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.