Pentaxmx

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…

Eid Mubarak. While I’m not a big fan of religions in general, I do have a huge fondness for Islamic architecture. So I thought this might be a good day for this. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful mosques in the world - from the ‘Blue’ mosque in Istanbul, to the jaw-dropping Jama Masjid in Old Delhi designed by Shah Jahaan of Taj Mahal fame. I adore our strange early Cape Town mosques. But I think my favourite of all time might be this humble mosque in the centre of Chefchaouen, Morocco. Sitting lunching in that sunny square in that beautiful town in the Rif mountains, this typical Moroccan mosque with its geometric minarette watched over @furiousgreencloud and I as I recovered my sanity there for ten wonderful days in 1999. African, Maghrebbi skies provide the perfect backdrop. Hoping my Muslim friends feast to bursting point after a fast in the most difficult conditions.

Huge throwback to when Africans had the most sophisticated society on the entire planet. If I remember, these columns are at the temple in Luxor built about 3400 years ago while Europeans lived in holes and thought fire-hardened sticks were pretty rad technology. Not just Egypt, this sophisticated society was also shared by the Sudanese empire of Kush. There are dozens of little-known pyramids in Sudan. But unfortunately of the two dictatorships, Sudan is the harder one to visit - and also the one that’s taken stronger steps towards democracy (probably because, unlike in Egypt, the dictatorship wasn’t massively supported by millions of US dollars and tons of US military equipment). I wasn’t strongly aware when I was in Egypt in 2000 the role of the world’s democracies in propping up Hosni Mubarak as they now do el-Sisi after paying lip-service to the democratic movement he crushed.

Marcus hanging out in the past being young and handsome. At the Milestone, Simonstown in 2002 or so? @kanesnaps, you remember?

@kanesnaps and me in 1997. I knew how to use the self-timer. Unfortunately I didn’t know how aperture and depth-of-field corresponded in those days. This was influenced - without the technical ability to pull it off - by the famous Mick Rock photoshoot of Syd Barrett (I was obsessed with Syd Barrett) with his purple and orange striped floorboards. I should be very clear that the weed smoking Bob Marley poster belonged to my flatmate thank-you-very-much. I, of course, had a Bill Brandt print up in my room #pretentious . ...

Eerie boys, 1997. Only @kanesnaps is on insta in this pic. That’s Gen-Xers for you. I seem to have taken a couple of these low-light timed pictures back then - by candlelight too.

June 1996 was a funny time for me and @sad_ivan . Yessiree.

It was a normal day in the 1990s. At least for @sad_ivan, Gareth, and me it was a normal day.

Throwback to when Greeks ruled Asia Minor. Throwback to when Turkey was a democracy. Throwback to the dawn of the century.