BOUNDARY LINE # 1
I photographed this picture just North of Pretoria in November 2007. My family and I were visiting friends in the region. At about half past four in the morning, I awoke to the distant sound of thunder. I thought I had been dreaming, but sure enough, a storm was brewing on the horizon. In my type of photography inclement weather is like a God send. Grabbing my camera gear I drove out into the dark feeling that I had a fair chance of getting a good shot. I headed south down a dirt road, along which there were a number of small holdings. The storm moved in quickly and before long the hail came pelting down. With very little to lose, I continued down the dirt road and fortunately for me the storm was headed in the same direction. Suddenly the background became fantastic, stormy skies, cracks of lightning…it was all happening. Frantically I searched for a composition with some foreground interest; there is very little worse than to have Mother Nature present you with a mind-blowing background and you have nothing to offset it with. Before long the storm headed away into the distance and just as I thought - ‘that’s it’, I spotted a pathway heading towards some cornfields. I stopped, grabbed my camera and rushed anxiously down the path. What happened next is the reason why I love photography so much. This vista opened before me. A foreground interest appeared in the shape of two fence pillars, supported by an overgrown tuft of grass. Telephone poles conveniently situated, helped to create a leading line that ran down the left of my composition and, as if God was orchestrating affairs, the clouds in the distance started to part allowing shafts of light to break onto the landscape. I remember telling myself to hurry as I set up the tripod. I kept saying thank you, thank you, thank you Lord, trusting that God was listening and would somehow slow the show down a bit. I only managed to get a couple of shots off before the curtain finally came down, on what was an incredible, but very short display of mother nature at her best. Now I live for another day, trusting that again all the elements will come together, helping to create images that form part of one’s life. My experience was summed up by the great photographer Henri Cartier Bresson who said “Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes”.