“Congratulations! You now own the Nikon F, the world’s most coveted 35mm camera and the undisputed choice of professional photographers. See how handsome it is. Feel its sturdy body…” In pic 2 is the receipt from 30-03-1971 when my dad’s late colleague, Dr. Vogelpoel, bought this beast for the very hefty sum of R457.05 - about twice the price of a Spotmatic and a substantial proportion of a doctor’s income. ...

from our holiday in Knysna with @ezlemoen (pictured dispensing wisdom) and @sophdex

It’s been a while since I shot film. Processes for sharing them have changed and I’ve forgotten some things. So I’m doing a little testing. Despite everything, when I have a perfect exposure (1/500th at f6.3 for the sun) and a stabilised lens, and boost the sharpness and balance the colour, the results are good even from a flatbed scanner with a very, very expired film. So I’m eager to see the results using a digital camera copy with a new film. ...

Faded memories of things passed away. The unique @hello_sailor_bistro wisely closed just months into the pandemic. Another from a roll of film that I just left on a shelf for years.

Processed some brutally neglected rolls of film that were sitting exposed on a shelf since well before the pandemic…

Omg don’t touch the ears.

Kudu.

Thousands of Capetonians marching to parliament to demand that the SA government bans doing business with the apartheid state seeking to erase the indigenous people of Palestine from their ancestral lands. We’ve witnessed a year of the most savage violence meted out in my lifetime as Israel drops 2000lb bombs on apartment buildings, schools, and refugee camps - funded by the USA, the UK, and Germany - killing tens of thousands and wiping out the last traces of the myth of the West as “global policeman”. Not since the US bombing of Cambodia has the world seen such a one-sided slaughter. Israel must be isolated economically and diplomatically until it can learn basic respect for humanity.

Another view showing my faithful bike loaned to me by @joydemillar We all bid farewell to her dad - a one of a kind man - today. It was quite a scene, full to bursting, with a pipe band rattling the walls. Just beyond those trees you can just make out my old primary school and the window of a classroom where I spent probably the most miserable year of my life. That teacher would have been jailed for the stuff he pulled today. But in the 80s complaining just made you a special target. ...

I rode to a park I used to traverse on my way to primary school to photograph this tree that I used to enjoy climbing at the time. It hasn’t noticeably changed in 40 years except that it looks a bit smaller due to being somewhat taller myself. I didn’t attempt to climb it. I am mildly nervous of heights in adulthood in a way that I wasn’t at all as a child. I sometimes wonder if this is an evolved response - like how gorillas are big tree climbers when they’re young but become terrestrial as adults. We are a plains ape after all. ...