ambush" shooting position.

Then three things happened that changed the game. First, I realised how much potential was locked up in my existing cameras’ raw files if I used specialised local contrast enhancers. Secondly, I invested in a wireless remote trigger to ensure absolutely no camera shake during the typically long exposures, and finally, I bought the D700 – a total game-changer.

The D700 purchase came about after testing the Nikon D3X, which should have been yards better than the D700 but was not, in my opinion. It certainly was not R50k better. The D700 sensor is special. It retains clarity, it has a huge dynamic range, allowing detail in shady areas without becoming too noisy, which allows one to expose for the highlights, and in Capture NX2, pull back the shadows seamlessly using the U-point technology to define and limit areas of change without affecting the rest of the image.

The result: confidence that I could get the shot, and with it, a new-found sense of creativity and rediscovered joy in shooting landscapes.

A moment before, a catabatic wind was ruffling the lake's surface. Seconds after the shot, the wind changed direction and killed the mirror-like surface.

So there I was this week, dodging Cape winter storms, scanning forecasts and looking for the perfect opportunity to shoot a series of landscapes at De Zalze estate outside Stellenbosch. I had a very short window of opportunity – the weather clearing after a spitting cold front one morning, which left me with a relatively clear afternoon and dusk period, and a clear day the next morning before the next front hit by midday.

As soon as my contacts on site reported sunshine, I rushed through and got set up. The biggest issue was where to position myself. The site is huge, and the opportunities for great shots endless. But it’s all about positioning – where to place yourself at what time of day. And this, I realise more and more, is what landscape photography seems to be about – ambushing the light.

Late afternoon at De Zalze. The golfers walking into the shot were unplanned but lent a very necessary element to the shot.

In the afternoons, it’s easier, since you can see the lowering sun starting to shape the landscape as deepening shadows define the undulations of the scene. Mostly, I shoot backlit scenes for their depth of contrasts and shape-defining shadows created towards the camera side of obstacles. And mostly, this is relatively easy to shoot, since you can see things shaping up as the source of light sinks lower in the sky. All you do is find an element in the foreground to lead your eye into the shot, expose for the highlights (a spot meter in the camera is handy here), and make sure you don’t bump the camera.

Straight after sunrise at De Zalze. These are the kinds of moments you cannot plan for unless you know the area extremely well. It's dark, then it gets light, then you see the shot, then you scramble to get it.

At dawn, however, things are a lot harder. I start before sunrise, and in the dark, try to guess where the sun will hit first, where it will create shadows, and where I should position myself to make the most of it. Literally, you ambush the light. And every morning, I fail miserably.

Where I guestimate the shot will shape nicely is usually nowhere correct, leading to a mad scramble as you see a shot developing 30 degrees left or right of your position. But that’s par for the course. I have come to realise that any given scene will offer a number of treatments at various times of the year as the sun moves through its winter-to-summer arc, lighting the same scene from infinitely variable directions.

That’s why one of the best bits of advice for shooting landscapes is to set up a few days for a particular shoot – to go out at least one morning and one evening, and getting a feel for the way the landscape responds to the morning and evening light. Shoot what you can, but don’t stress. Learn about the particular landscape, note where the sun comes up and goes down, and start planning around that, so that the next time you’re on site, you can position yourself in a perfect ambush position. Well, as perfect as any ambush can be.

My Ansel Adams moment. I was taking a breakfast break from shooting, saw this spot and as a joke set up a wireless transmitter on my D300 to take the shot from a distance.

One of the things I struggle with still is to relax while on site, and allowing the landscape to change, to go to full colour as the light sinks down, without panicking about not getting the shot. Invariably, the best shots come a minute before the sun sinks down or seconds after it appears, and are often hastily-adjusted, framed and exposed shots, not carefully planned and executed.  That’s the nature of the beast.

Using a 300mm lens rather than a wide angle changes the way you look at landscapes and allows isolation of interesting elements in the scenery.

Another trick I learnt was to leave my extreme wide angle in the bag. It makes you lazy, and it hides detail. My 14-24 rarely gets used. Instead, I shoot most everything on a 24-70mm, and increasingly, the 70-200mm. Used on the D300 with its crop sensor, the 200 becomes a 300mm, with even greater compression of the perspective, a factor that I have come to love in landscapes. It helps me combine elements in a shot that otherwise would have been too distant from each other to be significant. Like the lone tree on the blind rise, the detail of the mountain behind, and the vineyards in the foreground.

Seen through a wide angle lens, you are acutely aware that the three elements are literally 10km apart. Yet on this photo, they seem to be on a single focal distance. Great for landscapes! The longer lens also allows me to isolate certain elements, or rather to eliminate other, unwanted clutter, and so doing to reduce the image to only the elements you need to help tell your story.

Traditionally, landscapes are shot at f16 or thereabouts for maximum field depth, but I find myself increasingly shooting shallow focus shots these days, aided by the already short depth of field on the D300 with the 200mm lens. I’d focus on an element, like a leaf off a tree in front of a house, for instance and by defocusing the home behind, just hint at habitation instead of cluttering my image. I guess this is a result of years of shooting stock, where isolation of the relevant element is crucial.  Limiting depth of field is therefore a huge help in isolating the elements that tell the story.

Pano of 6 images, taken hand-held, in a rush.

]]> http://behindthescenesphoto.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/the-fear-of-landscapes/feed/ 0 jacow zalze_DSC8449 landscape_DSC7014 _7004563PanoSS zalze_7004476 zalze_7004557 zalze_DSC8424S zalze_DSC8442 zalze_7004596Pano DeZalzePano1S http://behindthescenesphoto.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/oh-drama-drama/ http://behindthescenesphoto.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/oh-drama-drama/#comments Sat, 28 May 2011 16:06:37 +0000 jacow http://behindthescenesphoto.wordpress.com/?p=429 ]]> What do you do if you have to re-enact a potentially dangerous traffic situation for a video production in which a pedestrian is (almost) run over by a delivery truck? Well, first of all you make sure that you don’t play the role of the pedestrian. You ask a family member. Or someone else.

Secondly, you make sure the whole scene is damn well planned. Every camera angle, duration of each shot, and matched precisely to the voice-over. Then you shoot, and hope to hell your driver stops when he’s supposed to – and that the “stuntman” pays attention!

The stunt actor in this case is my long-suffering nephew, Wian, a student who gets called in for the hard stuff at every opportunity. On location in the Roeland Street area in Cape Town, we set up and rehearsed the scene a few times, interrupted by vehicles wanting to pass in the narrow street every two minutes, and finally got to shoot the sequences – from the front, low angle on the feet, from inside the van, a GoPro shot on a pole attached to the van … I swear that by the end of the day, Wian’s right arm was about three inches longer thanks to the heavy metal he was carrying.

Fortunately, everything turned out fine. We managed to stop closer and closer to him as confidence grew, and got the shot in the can before Wian turned into roadkill. Shot on a Sony EX1 and GoPro POV camera. Watch the whole production here:

The only difference this time was that we simplified our lighting setup, using two 50cm softboxes on either side, plus a bare bulb fill light to just open up the shadows in the middle of the models’ figures caused by the two side lights. We used my new Bowens Esprit 250W kits next to the older Bowens Esprit 500s.

The fill light potentially can kill the atmosphere, but we controlled it by pushing the ligh stand all the way to the white ceiling, and limiting its spread to just the immediate area of the model’s front. We trusted that the rapid fall-off of light would contain the rest of the spread. And it did – even when shooting on a white background, we managed to contain the spread enough to turn the white to a non-distracting grey. I am now starting to appreciate what is possible in even a small studio.