This is Queen and her pet rat Tom. I was driving down a road on thy other side of the river and I saw this group of kids walking towards the Horse Club it was a sunny afternoon in the late rainy season here in Omaruru, warm but not crazy hot and wonderful puffy clouds in the Eastern sky. As I drove by this group of kids lost in my own Sunday daydreams it registered moments after I had passed, that the tallest of the kids had a rat on her head…..

Consider that for a moment, young lanky African girl walking in the sun, on a dirt road, at the edge of the map, leading her posse with a white rat on her head…..

I couldn’t believe what I had seen and forced myself to turnaround and confirm that it wasn’t a flash back, an echo of a different kind of sunshine. As I pulled up next to them I’ll be dipped, the young lady was indeed sporting a rat on her head…This was too good to pass up. Turns out she is the daughter of a man whom I also photographed a few years ago, this is that image, called ‘buy-a-donkey’ it’s only really amusing if you speak Afrikaans and that’s for another day.

Over the next couple of weeks I had the opportunity to spend more time with Queen, I’ve learned that she goes to the best elementary school here in Omaruru, where she is a gifted student, that she is a devout Catholic who is seriously considering becoming a nun, a rarity in these dark days. Tom was given to Queen by a friend of hers that moved away 5 years ago, making Tom a very old and wise rat. Tom and Queen are very close, there were many times when I was watching them that Tom would settle in and close his eyes, content with where he has ended up. His age is visible in close-up; I was moved by his timeless countenance, he looks like he could be a character in a Spielberg movie, there were times when I expected him to open his eyes, fix me with his gaze and tell me to piss off…..

I hope you enjoy this portrait and the quiet little story behind it…..

Five Ninety Five

Five Ninety Five

Long ago I was on Interstate 80 heading west across a Wyoming winters night. Patchy squalls of horizontally blowing snow created these moments when the headlights were obscured by the white flow in a dazzling screen of moving white dots some across the road, most strait at me as though I was jumping to light speed, tire hum and road noise muted by the snow.  An instant later the blowing snow would be gone and the silver moonlit high plains would open up for ever in front of me, punctuated only rarely by a lonely farmsteads yellow barn light, miles away across the plains.

On nights like these I would listen to the radio, AM radio, FM just couldn’t penetrate the darkness of the high plains. On this night I picked up an AM station broadcasting out of Las Vegas, one moment clear, as if the conversation was in Fords cab, the next fading out into the whine and howl of static and night.

There was a comedy routine playing, the comic was poking fun at the stereotypical Southern, Bible Thumping, Old Testament spewing, Baptist. In a deep drawn out drawl meant to simultaneously strike fear and overcome the hand to wallet reflex.  It went something like this.

                Friends, our CHURCH!, Gawds holy church is in dire need, that’s why today I have a special offer for all you true believers out there in the night. I’m askin yew to open your hearts and wallets and shed the light of hope on this ministry so we can continue doing our LAWDS work to save the desperate damned sinners of this world.

                If yew send me just five ninety five, today and today only I will send you,       your very own,     plastic baby Jesus for your car dashboard. And today and today only if yew send me just four dollas more I’ll send you his beautiful loving mother Mary, to hold her sweet baby Jesus and protect yew and yours as you drive the highways and byways of this great Christian land we live in.

The snow squall closed in, the signal faded out, leaving me to the rhythm of my wipers and the low hum of the heater fan. The rest of the routine lost to the night and the wind.  In that moment drifted away in my own thoughts I wondered…..

Why does their Gawd always seem short of cash?

I used to dance

I used to dance,

a lot,

badly.

Those were the days we would get ready to go to P. W. Hoseapples by firing up a G, destroying a bottle of JB or Glenlivit when times were good and smoothing out the mix with a little Columbian. In  my head I was fluid in motion, an awe inspiring, gold chain and polyester wearing, inner thigh moistening, god damn disco dancing mother fucker, praise be to sweetbabyheyzeus there weren’t smart phones…I got sober,  quit blow, cigs and refer 30 years ago and somewhere in that transition I lost the dancing. I was going to say I lost my rhythm, but truth be told I don’t think I had much, ever.

