Back in Dubai and back in the swing of things

After spending the last two months in France having a holiday with my parents and giving birth to our baby boy Cash Max Campbell Kennedy, i have returned to Dubai. Happy that the weather has chilled out abit, I am now able to start working on some awesome projects for my book.

The move to L.A is on the books for May /June next year and I have a ton of projects to do before we leave. I am working with stylist and online mag owner Guillaume Nallet on a huge amount of fashion editorials. Shooting will kick off next week as we start our first shoot which is gonna rock Dubai. Besides the stills side of things, we are also working with Mark Sherman cameraman / DOP , working on a few video projects which I will be directing .

At the moment I'm working closely with Richard Butterfield on the retouching of my gangster portraits. We should hopefully have a mock up book by end of November. Harry &Co my Cape Town PR agent will be finding me a publisher with help of there literary agent. I have finally locked off the month of March to have my first Gangst*r exhibition in Cape Town. I will be in Cape Town for 1 month working on 7 fashion editorials and 5 short videos.

Will be uploading my new shoots in the next couple of days, and will keep you posted

publicity from the callsheet, Cape Town South africa

a BIG skip to day 15 and 16 - today and yesterday.

On Monday the 12th, Lionel, Chris and Shane our organizers, went to Parow to go arrange a load of guys to photograph with Whity the white gangster who lives in Woodstock area near town. All was arranged and Whity was really excited to make some money in exchange for arranging these guys. Lionel arranged to pick him up in Parow
On Tuesday morning which was yesterday and then together they would drive to Woodstock to arrange the gangsters. Lionel waited in parow for about 1 hour and then got a message that Whity had drank to much the night before and no one could find him.

I was really disappointed because we only had 3 days left of shooting and we still need around 80 gangsters. It was also a beautiful sunny day and i know that the weather forecast mentioned rain on its way. Lionel then spoke to one of his old friends who happens to be a drug dealer in Cape Town and he said that he can get us hundreds of guys, and that at 1pm he would call Lionel to arrange a meeting point. We were super excited but i wasnt convinced, because we have been let down day after day by guys and i was really stressed about our end target amounts and dates. We all gathered at Charlie's Bakery for an hour while we waited. Then Lionel got a call from his friend who said he didnt have time to see people until 2 pm. So we waited for another hour. Then Lionel tried phoning him again and he didnt pick up, typical i thought, another disappointment once again.

Lionel's phone rang and to my surprise it was Pella, the organizer ! He told us that Kaptein ( pella's partener ) will be arranging all the guys for us. We collected him and we drove straight out to the taxi station just before the N1 freeway, which is a usual group point for gangsters, we arrived and there was no one there, still disappointed and watching my watch as the day ticked by, we arrived in Athlone, and thats where the magic power of connections took place.

Kaptein saw gangsters on the side of the road and told them that they are taking pictures and thats it. He seemed to have a really high authority over these guys. Whenever another gangster was talking shit he would walk right up to them, and tell them to fuck off. We managed to get some real characters that day. After shooting 8 guys in Athlone within 30 min, we moved onto Hanover park where he pulled 2 guys from a group .

We then headed back to his house in Woodstock where we did portraits of him up against a really cool graffiti wall. I was really impressed with Lionel's new contact.

We spoke about shooting today, and they said they were taking us to the dodgy location of Lavendar Hill, which was recently on TV for being a really dangerous area. But these guys that we are with are very well connected in that area so its no problem. They worked out that they can arrange about 80-100 gangsters. I was over the moon.

