The Art of It

To continue the story of our recent short holiday in Wilderness this is a photograph of The Tops Guesthouse where we stayed and which we used as a base. It is located on the hillside above the village of Wilderness and has magnificent views over the village to the beach and the sea beyond. This was our second stay and we can highly recommend it. The rooms are attractively furnished and comfortable, the view is amazing and it is literally 5 to 10 minutes walk from the centre of the village. The photograph shows Carol sketching the view from our breakfast table on the deck. Our room opened onto this same deck near the tree in the background. Beyond the tree are the beach and the sea, not really visible in this picture, which was taken on a misty morning. The day after we arrived we took a leisurely drive from Wilderness to Knysna . Knysna is a very picturesque town stretching around an magnificent lagoon , which opens to the Indian Ocean. It is a water sports paradise very popular...

A favourite walk of ours in Wilderness is the Kingfisher trail, which meanders along the banks of the Touws River ending at two picturesque waterfalls cascading into a series of pools. These are perfect for a refreshing swim. The trail is around 8km, there and back, through shady forested countryside. National Parks have constructed wooden walkways and stairways through the "difficult" bits to prevent erosion and make the going easy for even us "old" folk. The original pathway, which we first walked several years ago, was washed away in the recent floods and a remarkable job has been done in re-establishing this very popular route. The photographs below show the two waterfalls. They were taken on a beautiful, if rather hot day. In the second photograph I was experimenting with a slow shutter speed to add a sense of movement to the water. Without a tripod I was a little restricted but in the full resolution image it worked reasonably well. Unfortunately down s...

A recent holiday stay in Wilderness provided an opportunity to take some new photographs of this magnificent part of South Africa. I hope to be posting several of them over the next few weeks. Although we frequently visit this area, it's one of our favourite places, changing weather, light, tides and floods (more of that later) provide new photographic opportunities on every visit. This picture was taken on the beach in the early evening of the day we arrrived. It was a cloudy, misty day and I loved the moody feel of the beach

At the beginning of October Carol was exhibiting at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens . We took the opportunity to take a walk around the gardens and I spent some time examining and photographing the work of a number of Zimbabwean stone sculptors . I find this work extraordinary and in everyway comparable with some of the best work produced anywhere in the world. Although the work on display in the gardens is recent it has it roots in a tradition dating back many centuries. The stone carvings found at the Great Zimbabwe, an archaeological site dating back to about 1200 AD, are quite similar in character and style. Carving in stone began to experience a revival in the early sixties. Artists working from small workshops, with encouragement from the director of the National Art Gallery in Zimbabwe, began producing a substantial volume of work, much of which was sold to tourists by informal traders operating at places like the Victoria Falls, the Great Zimbabwe Ruins and at sites in...

About eleven years ago I bought a lemon tree. It did nothing until recently when it produced two or three of these:- Now it is suddenly producing magnificent lemons! Strange!

This is another of Bryan's photographs taken on Noordhoek beach. The mood of the beach changes so much from day to day that there are often opportunities for new pictures. This one was taken on the same day as the pictures of the surfers in our earlier post.

Looking to go somewhere new on a recent public holiday we paid a visit to Imhoff Farm and the Blue Water Café. The farm is part of a gift of land made to widow, Christina Rousseau by Baron van Imhoff for her efforts in supplying produce to ships of the Dutch East India Company anchored in Simon’s Bay in the mid-1700’s. The area became known as 'Imhoff’s Gift' and includes the land on which the settlements of Imhoff's Gift, Ocean View and Kommetjie now lie. Today Imhoff Farm has been converted into a commercial centre at which a number of local artists and craftsmen sell their wares. There are shops selling homemade breads and cheese, preserves and pickles and similar farm food products. Activities include pony, horse and camel rides for little kids and big kids and a snake park, which we didn’t visit. The Blue Water Café is a family friendly, relaxed and very casual restaurant. There is an indoor area, a veranda overlooking the Noordehoek Valley and rough ...