We only ever had one real objective on those nights, to get lucky. As one half of the disco twins Danny and Donny I ended up going home alone, most of the time. The memory of those times I didn’t,  are largely lost to the fog of my addictions.

……..Although there was this time that Pluto and I woke up in Lewiston with a couple of comely sisters, tall, very tall Idaho farm girls…..

It was the 80’s.

I am eternally grateful the universe saw fit not to snuff out my dim witted idiocy.

30 years later gem bidness friend Mikola turned me on to Bose noise canceling headphones. They completely changed my traveling life. To be able to largely filter out the white noise of air travel makes the flying bus a little less onerous. They allow me to sonically disengage from the chaos of international travel.

And,

I also like to put the headphones on when I go out to shoot, my IPhone randomly cycles through my tuneage and once in a while the spinning wheel lands on a song that takes me back, way back, my foot starts a tapping, my head starts swaying to and fro as the rhythm takes hold, I find myself dancing,

again,

still badly.

 In the moment, alone under the clean African sky it doesn’t matter and far more importantly I don’t give a shit that I can’t dance like Travolta……The music, the scene that unfolds in front of me and my camera as the sun leaves this side of the ball, sometimes leaves me weeping at the beauty of it all and my great good fortune to bear it witness…..

Dumb Luck

Really early on my road to becoming a photographer, I started entering competitions, and then as now I didn’t do so well, the first 2 years that I entered I got bupkis. In those days most competitions required you to either send prints or CD’s of your work, (note not DVD’s) one competition I stumbled onto was the Royal Print Society’s (UK) annual print competition, it had been going on since Queen Vicky’s time, so I thought WTF I’ll give it a go. I entered a number of things which I loved and well they didn’t love so much, then as an afterthought I also included this.

To my amazement the Brits selected it for the catalogue, essentially an honorable mention for the top 130 prints submitted; my bull-bull came in 129th out of 130. The ice was broken!  It wasn’t 131^st……

I have entered many other birds in many other competitions since; I did pretty well with a bee-eater once and beyond that not so well with things ornithological.

In my gallery however there is one bird photograph that has consistently sold well, this one. I call it “two states” a reference to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that likely only makes sense to me. I think most of the buyers, buy it in spite of my title.  Truth be told the image was simply blind luck, I had the foreground waxbill square in my viewfinder, hit the shutter and only later at home did I see the rapidly moving uncertainty behind it. Looks great, dumb luck.

 

A few weeks ago I was on a commercial job shooting lodges in the northeast of the country. I was waiting for the sun to start easing back so I could take some shots around the pool when I noticed a couple of bull-bulls hanging around the pool as it was damn hot, they were cooling off in the pool every few minutes. I like bull-bulls, I had time, I had my 300mm f2.8 and a couple of bean bags, so down I go on the deck, eyeball to the viewfinder waiting to see what if anything I can get, my expectations were, well, non-existent, I really was just killin time.  I shot a few that looked like this. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

 

Then I got this in the middle of a 4 shot burst, 

 

I have also blown up and cropped the water bubble that’s just in front of its chest. Wow.



 

Here’s the thing and perhaps the lesson in this ramble. I looked at the image on the cameras LCD screen, I could see it was blurry and likely nothing, but I kept it anyway, cause, “two states” was in the back of my mind.  Most people would have dumped this and moved on. Lesson learned, keep all of them until you can get home and put them up on a screen and really look…….sometimes magic emerges from the tip…..

I'm still thinking of a title for this new one.......

 

I haven’t lived in Massachusetts in 40 years, doesn’t matter, I am and always will be a proud son of Boston, regardless of the truth, that I hailed from the burbs 20 miles out.

I am relieved that the bombers turned out to be a couple of twists from Chechnya, in the new world of 2013 we will, ironically be far more able to process this reality, then had they turned out to be IRA wannabe’s from Southy. 

I cannot watch the news without the tears flowing. When did I become such a sentimental slob? This is one more visual outrage added to the images forever burned into my mind, Kennedy in the Lincoln, arms pointed skyward above Martin Luther King, Rosie standing over Bobby, the Shuttle, the Trade Centers collapse, now the bastards have taken away the marathon.  Thank God they didn’t blow up Fenway.