So today, we woke up at 6am and after i switched off my alarm, i heard the sound of cars driving through water outside. I checked out the window and honestly after 3 weeks of sunshine our second last day of shooting is rained out! Its cold, its windy and pissing with rain! FUCK! But even though it was pissing down, Lionel and Pella were determined to shoot. So we got a call at around 11 am telling us to come down to Essex Road in Woodstock asap to start shooting. We arrived and started shooting while it was still raining, we managed to get a female gangster as well, which was a bonus. We then moved to such a dodgy location, probably the worst so far. It was down by beach road near the Armoury Building in Woodstock. We drove through a couple of gates and saw a group of black foreigners ( bonga boys - Somalians i think) standing around a tyre burning, that they were using for warmth. This was actually the Heroin area, where they deal with Heroin. The guys we were with are so high up that when one of the Somalians tried to come near us, the other Somalian grabbed him and said to leave these people alone because our Gang were more powerful in that area.

We gathered a great group of gangsters and one extra chick gangster as well. Then the rain became to heavy and we were soaking wet and forced to stop shooting. As we got in the car one of the guys ran up to my window getting angry because our organizer had only paid him a small amount and he wanted more, within seconds our organizer was by my window and smashed the other gangsters to the ground. The rain was so bad we could hardly get out of the location because of all the mud.

We then went home and got a call about 2 hours later, rushing us to yet another loaction for a few more guys. We went to another shack kind of area in Woodstock where we managed to shoot a general of one of the gangs. We also managed to shoot a gangster with a axe, i love when they pull out there weapons as it just adds so much character to our shoot. Once we finished there we traveled to another location in Salt River, through a set of gates, inside the area was a building that had about 20 gangsters (Jukkie's ) in that were hiding out with a large stash of drugs, waiting for pickup. After that location we headed to another area in Woodstock, that use to be filled with gangsters, but since the head rasta died a few months ago the area has become quite quiet. We headed inside and its a bricked out area with brick panel walls where the leftover gangsters sleep. There were 2 chick gangsters, the one was an american. They seemed as hard as rocks . The one explained that she pulled out her front teeth because she gives blowjobs as a business. The other one was a white woman with blue eyes, which looked as if she had done way to many drugs in the past and probably still does.

We also managed to get a shot of a gangster with his puppy, Tyson.

So even though today was the day that we had the worst weather and rain, we managed to pull strings and shot a total of 30 gangsters. Tomorrow we are going into Lavendar hill ! so good luck to us ! Tomorrow will be our second last day i think.

day 7 and 8 Bonteheuwel and hanover park

Our day 7 was a Sunday and even though we said we were not going to shoot over the weekend due to
people being drunk over the weekend, we just decided that it was a great day to shoot. It was actually Myself and Mark's honeymoon day because we got married the day before but we decided to rather get out there and shoot , because we can celebrate our honeymoon at anytime, but our Cape Town shooting time is really limited.

Our first area in bonteheuwel was really cool, we managed to pull in quite a few guys. There were tons of people hanging around us, which made it really difficult to move back or forward to compose shots. There was one trouble maker during our shooting session that kept on telling me to drink his beer and he kept grabbing my arm and telling me to take a photo of him. Usually i would have reacted quite differently, but instead i had to politely tell him to please leave me alone because im shooting and that i will take a picture of him later.  When all i wanted to do is Tazzer his ass ! We also had a bit of trouble when Lionel and Shane were paying the guys, because all the residents wanted to get paid as well even though we never took pictures of them.

We managed to get out the location and moved to our next area where we shot some 26 gang members. They were mad in there group shots and photographed brilliantly. There was one guy named Flekkies who had such an odd face with tons of freckles and over sized lips.

After shooting those guys we called it a day, and started planning the next days locations.



Day 8. We used Hanover Park today, and it was definitely one of my favourite locations. When i

look for locations I always seem to be drawn to a place that has paint peeling off the walls, washing lines and graffiti. Its my favourite spots. I use to drive my crew mad when i was shooting alot in Cape Town, because i would always drag them off to Woodstock and down some dodgy side road and want to shoot there. I always had a system worked out with my crew as well, if danger appears, they take my camera and run and i hold the guys back, because no one is gonna take my camera without a fight. I already had my camera bag stolen once and i got it back , luckliy.