These are a few more pictures we took at the Two Oceans Aquarium. If you are in Cape Town or intend to visit sometime it is well worth a visit.

Contemporary art is not something we know much about, but today we went on a SASA outing to see the Spier Contemporary Art Exhibition 2007 at the Spier Wine Estate just outside Stellenbosch. What a mind blowing experience. We were taken around by the co-curator Jay Pather and given so much valuable information about what they had seen in the works and why they were chosen. Only 100 works were chosen from over 2000. No mean feat. This was a multi media exhibition and includes paintings, sculpture, photography, video, and live performances. Over lunch Bryan and I discussed in great depth what is art and what is just pretending to be "Art" This exhibition is most definitely well worth visiting. For all my Johannesburg readers, it will be moving up there at the end of March. It will awaken emotions in you that you have buried deep inside. It will bring joy and discomfort. Go and see for yourself! One of my favourite exhibits Our own contemporary art taken between shipp...

Regular readers of the blog will know that we frequently visit Noordhoek Beach, which is a wonderful place to walk the dog and get some interesting photographs. A while ago, planning a family celebration, we thought of going to Noordhoek. Living in Cape Town we have a huge choice of Restaurants. Deciding where to go can be a problem. There are so many options. We often refer to Rousseau’s Restaurant guide, which we have found to be useful and reliable. The guide listed only two restaurants in Noordhoek, neither of which appealed as we wanted somewhere that took advantage of the spectacular surroundings. On previous visits we had seen the Monkey Valley Resort sign but had never been there. Their website listed a restaurant on the premises so we decided to give it a try. The views and atmosphere are breathtakingly beautiful and did not disappoint. You approach the resort via a narrow road under a canopy of Milkwood trees. From the Restaurant you have a magnificent view ove...

Long time no posting! Our poor blog has been neglected! We have been on holiday; no not away but enjoying the beautiful place in which we live. On my Birthday we went on a family outing to Lourensford in Somerset West. Truly beautiful. We started off visiting the Tretchikoff exhibition in the Bell Roberts art gallery. I found it very interesting, as I have never seen so many of his works in one place before. I still can’t understand why he was so ostracised by the art establishment. He certainly sold well. We then moved on to sample and buy some freshly roasted coffee beans from Switch . Oh the aroma!!! Very interesting chap but the shop was so busy that he could not chat much. Bought lots of coffee though. Next on the agenda was Healey's cheese shop – oh my word what divine cheeses. They are far superior to the yellow “plastic” cheese available in most of the supermarkets. It was an exceptionally hot day and not having a cool bag with us we were reluctant to buy mu...

Hout Bay gets its name from the Afrikaans / Dutch word “hout” meaning wood. The Dutch colonists of 1652 needed large quantities of timber for building and other purposes, which was not available near their original settlement in Table Bay. They met their needs from an area around a bay between the southern end of Table Mountain and Constantiaberg. Hout Bay is now a suburb of the City of Cape Town with a population of over 42000 people, although many residents believe their village to be a separate entity they refer to as The Republic of Hout Bay. The last weekend in October we paid a visit to Hout Bay and spent several happy hours looking for photographs in the interesting and colourful fishing harbour. A few playful seals added interest to the visit. Bryan managed to capture this picture of one of them playing with a fish head. Bryan also took this lovely photograph of reflections. I have never taken photographs in a harbour setting before and was quite proud of this one. At about...

Last weekend we took a trip to Hermanus to do some whale spotting and hopefully get a few photographs. On our previous trip we used a very basic Fuji digital camera with a 3 times optical zoom. This time we hoped to get more interesting pictures using the Canon S3IS with 12 times optical zoom. The weather was sunny but with a cold blustery southeast wind and the sea was quite rough. The whales were out in force in the bay but were not all that cooperative as models. We took a few pictures from the cliffs near the old fishing harbour before dropping in to one of our favourite seafood restaurants, Bientang's Cave, for lunch. While enjoying a delicious meal with a well-chilled bottle of Boschendal Sauvignon Blanc we were able to continue watching these magnificent creatures frolicking in the waves below. The photographs were a little disappointing as the whales seemed determined to display little but dancing tails but, what better way is there to spend a Sunday aftern...