I hope they catch the last one alive. I hope they break out the towels, the buckets of water, and find out what twisted rationalization they had for doing this.  Killing him is too easy. This motherfucker needs to suffer, for eternity and that’s just what I’m going to ask Allah tonight as I drift off to sleep.

 

Be strong Boston,

There’s nothing quite like the sting that comes from paying for a good ass whuppin…

 

If you are serious about photography, sooner or later, you will take the big leap and dip your lily white toe in the shark infested sea of competitions…..If your ego is unusually fragile, you best be leaving your shoes on and staying the !@#$ away from the shore line of competitive despair.  The competitions are insidious in their siren like calls, whistling out of the darkness of the internet,” hey big boy, come on, it’s not that much money, your stuff’s good, really good, you’ll do great, hell maybe you’ll win the whole enchilada and take home the new Buick full of money and camera gear AND don’t forget if you act now you could also win that trip to Mars.”

 

Works for me, where do I submit…….

 

Sometimes you even get a personalized invitation, here’s mine from what is arguably the most important international competition of them all:

 

 Dear Mr. Johnston   

  I remember your outstanding and successful photography from our contest 2011 very well!  This was excellent photography!

However we missed your images in our 2012 edition so much that I decided to write to you today.

I hope that I can convince you with this letter to enter your best images in the world's largest annual photo art contest:   

22^nd ANNUAL TRIERENBERG SUPER CIRCUIT

 

 

Trust me, if that shows up in your mail box, you start dreamin of glory……So you read the instructions in the call for submissions, look in your library or worse yet undertake a competition specific series of shoots, size ‘em, name the files just so, hit send, visit PayPal, cha ching, and wait.  Most times you forget the date they say they will let you know what you won (it’s good to have hope) and  when the mail shows up in your inbox, your little ego driven heart goes pitter patter and then …..

 

WHAMO you moe-ron, did you actually think you had a chance, fool. (Say it like Mr. T for full effect)

 

Well, I exaggerate, they are a little gentler when they bend you over and the bullwhip cracks. 

 

Usually a variation of this;

 

Hello, (Notice now they have forgotten your name, when they were trying to get into your pants you were on a first name bestest buddy basis)

 

I regret to tell you that your submission(s) was/were not selected to appear in our money spinning photographer of the century competition. The response to our call for submissions was great, and while Judge Darth Vader was impressed and challenged by the amount of excellent work submitted, he had the difficult task of considering many factors when making his final decisions. Unfortunately, your work was not one of those selected, but we can assure you it was seriously considered. (Yeah sure it was)

 

I have had a little success, just enough to keep me going back to seaside and sticking it in, paying my fees, waiting. Tap tap tap and then getting my ass wupped. In the last month or so I managed to not make the cut in the Namibian Land Matters in Art exhibition, FFS it wasn’t even a competition, I will resist the temptation to rant, lest it stink of sour grapes, (rest assured however that I am seriously bent over the judges decision) I submitted a series of images that were based on this simple theory, ownership of the land is irrelevant if it has been destroyed by pollution and neglect, neither of which is permitted under the Constitution of the Republic of Namibia.

 

This is one of them.

 

 

I also submitted this one to Open-2-Interpretation along with 4 others, one of the five made the top 40, but not the all-important top 30. Crack goes the whip……

 

 

 

 

And now I am waiting tap tap tap for my dear friends at the Super Circuit to let me know how I fared in this year’s competition.

 

I’m feeling lucky.

 

My work was well thought out, perfectly executed; this year will be my turn. (Hey Moe-ron…)

 

There will be some 80,000 entries, I am thus far the only photographer from Namibia to ever have stepped up to the plate and entered. I shall consider myself a winner if one of my submissions makes the 1000 images they reproduce in the extraordinary catalog that they send to every single photographer who enters, and if it really is my turn, then I’ll get word via a letter that begins with.

 

Dear Mr. Johnston, Congratulation’s, we are pleased to inform you……

 

 

PS. If you haven't had a look at my website in awhile, please have a look, I've been working hard on it.....