Hanover park was packed with kids, everywhere i

looked. But they were really cool kids, they asked alot of questions, they were keen to show us there dance routines on camera and they had beautiful curious and happy minds, unlike alot of kids i have met. These kids are living a hard life but they are generally super happy. Wherever i walked, so did my entourage of kids, running behind me and doing cart wheels.

At any given time i would be shooting, i had one kid twirling my hair, one kid stroking my tattoo's and one kid rubbing my belly because they found out i was pregnant.

We got some great shots of the various smaller gangs in the community. Some of them were in the 26 gang and 27 gang and some of them were not in any of the number gangs, but instead they were part of the communities gang.

It s quite funny , when we drive through various poorer areas of the cape flats, especially where there are kids, they yell out WHITY !!!! as we drive by. 

 It makes you wonder how many white people they have actually seen. Have some of these kids ever left the flats? do they know what Cape Town looks like ? have they ever seen the Sea ? They seem to live in a very closed off world. A world filled with gangsters, crime and poverty, but also a world of color, light, culture and family unity. 

I grew up my whole life in Cape Town thinking that the Cape Flats was a group of flats near the airport. It is only since i decided to do this project did i learn how big the Cape Flats are and how many people actually make up the Cape Flats area.

Day 6 - Eerste rivier and Mpumaleni

Today, Shane got in contact with the Mobster gang and showed them a few prints of what we've been doing. The seemed excited to get there images and we managed to gather up about 10 guys.
 














The guys were part of the 28, 27's.  The pic above is of our spark for the day. Arrogant as fuck and got the whole group angry towards the end of the shoot.  The guys were fantastic, and worked really well. The location was broken down building near a bridge. For some reason i always get drawn to shooting in dodgy locations. i remember when i was shooting model tests, i use to drag the crew to the dirtiest, dodgiest locations in town, Also filled with drunken bastards and loads of human shit.

Pretty much the exactly like this one. The room was covered in human shit and was difficult to dodge the landmines, the gangsters didnt seem to care, unlike the models i usually shoot ;)

The one gangster had his wife and child with him.
When looking at there family portrait it seems a little different to what you would normally see. Definitely not mom sucking on a Tik pipe , dad cursing the camera and the 6 months old baby holding onto there bottle neck for them, which had sharp glass edges.

Its sad to know that the kid is gonna end up being a prostitute or a drunk when she gets older. With parents like that i think its impossible to have a happy future. 

Towards the end of our shooting, the guys started getting a little more agro because of the spark. He was grabbing Marks camera and yelling into the lens " Ons is nou klaar - we are now finished " .
We had to super clean the lens of shooting because the guy had spat so much on the lens that the shot was blurred !

 We managed to organize another 28 gangster while shooting and this is where a few problems came in. Because these were Shanes  contacts, he had sorted out payment for the selected guys, when he had to pay the extra guy cash, the rest of
the guys thought Shane was paying him more and got really upset.

We were in our car already, because we felt things were getting a little wierd. So we were ready for a quick getaway.

They started grabbing Shane and pushing him around and threatening them. Lionel, Shane and Chris quickly jumped into there car and make a quick getta away.

Later that day we managed to find a gangster that was tattooed from head to toe. He wouldn't say a word to us about anything but he definitely fitted the part without a doubt !

DAY 5 - Strandfontein.

Today was a rather frustrating day. There seemed to be way to much talking and way to little action.
Lionel had not yet met these guys ( Junky Funky Kids). But our main organizer was convinced that he could get us 50 guys to shoot. Lionel and Shane had a strange feeling about these guys. They were well off gangsters with nice cars and were only in the gangs for the thrill of it. Lionel thought this could be a setup to steal our gear. I was determined to shoot that day because it had rained the day before and i was eager to get a few more guys added to my list.