This article was originally posted on 12 August 2007. We picked up a typo and corrected it but Blogger refuses to allow the time and date of posting to be reset to the original so here it is again. Thursday’s public holiday, National Woman’s Day, provided the perfect excuse for a trip to Delheim , one of the oldest wine estates in Cape Town, for lunch. A traditional South African babotie (curried mince with a custard like topping) complimented by their excellent Gewürztraminer hit the right spot and put us in the mood to try to capture the winelands in a winter mood. And just for fun, something a little abstract.

These are two more pictures taken last weekend. Look at the previous post for the background to the challenge we set ourselves. Any comments?

Last weekend we decided to take a drive through to Blaauwberg for lunch and some photography. A visit to Doodles Restaurant, a pubby little place with good food, a boisterous clientele and rather slow service filled the hollow and a couple of beers set the mood for a long walk on the beach and a few photographs. Blaauwberg beach is the vantage point from which the familiar “trademark” picture of Table Mountain is usually taken. So many photographs of “our” mountain have been taken from this vicinity that it has become something of a “photographic cliché.” To try and produce something fresh and interesting was the challenge we set ourselves. Here are two of the many pictures we took. Do you think we succeeded? We will probably post one or two more in a day or two.

A late summer visit to the spectacular Noordhoek Beach on Cape Town’s Atlantic coast, for a walk with the dog, produced an unexpected bonus. We saw a photographer with a long telephoto lens staring out to sea for ages and wondered what he was trying to photograph. After much searching we spotted a large school of dolphins frolicking in the bay. Out came the Cannon camera. Thank goodness for its built in 12 times optical zoom, a very effective image stabiliser and a convenient large rock to lean against. Even with these aids capturing the fast moving Dolphins was challenging! At full zoom your field of view is tiny and the Dolphins unpredictable.

This post is a little different in that the photographs are “wildlife” pictures taken in the small seaside town of Hermanus about an hour and a half’s drive from Cape Town. The first picture was taken quite some time ago using our pretty basic Fuji film Finepix 2 mega-pixel camera with its rather limited 3 X optical zoom. If we had had the newer Cannon S3IS camera with us on that visit we would have been able to do a lot better but the pictures we did get show just what a wonderful place Hermanus is for whale watching. The picture of a Southern Right Whale posted here was taken from the cliffs near the old fishing harbour. This is no longer functioning as a working harbour but has been preserved as a monument and tourist attraction. Close by is a rather unique restaurant, Bientang's Cave Seafood Restaurant, which has been built into centuries old cave in what is probably the best land-based whale watching area in the world. Imagine being able to watch these wonderful creatures fro...

Wow!!! I did a photo shoot of two kids aged seven and two at Kirstenbosch on Monday. Firstly I haven't been to Kirstenbosch for years and my, one forgets how beautiful it is. We used to go there often for Sunday champagne breakfasts and a walk with the kids. That was in the days when it was a lot less costly to get in! Hell of a price it is now and not something I will do that often - wonder what the price of an annual ticket is? I must look that up. I took Bryan's camera, a Canon Power Shot S3IS with 12x optical zoom and 6 mega pixels, as well as my own little Fujifilm Fine Pix with a 3x optical zoom and only 2 mega pixels. I have never done portrait photography before but jumped in headfirst. Well I was very excited and nervous and oh boy, one forgets how active a two year old is! After about two hours I left not knowing what I had in the bag. Getting home we put all the photos onto the computer. I had used Bryan’s camera for most of the shots. What a beautiful camera! I don...

Here are two photographs taken relatively close to home. We had spent the day in the town of Hermanus, about one and half hours drive from Cape Town and were returning via the coastal route around False Bay. The sun was setting in an “angry” looking sky providing a wonderful and unusual view of the southern part of the Cape Peninsula in silhouette between the dark waters of the bay and the sunset painted sky.