 

Chris

Speak now or forever keep your yap shut......

Speak now or forever hold your peace….

I love that moment in a wedding, the collective breath holding, the collective sigh of relief as the moment passes in silence punctuated by a few nervous laughs and great puffs of exhaled breath.

On Saturday passed, I had a wedding gig at Daan Viljoen Reservoir/Park about 20kms west of Windhoek. Fortunately it was on the low side of sweltering for this late afternoon wedding. A great time was had by all.  I still find photographing the process a blast, I think of it as stream of consciousness portraiture. The day requires intense concentration for 8 to 10 hours or more.  Never knowing when circumstances will serve up a classic image. At the end, when the bouquet has flown I am always exhausted.  The next day when I begin to plow through the images I see the payoff from the attention spent.

To have such a pivotal role in creating the record of the day, images that will serve as memory triggers down through time is really a privilege. Thank you Ryno and Malinda!

Rolling the dice for fame and fortune

I digress......

Living as I do off the edge of the map so to speak I have essentially zero opportunity for real time, face to face interaction with other photographers, access to workshops or other learning opportunities. Mostly I struggle through issues by sheer force of will or with the help of kindly photographers in the outside world. One thing that happens with your work, when you show it to family or friends, is they will always say Wow! I love that picture to your face and then to your Aunt or Uncle, Brother Sister they will say, "you know we're worried about Chris, it seems he has living alone with his 30 cats for too long....."

The solution to that is to pony up your cash and enter competitions. Something I do with painful regularity. I usually get past the first round, which is where the images that are blurry, skew, have a finger on the lens or are otherwise complete fecal matter get cut. When I am really fortunate I get to the final round, few things will goose your ego like the letter that begins, "Dear Mr. Johnston, we are pleased to inform you that your image 'portrait of a young lady on the Hindenburg' has been short listed for the final round of judging. Then it goes quiet and I know close, but no ceegar.

That is not to say that I haven't lucked out a few times and made the awards, sometimes honorable mentions, sometimes a place and a couple of time the brass ring. Win (rarely) lose (mostly) or draw I keep sluggin it out.

One competition I enjoy is called Open to Interpretation, ( http://www.open2interpretation.com/ ) I made the finals and was selected last time out for 'Fading Light' and I have spent a good deal of time over the last month creating 5 images to submit for the current competition, 'LustLove'. As this is a family rated blog I will show you the last of the 5. This is my good friend Mistress Hannah D who somehow makes chocolate cake sensual...thank you Hannah. WOW!

PS. This also marks my first posting on Facebook.....

 

Onward through the heat......


We have been flirting with 45 in the shade off and on the last couple of weeks here in the sunny part of deepest darkest. For those of you who don't do ‘C’ 45 is 113+/-. The last few years here at the edge of the Namib, we have been blessed with exceptional rains, 750mm two years ago, over 500 last year, normal is 250 or +/- 10 inches.  We don’t ever get rain without the heat, but there are plenty of years where we get the heat and no rain.  ‘13 is shaping up to be one of those.

So here I sit in my office, aircon already on at 10am, I know full well its environmentally irresponsible of me but for @#$%sake its bloody hot.

The next installment in the Garden series is this photo of three lovely Herero ladies. They walked into my studio a few weeks ago while taking a break from a funeral here. Unlike the Western world where funerals are generally a succinct affair, here they can go on for days and rarely will stretch more than a week.  With the rampaging effects of HIV and AIDS here, it is not at all uncommon for someone to have a funeral to attend most weekends. In some ways this tragedy of health, has become a social event where people gather to pay their respects and to also socialize.  Unlike the West, tribal women here to not wear somber attire to the funeral, hence the colorful dresses. Which I might add are the height of Herero fashion.

In the mid-19^th century with exposure to European fashion, particularly Victorian fashion Herero Women began to adopt this style and then develop it into their own unique interpretation. Prior to that, it was very coarse cloth and animal skins. It can take 10m of cloth to make one of these elaborate dresses which does not included the many layers of petticoats underneath.