We arrived at the gang members house. A house that he had inherited when his parents died.
The guys were having a house party that day, so it was a good time to round them up for the shooting.
We drove with them to a near by location with graffiti and old walls. There happened to be a few shops there as well. We started setting up and i was discussing the angles with Lionel, when a colored shop keeper came up to me and told me he was interested in tattoos and grabbed my arm to try and read my writing on my arm. I explained that i would show him later because i was busy setting up. He stood in the background and then it started. He was complaining that i had brought gangsters to his area....
He was a award winning spark for the day. The gangsters whipped out there guns for the shots and he freaked out and called the cops.

The cops arrived and stopped us shooting immediately. They told Mark and I to get in our cars and follow them to the station. The gangsters didn't interest them at all, just us. The shop owner had laid a complaint against us. Firstly they didn't believe that we were from South Africa, and it didnt help that we had zero identification and a cheap cellphone with only Lionel's number on it.  Eventually after an hour they let us go, and told us we had to leave Strandfontein, of course we didnt and went straight back into shooting.  Benton had disappeared when the cops arrived and ran off because he is still wanted for attempted murder on a few police officers, he fired his gun at them. He is on the run. The one cop, Swartz is the one who arrested him the first time. He explained that the cops will never find him.

" i know where to run and where to hide, the cops will never find me " says Benton.

We ended up shooting a few more guys and then returned home after yet another successful day of shooting !

DAY 4 Shooting in Lotus river

DAY 4 - Lotus river .

This was a similar location to Day 2. Except that this day we used a different sort of light. A light that i loved so much that i decided to change the entire projects feel and lighting. And so have continued to use this lighting for the rest of the shoot days.
Luckily its 10 x easier, because honestly setting
up a 8 x 8 ft Scrim in a dodgy windy location is near to impossible with only 3 guys helping set up and having to keep an eye open for any dodgy happenings.

The photo above right is of Benton our new gang organizer who was helping Lionel ( picture left). Yes he looks dodgy, yes he is a skelm. We used him for a few days and then he tried to screw us over, so we had to drop him. He ended up wasting a lot of our time and became greedy and started asking us to pay for his Doctors bills, and taxi fares when in fact he was using the money to smoke TIK.He called me late one night and tried to find out how much we were paying Lionel and was trying to cut Lionel out of the dealings and work direct for me. Then the next day he phoned Lionel and told him that we were not allowed to
use his pictures anymore and that he wants 1000 rand per picture we take. Lionel told him to fuck off and now we just receive the odd late phonecall from Benton that we just ignore.

 This location we used today was fucking awesome. This cafe on the left sold a load of groceries to the local people and served as a kickass background for one of my shots.

 We shot a load of gangsters that day, with names such as Jakkels, Faces and Rooi-Kop. We managed to lock off interviews with Jakkels and
Faces.

The interview with Jakkels ( 26 gang ) Yahgia Amadien - He is around 55 years old, and he may be an grandfather and father but he is still very much involved in gangsterism. One of his tattoos date the 18/06/85 he explained that he got this tattoo the day his son was born and the day that he went into jail for killing someone during an armed robbery at a post office. He served 20 years in jail.
He said that killing someone is not a joke, and the murder still haunts him.

When he started out as a gangster it was purely because he was so poor. But then it became more about wanting stuff and accumulating knives and guns.

 He says even to this day he steals everyday,      because he struggles to get work because of his tattoos and because people wont hire gangsters
and when he does get work they pay so little and he cant support his family. He has 7 children from various woman, and he told us that within the 5 years after he was released from jail, he had many woman. He offered drugs for sex and he got alot  of it.

Interview with Faces -  Moegamat Pieterson 21
He is one of the Gifted gang members. He joined the gang at 16 years of age and doesnt regret it at all. The life wasnt bad to begin with, but he just loves the dangerous living of a gangster. He would take his jacket off for the pictures because that weekend he had been stabbed by another gang member , he said he will get his revenge, because he knows who the guy was.

They call him Faces because when he attacks someone, he targets the face. His other nickname is Red, i asked him why but he said i wouldnt like the answer, so i asked his friends and they say its because he likes blood. He says when he kills someone he feels nothing. He doesnt have a heart for them . " Ek voel niks " says Faces. 

