Coming to Cape Town soon, from the good people of The South African Centre for Photography:

MoP4

The Cape Town Month of Photography 2008

a triennial festival

Thurs 2 October - Sat. 1 November 2008

Cape Town’s ongoing photographic triennial celebrates the photographic image as a unique space where the real and the metaphor engage and stimulate exploration and self expression. It is a festival which provides a rare platform for communication between local photographic communities, inviting inter-regional exchange, circulation and dialogue. It also aims to compete within the global photographic arena and to support the current positioning of South Africa as a world cultural site and hub of photographic vision and practice.

The festival will be presented as a series of exhibitions, events, seminars, workshops and master classes in photography and related themes, the core program running in Cape Town with the possibility of satellite exhibitions and events taking place in other parts of the country. For, although a local event, the month-long festival encourages and welcomes the participation of photographers, galleries, museums and photographic centres elsewhere.

The opening of the principal event in Cape Town will take place at 6pm on Thursday October 2 at the Castle of Good Hope, which will host a number of solo and group exhibitions. Other events and exhibitions will open at a variety of venues on different occasions throughout the month. The festival catalogue will showcase not only the core exhibitions, but also the fringe and satellite items.

MoP4 promotes opportunities for South African photographers to gain both local and global exposure. It will play a pivotal role in giving prominence to photography as a valuable cultural resource promoting cultural tourism. This festival hopes to continue the tradition of presenting an evolving collective vision of our contemporary life, and creating a comprehensive network between diverse photographic communities, including documentary, commercial and fine art practitioners, amateur associations and learners, all of whom are given a forum for expression.

MoP4 October 2008
Deadline for submission Friday 1 August 2008

Emergence and Emergency, the theme of MoP4, suggests the paradoxical character of societies in transition: growth and destruction, calamity and opportunity. South Africa is still extricating itself from the tenacious hold of apartheid and its ramifications, emerging from its isolation to become part of a globalised world. Both locally and internationally, we are faced with unprecedented crises that demand new and extraordinary ways of being and doing in order to meet the challenges we are confronted with. We are, in many ways, ‘on the brink’ with both its positive and negative implications. In this terrifying and exciting landscape, fresh, dynamic photographies have been emerging. MoP4 sets out to give them exposure.

for more info, go here

(photos on display until end March 2008)

Per Englund
Emilia Bergman-Jimenez
Ricardo Bastiaan
Francois Rousseau
Lauren Kriedemann
Iliso Labantu
Barry White
Mario Rabie
Candice Jansen

>>> directions >>>

Take N2 out of town.
Take the Gugulethu turn off (exit 15), go over the bridge. Turn right (travelling south) and stay in the left lane.
Take left at third set of robots (klipfontein rd) and go over the bridge, at the robots take right, then your immediate left (on you right hand side is a Police station) then immediately right.
Straight up the street. A house with a silver gate (next door to a green shebeen, opposite a school).
Place is called KwaMlamli
Street name is NY146
###
Since the shebeen isn’t open 24/7 please make an appointment 2 come see the works - call Zipho on 0769021197.

MITCHELLS PLAIN

(photos on display until end April 2008)

Rozzano’s EYE
Barry White
Daya Heller
Zipho Dayile
Katherine Traut
Ricardo Bastiaan
Jane Kennedy
Iliso Labantu
Roy Zetisky

>>> directions >>>

Alliance Française de Mitchell’s Plain
Wall Street, Portland, 7789 M.P.
Tel. : (021) 392 29 31

Travel south on the N7 (Vanguard Drive).
Turn left into Wespoort Drive. Follow this road for a few km’s.
Then turn right into Merrydale Avenue. Follow this road for a short distance, until you get to the petrol station on the left. This is on the corner with Hazeldene Avenue.
Turn left into Hazeldene Avenue, and take the first left again - this is Wall Street.
Alliance Francaise is on the left.

Back:

“Home Sweet Street”
The new theme is an investigation on the various interpretations of street photography. The functions can be historical documents, political propaganda, pornography, files for personal memories as works of art, as fact, as metaphor, as poetry — there is no one interpretation.
Our question to u is ”What is YOURS, What is your opinion on street photography?

In the past few weeks a few of us have been operating in the background, to prepare the structure of what must and will happen over the next two months with the MONTH OF PEOPLES’ PHOTOGRAPHY. Now is the time to get everyone together, get down to the details, and make the magic work!

