Zuma Celebration

A resident of Nkandla near South African President Jacob Zuma's homestead samples freshly cooked beef early in the morning. Around 20 cattle were slaughtered in celebration of Zuma's election victory and thousands turned out to see wish him well and get a plate full of meat.

Being a fisherman I am at ease with the fact that animals are slaughtered, but my limit of 4 shad are on a completely different scale to the cattle slaughtered here. And while I am sure that hundreds of cattle are slaughtered daily it was strange to see classrooms being used to butcher the slaughtered animals.


It was another interesting day in South Africa to say the least.

A New Chapter

This is start of a new chapter. I have finally left my job and have made the move across the country to KwaZulu Natal. The choice was easy to make as this is what I really want to do, but also difficult because I had a good job on the newspaper and we were in a comfort zone.

Moving the furniture and the cats, driving twice to get both cars here and all the other unplanned obstacles and has finally ed. We are living in a small country town between Pietermaritzburg (KZNs capital) and Durban (KZNs biggest city) and I do not miss the traffic, shopping centres or the wind.

So what is it I am going to be doing? I am going to be doing more social documentary work wich is the reason I started photographing in the first instant. I feel that I am ready for the next challenge and that is to make my dream job my real work. I will also be freelancing, hoping to do more editorial work and less corporate work.

Although I am taking a break I have been doing a little work on the annual Shembe pilgrimage. Tens of thousands of pilgrims dressed in white walk for three days to a holy mountain where they spend nearly two weeks praying and dancing. It is fascinating to witness and will make for great AV shows when I get the gear.