He loves his life as a gangster, he doesnt wanna change. He says if he had to choose then he would rather be dead, than change his present lifestyle. He is a 26 gang member, clearly a money lover, as they call themselves. He doesnt steal, they give him money. He hates the cops. " Fuck the Cops, they are gangsters just like me" he says ". 

We moved from lotus river to another area, that was unknown territory for our gang organizers, but had some shooting potential for a few more guys. We did find a Mandela look a like that gave us a few Mandela speeches and spoke exactly like Mandela. Pretty entertaining except sometimes they take up alot of our time, especially when they wont let go of your hand and they stand directly in front of you while you are shooting. If you think shooting in satwa is bad, think again. These guys are not your average crowd clusters.


You cant tell them to piss off, otherwise they are more likely to pull out a knife and show you whose boss. So as irritating as some people can be you have to politely take the time to listen to them and there bullshit. In every location  we get our sparks, the people who get angry that we photographing in there locations and not paying them enough money. The results ... an angry crowd. Thats the time we drop, roll and get the fuck out.  
 
We headed back to our first location, for some video footage on TIK smoking and gambling.

 Benton went to score some TIK, a lolly and a Button  ( a mandrax pill ) from the Dealers. The total cost was R 130. We went into there shack where they started smoking. Must say it was really interesting as i have never seen them do it. Here attached are a few shots. It was really dark inside, so i had to flash to be able to see something.

After the Tik they showed us how they gamble. Its so fast i cant even keep track, but all you see is guns and knives being waves around. Benton explains that these gambling games sometimes become really hardcore and sometimes result in death or people being wounded.  Once again very different to the way people from normal society do things. But this is indeed way more exciting than a average poker game !

a catch up day 3 - 5 of GANGST*R SHOOT

DAY 3 - Mpumaleni

Saturday the 26th of June . We had initially decided to not shoot on Saturdays but, we managed to organize 2 gangsters for the day, so we figured why not lets get the numbers rolling !

We drove into Mpumaleni into the street where the drug dealers and druggies hang out, and we stopped directly outside the CandyStore which Mark and I both throught would be a great location to shoot because of the name. Not knowing exactly what kind of Candy store it was.

Lionel explained that there is no way we could shoot there, because the Candy Store is the biggest Tik drug store in the whole area. The police have tried numerous times to close the store down, but surprisingly were unsuccessful. I dont understand how the cops cant manage to close down a drug den especially if they know where it is. Well perhaps it proves beneficial to the cops to leave them alone, as im sure they get paid in either drugs or money to stay far away.

We picked up one of our gangsters from that road. He was a MOBSTER. He was a dodgy gangster that also tried very hard to suggest a location of

his choice for us to shoot at. I was keen and as soon as i got into the car Lionel told me that it was a trap, and what he actually wanted was to take us to a place where he could arrange his friends and rob us. This specific gangster was really interested in what we were doing, where we were shooting and what locations we were using. Of course i pretended not to know much.

There in the picture below, you can see the guy with the Santa hat. As sweet as he looks with the hat, dont let the hat fool you. I was talking to him after the shoot and he was telling me a little about the gang - The Mobsters. The mobster gang do not have famiy , the gang is there family. There parents are either dead or they were abandoned when they were young.

He told me he use to be with the Hard Living gang, but then went to jail and became part of the 28's, and when released   
                  they all formed together the Mobsters - they are the drug dealers. There Motto - Fuck with our business of selling drugs and we will take you out.

He didnt go into much details about his murderous ways but clearly informed me that he has killed and stabbed many people and he has no heart for anyone except his gang.

Day 2 of shooting on the Cape Flats Lotus river

After Wednesday being a right off, and not shooting anything it was really great to get out there again, and start shooting. We had Die Burger newspaper interview us first thing in the morning and then had Kirby the journalist and a photographer come along with us, to Lotus River to come see what we are up too.

