Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts tagged ‘Cape Town’

Grand Parade, City Hall, Cape Town, South Africa, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in Cape Town: Grand Parade

A couple of pedestrian bridges skip over the busy traffic on Strand Street, connecting the train station with the bus station. Beyond the hub-bub in the bus station the space unfolds and opens to the space of a public square, the Grand Parade, in front of Cape Town’s City Hall. A very famous speech occurred at City Hall on the evening of 11 February 1990.

I visited Cape Town for the first time during my year-long RTW. I made the photo above on 12 Oct 2012 with a Canon EOS450D/Rebel XSi and the following settings: 1/800-sec, f/8, ISO200, and 18mm focal length (29mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-qF6.

Olduvai, Gavin Younge, CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in Cape Town: Olduvai

At the southeast corner of Cape Town’s International Convention Centre is a tall red metal-sculpture of a person, which is described by the Cape Town Central City Improvement District:

Inspired by a steep ravine – Olduvai Gorge in East Africa’s Rift Valley – and the Great Lakes, this looming, leaning nine-metre steel sculpture by internationally renowned Cape Town sculptor Gavin Younge represents the gateway to Africa. Created in 2008, it symbolises the evolution of mankind and attests to human endeavour, travel and global commerce.

I visited Cape Town for the first time during my year-long RTW. I made the photo above on 11 Oct 2012 with a Canon EOS450D/Rebel XSi and the following settings: 1/800-sec, f/8, ISO200, and 18mm focal length (29mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-qEU.

apartheid, District 6 Museum, District 6, Cape Town, South Africa, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in Cape Town: District 6 (museum)

The street signs and hanging tapestry are reminders of people who once lived in Cape Town’s District 6. Other displays in the District 6 Museum provide testimony to diversity and acceptance of everyday life, before the apartheid government declared the area “whites-only” and forcibly moved 60-thousand people to live elsewhere. Few whites subsequently moved into the area for fear of reprisals, and the area has remained barren, except for places of worship, religious institutions, and Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

From Castle Street to Sheppard Street, Hanover Street runs through the heart of District Six, and along it one can feel the pulse-beat of society. It is the main artery of the local world of haves and have-nots, the struggling and the idle, the weak and the strong. Its colour is in the bright enamel signs, the neon lights, the shop fronts, the littered gutters and draped washing. Pepsi Cola. Commando Cigarettes. Sale Now On. Its life blood is the hawkers bawling their wares above the blare of jazz from the music shops. “Aaatappels (Potatoes), ja. Uiwe (Onions), ja”, ragged youngsters leaping on and off the speeding trackless-trams with the agility of monkeys; harassed mothers getting in the groceries; shop assistants; the Durango Kids of 1956; and the knots of loungers under the balconies and in the doorways leading up to dim and mysterious rooms above the rows of shops and cafes.

— by South Africa activist and writer Alex La Guma (* 1924–1985 +): “The Dead End Kids Of Hanover Street”, in New Age, vol.2, No.47 (20 September 1956).

I visited Cape Town for the first time during my year-long around-the-world journey. I made the photo above on 12 Oct 2012 with a Canon EOS450D/Rebel XSi and the following settings: 1/10-sec, f/3.5, ISO800, and 21mm focal length (34mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-kE8.

Nobel Square, Nobel Prize, Albert Lutuli, Desmond Tutu, Frederik Willem de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, Cape Town, South Africa, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday in Cape Town: Nobel Square

South Africa has three capital cities: Bloemfontein, Cape Town, and Pretoria. At Cape Town’s Victoria & Alfred Waterfront’s Nobel Square are statues of four South African Nobel Peace Prize laureates. From left to right, respectively, are Albert Lutuli (1960), Desmond Tutu (1984), Frederik Willem de Klerk and Nelson Mandela (1993).

On 27 April 1994, the country held its first post-apartheid democratic elections, ushering the once-banned African National Congress into government, and Nelson Mandela as the first black president of the country. The 1994 elections were also the first with universal suffrage: all adult South Africans, independent of race or gender, were allowed to vote.

I visited Cape Town for the first time during my year-long around-the-world journey. I made the photo above on 15 Oct 2012 with a Canon EOS450D/Rebel XSi and the following settings: 1/500-sec, f/8, ISO200, and 25mm focal length (40mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-kSz.

Bo-Kaap, Schotsche Kloof, Cape Town, South Africa, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, forty-three

10 years ago, I went on an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

15 October 2012.

Deep pastel colours on one-storey houses are a signature for Cape Town’s “Bo-Kaap” (“Upper Cape”, in Afrikaans). I follow around the contours of Signal Hill to its southeastern slope; an easy walk into the neighbourhood has me constantly turning my head from one vivid house to the next. Known formerly as the Malay Quarter, Bo-Kaap was home to the Cape’s Malay and Muslim population from the 18th-century. After their emancipation, freed slaves began settling in this area of town in the 1830s, and it’s believed they painted their houses as independent and joyous expressions of their freedom. The image here is at the intersection of Wale Street and Chiappini Street, reflecting the neighbourhood’s history for openness and diversity.

I made the photo above on 15 Oct 2012 with a Canon EOS450D/Rebel XSi and the following settings: 1/500-sec, f/8, ISO200, and 23mm focal length (37mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-jtL.