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.