Lionel was a bit late with picking us up, but he informed us that the guys we were shooting that day were really really hardcore. The   

newspaper guys were under no circumstances allowed to say they were from the newspaper , as this would have caused big problems.
The gangs are already nervous with us taking pics of them. the last thing we need is the gangs finding their pics in the newspaper while we are still shooting them, as this gives there identity away to the cops. We were a bit nervous going into Lotus river, because our Lionel told us he was there the night before and he said it was really dodge.

We had a bad feeling about the day, but after meeting our new gang organizer, Benton, we felt much better about the situation. He is very well connected and looks really hardcore. They took a while to get all the gangsters together. So while that was being organized me and Mark were running around taking shots of the local kids and dogs . Their were kids of all ages

running around. From babies to 13 year olds. Its definitely a different life to the lives we live. To your left you see a 2 year old playing with the bottom of a broken bottle, in front of you are 2 kids with sticks banging on drums and to your right is a mangy puppy that can barely cross the road, looks like he hasnt eaten in days. As a photographer you sometimes have to turn a blind on the reality of things and keep it professional. It would never work if i decided to save all the doggies or kids while shooting. I'd be leaving the location with a car full of doggies ;)

After about 30 min we started shooting. Everytime i shoot one of the guys i first make them hold a piece of paper with their alias tag name, and then i start taking there fashion portraits. Some of the guys look like they have been through alot, they seem more old style and angry, while the younger guys seem more cocky and arrogant, but definitely stronger with their expressions and thus super awesome for my shots!

I, at any given time had 10 kids around me. They were fascinated by my tattoos and loved my name, so they were following me around like little sheep. It made it really difficult to shoot, because everytime i wanted to move back i had 10 kids behind me and had to ask them to move back or out the way. But besides that they were great in my pics and definitely made the shoot more worthwhile.


Another amazing thing is the amount of washing lines we are seeing! i feel like im in heaven. In dubai i always feel i have to re create this sort of thing. But these areas we are going into are like filmsets ready for filming! Its incredible. And not only that, but Cape Towns beautiful clean light makes every shot just that much more beautiful.
And after living in Dubai for so long you forget how blue a sky can really get. Im always having to add blue to my shots to actually prevent it from being just plain white.

After these couple of days im actually thinking of other books i can produce in cape Town. I find the people so interesting and maybe my next book will just be about the people of Cape Town.

After shooting our 6 guys in Lotus river, we moved onto another location just across the road from where we were. The gangsters arrived and wow, these guys were incredible,  tons of attitude and character in each face.  They didnt want to shoot in the urban area, so they suggested a park across the road. I hesitated and then told then the park would really work with the feel of the shoot.

So we persuaded them to shoot where we were. Then one gangster through his toys out the cot and left. Which was fine because i prefered the other 4 guys. then they decided to take us to another location which was even better. As you can see the location shot on the left, Its in Ottery East and the majority of gangmembers that live there are from the 26's.  Unfortunately when Benton got out the car
he was told that there was a hitman from the 28's sitting on the bench a few meters away, and that we should leave straight away.

So we headed back to the other location and decided to shoot in Grassy Park, on the grass.
These shots were great, because besides the 3 gangsters we shot, we also got to shoot Benton with his two sons. We arranged a gun for the day and got some awesome shots with Benton with the gun holding his little boy.

During the shoot, one of the other gangsters was causing shit because he wanted pics to be taken of him, but benton didnt want him involved, because they said he was a spark, meaning a spark that causes a fire.

We ended the shoot on good terms and arranged some good contacts for a few future shots.

Today we were suppose to be shooting 19 guys in Parktown, but there were a few problems and they pulled out. Then we were told to met him in Ottery at a shopping centres entrance, but we couldnt get hold of him as there was a problem with his phone.

We ended up leaving the location and went to go film some kids playing soccer in eerste rivier.
Then the mist pulled in, dropped 10 degrees and the wind picked up, so we called it a day.