Friday is the date for the first all inclusive very open ghettogether for all MOPP people.
We will be talking about where we are in the MOPP process, and what still has to happen. This is also a good session for exhibitors to asking questions about the process, and to make contact with the other people involved!

So, Friday 25 January 2008, 6pm-8pm, at Carnical Court Backpackers (in Long Street - Cape Town, above Long Street Cafe, the entrance is next to Long Street Cafe ~ press the buzzer to get through the gate, go up to the bar, and go out to the balcony. If you don’t know who to look for, i have a head full of dreadlocks)

If you can’t make it, and you want to be involved, please let me know, and I’ll brief you with details afterwards.

See you there!

Francois
082 940 9191

Twelve Essential Photographic Rules

From Sunny 16 to Moony 11, 8, and 5.6, these facts, formulas, and photographic rules can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.

By Jason Schneider
September 2007

What happens when your systems go belly-up, when all of that cutting-edge technology dies and you must rely on (gasp!) your own knowledge? It pays to have these basics in your head. They can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.

1. Sunny 16 Rule
The basic exposure for an average scene taken on a bright, sunny day is f/16 at a shutter speed equivalent to one over the ISO setting—that is, f/16 at 1/100 sec at ISO 100. From this you can interpolate, and try f/22 at the beach, f/11 on a cloudy-bright day, etc.

2. Moony 11, 8, and 5.6 Rules
There are many different rules that work well when shooting the moon. One favorite for a proper exposure of a full moon is f/11 at one over the ISO setting. For pictures of a half moon, use the same shutter speed at f/8, and for a quarter moon, use the same shutter speed at f/5.6.

3. Camera Shake Rule
The slowest shutter speed at which you can safely handhold a camera is one over the focal length of the lens in use. As shutter speeds get slower, camera shake is likely to result in an increasing loss of sharpness. So, if you’re using a 50mm lens, shoot at 1/60 sec or faster. Not enough light? Use a flash, tripod, or brace your camera against a solid object.

4. Anatomical Gray Card
Metering off an 18-percent neutral gray card is a good way to get a midtone reading that will give you a good overall exposure of a scene. Forgot your gray card? Hold your open hand up so it’s facing the light, take a reading off your palm, open up one stop, and shoot. (Various skin tones rarely account for even a full-stop difference.)

5. Depth of Field Rules
When focusing on a deep subject, focus on a point about a third of the way into the picture to maximize depth of field, because the depth-of-field zone behind that point is about twice as deep as the depth-of-field zone in front of it. This works for all apertures and focal lengths, but the smaller the aperture and the shorter the focal length, and the greater the distance you shoot at, the greater the depth of field.

6. Largest Digital Print Rule
To calculate in inches the largest photo-quality print you can make with a digital camera, divide the vertical and horizontal pixel counts (see your manual) by 200. For critical applications, or if you want exhibition-quality prints, divide the pixel counts by 250.

7. Exposure Rules
The classic advice is, “Expose for the highlights, and let the shadows take care of themselves.” This works with slide film and digital. But with negative film, especially color negative, you’re better off overexposing by one stop.

8. Quick Flash-fill Rule
When using an automatic flash unit that doesn’t provide auto flash-fill ratios, set the flash’s ISO dial to twice the ISO you’re using. Meter the scene, select an f-stop, set the autoflash aperture to the same f-stop, and shoot. The resulting 2:1 flash-fill ratio will produce filled shadows one stop darker than the main subject.

9. Flash Range Rule
Want to know how much extra flash range you get by going to a faster ISO? The rule is, “Double the distance, four times the speed.” For example: If your flash is good to 20 feet at ISO 100 (film or digital), it will be good to 40 feet at ISO 400.

10. Megapixel Multiplier Rule
To double the resolution in a digital camera, you must increase the number of megapixels by a factor of four—not two. Why? The number of pixels in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions must be doubled to double the pixel density across the image sensor.

11. Action-stopping Rules
To stop action moving across the frame that’s perpendicular to the lens axis, you need shutter speeds two stops faster than action moving toward or away from you. For action moving at a 45-degree angle to the lens axis, you can use a shutter speed one stop slower. For example: If a person running toward you at moderate speed can be stopped at 1/125 sec, you’ll need a shutter speed of 1/500 sec to stop the subject moving across the frame, and a shutter speed of 1/250 sec to stop him if moving obliquely with respect to the camera.

12. Sunset Rule
To get a properly exposed sunset, meter the area directly above the sun (without including the sun). If you want the scene to look like it’s a half-hour later, stop down by one f-stop, or set exposure compensation to minus one.

Originally published November, 2004.