 

Enjoy the week were ever you are……

 

 

New Year, new project: As the loyal followers know I live in Omaruru Namibia, just at the edge of beyond.  The upside is I have near limitless access to people, places, and critters. The downside is that I largely work in a bubble. I have little or no access to meaningful conversations with other photographic artists. I am a regular participant of photographic competitions mostly in the outside world (OSW) which while a decent ego stroke when I win or place well, provides me with no meaningful feedback on what and how I can adjust my work to, well, improve. It is supposed to be an evolutionary process after all. But unless you have meaningful exchanges, critiques you get stuck. Competitions are money making undertakings, not designed to help you grow.

Late last year, I bought for the price of a couple competitions, an on-line portfolio review with. EYEIST (www.eyeist.com)


Its pretty straight forward process, you submit 30 images, the portfolio is assigned to a qualified reviewer. In my case,  Ms. Susan Baraz, Ms. Baraz has an impressive CV and on the face of it, has seen and knows, a whole lot more than I do about what does and what does not make a great photograph.  A hundred bucks and a few days later and I received a 5 minute audio review. Overall it was a worthwhile experience. Her observations are that I am a bit chameleon like, in that my style is all over the place, apparently a bad thing. Ms. Baraz liked my nudes, my studio still life’s but recommended I concentrate on my portraiture.  AND that I work hard to create an attributable style.


Omaruru has always provided me with an eclectic cast of characters; imagine the issue from the cast of Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure. No shortage of great faces.


So my ongoing project called ‘garden shots’ (for now until I come up with something arty) began late last year with this engagement photograph of my friend Chris and his new bride. Chris is a Prison Guard Officer at the Omaruru Prison, grew up in a small town about 75kms from Omaruru where he was married just before Christmas.

Thanks for reading, By all means pass my blog link along if you have a mind to.

C

The King is dead, may he rest in peace

You can learn a lot about a people by how they treat their children and elderly, by how they marry and bury, two weeks ago, I had the privilege to learn a lot about the Otjiherero culture, via the Royal Funeral of Chief Christian Zeraua a man I first met 1997 when I relocated to Omaruru. Over the years when we met, pleasantries were always exchanged, in spite of language barriers (mine not his) I knew his greetings were sincere, I found this slight, humble man, to be possessed of a quiet yet inherently powerful confidence that naturally inspired respect from those he encountered.  Until last week I knew nothing of the traditions surrounding a Royal Otjiherero funeral, having photographed a number of Omaruru White Flag celebrations and being present for the von Trotha’s apology I was honored to be named the official photographer for the funeral, by the Royal Family. So began my education.

My efforts to document the Chief’s final journey began on Wednesday with the digging of his final resting place in Omaruru’s historic Rhenish cemetery. 

It was a bitter sweet labor punctuated by the sounds of hard work and quiet laughter, done without complaint, shared by many hands.  

Thursday brought hundreds of mourners to the main road into Omaruru, waiting to greet the Chief as he passed through on his way to the tiny village of Okaumbaaha and his home.

The procession stopped at the border to the traditional homeland of the Chief, and there a small group of people sang a quiet hymn in a language I did not understand, and yet it was amongst the most moving humble tributes I have ever witnessed.

Surrounded by hundreds, escorted by horse mounted Commando’s he was taken to a small in his modest home where prayers and hymns were quietly sung and said. To be in the presence of such intense feelings of sorrow and celebration was deeply moving.

I was just at the door jam to the bedroom where the Chief was laid in state this is from a moment between prayers

The Chief spent Thursday at his homestead, and Friday came back to Omaruru for an evening service at the Ozondje Lutheran Church. 

It was at this service that the VIP’s started to make their presence felt.  Ministers, senior clergy, regional councilors, governors, members of parliament, yes they were all there, but for me the story of Christian Zeraua has far more to do with the nameless thousands who came to pay their respects, to a great Chief then all VIPs who’s presence may or may not have been sincere expressions of condolences.   The Church was standing room only, in fact many people were outside the church listening to the service on loudspeakers, and to me it is these people and all the others like them that are the true measure of the man.

Saturday Morning the Chief went to his Commando in Ozondje one last time, where again he was met by thousands, there to pay their respects and to listen all day long to speakers singing his praises.

One unifying theme throughout the entire funeral from Thursday until Sunday was the humility of the Chief and his role as unifier, freedom fighter and peacemaker.  There were some ceremonial expressions I found wonderful, there was a group of men with mock spears, chanting to the Chief, and transferring strength to him for this last journey.

I also asked about the women who always seemed to sit with the casket.  I was touched to be told that the Chief was never left alone, these were his guardians, a tradition that my culture could well learn from.

Sunday the old Rhenish Chapel was filled to capacity for the final service. If the church was full the surrounds were bursting, not in the 15 years I have lived in Omaruru have I seen such a gathering for any event or circumstance.  

At graveside the final words were said and the Chief was lowered into his tomb, adjacent to his forebears.  With the ceremonial sprinkling of dirt by senior Clerics and the President, ashes to ashes dust to dust, the funeral ended and gradually the crowd dispersed. 

The Royal House of Chief Zeraua, The Municipality of Omaruru, the Offices of the Regional Council, and the Police are all to be commended for their efforts and organization. For my part it was a privilege to be accepted by all and allowed to document this historical event.

Farewell Christian.

2012 a last look at the last of it

The heat here in Omaruru has been brutal, day after day of heat so thick you can cut it. 38, 40, 42 for those of you in the Fahrenheit world that's really hot, stupid hot, and perditions flame...

Not surprisingly when it's this hot I don't feel very creative, in fact I have hardly pressed a shutter, it is the end of the annual Namibian shutdown period which starts early in December and ends starting tomorrow, except for the lawyers who get another 3 weeks. Hopefully pretty much everyone will be back at work and SOBER this next week.



At the end of last year, (makes it sound like a long time ago) I had the opportunity to shoot a wedding here in Omaruru, Carene and Jason Cohen, they came home from New Zealand, well she did, he's a native Kiwi, give the guy credit he had the spheres to wear All Blacks kit around Springbok country. The wedding was on the family farm and the reception was in town at a new facility opened by Gudrun Murray-Mueller at the Wronsky house.



Anyway, once again I was moved by the sense of family and emotion in the air, along with the silly heat of a late afternoon December wedding at the edge of the Namib.

Funny enough, after spending a month or so here the Cohen's packed up and flew to the Philippines......given what's been going on there, i hope they brought umbrellas...



JD and Louise get hitched.....

Last week I had the privilege of photographing a wedding at the coast.  You know in this day and at my age it is way to easy to be jaded about people and institutions. But I have to tell you its been a very long time since I have been in the company of such genuinely decent folks.

This was taken between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay in a favorite spot of JD's, believe it or not we all got up very early the morning after the wedding to go out and shoot these images.

I'll post more on the main page as I get to them.

Thanks JD! Thanks Louise!

I'm back in the office and studio until the 3rd when I have another wedding near Omaruru.


Cheers.

Three degrees off plumb

2011 has been very good for me photographically,  The year is finishing out with a solo exhibition at the FNCC, Franco Namibian Cultural Center in Windhoek.  The work in this show is decidedly different then what has been shown elsewhere. This is what the new English language daily had to say about it.

This was my very first critical review anywhere and I am quite chuffed by it.

Apple Series

My first computer nearly 30 years ago was an Apple Macintosh, My reverence for the creative genius that has come from this company in the years since is huge. I started working on this series long before Mr. Jobs suffered his recent  fatal formatting error. The series was prompted one afternoon nearly a year ago when I was fooling around with a camelthorn pod while eating an apple.  The eyes are vintage German doll eyes from the 1920's

There are 4 images in the series,

I have started printing on Epson Cold Press Bright, it is a stunning paper.

I was also very fortunate to be accepted into Epson's Digigraphie program. Have a look here for more information Digigraphie. With this new series I am limiting prints depending on the image from 9 to 99.

If you wish to see the entire exhibition then please go to my website as there is a gallery devoted to the Three Degrees work.

This image is called 595 and remains another favorite from the current work.

I remain very greatful to those of you who watch my work and this blog, I would appreciate it a lot if you would pass the link on to any firends you have, that might also enjoy the effort.

Have a great Weekend,

C