RoseFire Photography

As Frederick Douglass said, "It is not light that we need; but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the erhtquake." Fire orbs are a very beautiful thing to see, but it's just as tricky to photograph. There are alot of things that can go wrong when using fire, especially fire swinging on a rope, as the subject in the photograph is using. I took this photo on night on the beach when my one friend invited me and a few other people to experiment with the idea of photographing fire. The fire was created by using oxidized steal wool inside a almost kitchen whisk like container. The steal wool was then set on fire and we had to swing the 'kitchen whisk', attached to a piece of rope, in a circular motion. I had to set my camera up on a rock, because I didn't have my tripod with me at the time, on a slow shutter speed to be able to capture the fire orb. Although I didn't manage to capture a perfect fire orb, it was s...

  As Dorothea Lange said, "Photography taakes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still." This photo was taken in the old city of Venezia in 2019 while I was waiting for the the boat that was going to take me back to my hotel room, the Seagull was sitting on one of the wooden posts holding the bridge to the dock together. It sat there for about 5 minutes entertaining all the people waiting on the dock by fluttering its wings and doing almost acrobating actions. It would fly off and the land a few seconds later doing tricks in the air, it did this 4 times just enjoying itself. This photo is a perfect example of the quote that I used at the beginning of this post, the bird will always be frozen in time in this photo in its take off pose, therefore "altering its life". 

As Dorothea Lange said, "The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera." The photo above  perfectly reperesents this quote, because of the fact that the people walking around the woman don't even seem to acknowledge the fact that this moment was happening and probably just walked past without noticing  her feeding one of Romes feral cats. Rome has a large feral cat population roaming its streets. But instead of the city council seeing the cats as a problem they see the cats as part of Rome's heritage. In 2001, these cats that live in the Forum, the Coliseum and Torre Argentina, where this photo was taken, were officially named as part of the city's "bio-heritage." I had the privilage of capturing this moment between the woman and the cat. This encounter between the woman and the cat is proof that some people do still have humanity in them.

  Rubi is a worldwide accessories and footwear brand that brings us the latest trends into everyday clothing. Their story formally started in 2008, this is because the Cotton On Group team saw the potential to take their clothing knowledge one step further, this in turn helped to complete the Cotton On Body and the Cotton On womenswear looks. An interdependent range of accessories and shoes was created by the Cotton On team and stores committed to accessories and shoes were opened. Rubi states that they believe that real style has no price tag and that is why their products are as they put it “ultra-affordable”, their products are created to fit with the look that their customers love. Accessories from Rubi include Bags, Sunglasses, Hats and Hair Accessories, etc. Rubi has an extensive array of mirrored lenses and frames to choose from when deciding which sunglasses fit in with your aesthetic. The sunglasses in the picture have a clear half frame cat eye and light pink lenses.

  As Harry Callahan said, “I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting.” This bird intrigued me as soon as I laid my eyes on it, when I saw the bird I got a feeling like it was almost as if the bird was hiding a secret from me that I so desperately wanted to know. The striking blue colour of this birds feathers as well as the bright orange eye compelled me to photograph the bird as it was the first of its kind that I had ever seen. Still to this day I have never seen another bird of its kind making this photograph very special to me because it was almost as if I had this strong gut feeling to go and fetch my camera and photograph the bird that was perched on a old telephone poll. The bird stayed perched on the poll until I got this photo and then turned its head to look at me and then flew away. 

  As John F. Carlson said, “To the artist, the forest is an asylum of peace and dancing shadows.” This quote resonates very deeply with me as I find all of my inspiration as a photographer and as an artist in nature, and mostly trees. There is something so beautiful, yet haunting about a forest. Trees give off a lot of energy, be it negative or positive. To me there is nothing better than being left alone surrounded by a big group of trees, there is this sense of peace and tranquillity that overcomes me when I am surrounded by trees and nature. It gives me a chance to clear my head and focus on the good things in my life and also helps me to figure out solutions to problems that I am having and helps me to forget about all the stressors that comes with living in our modern world that is filled with so many problems and terrifying things. 

  This photo was taken after the fire broke out at the truck yard. The reason behind me taking this specific photograph was because it almost reminded me of photos I have seen before of the aftermath of an earthquake which is an alien thing to me as I have never experienced one. The sunlight casted a patch of light on a section of the photograph which put more emphasis on the photograph. This photograph evokes a sombre mood caused by destruction, although the flames, even though it was destructive, added a beautiful aspect to the photo. For me fire is an amazing thing to have the opportunity to photograph as I see the beauty in the destruction of things. Ash can also be seen in the photograph because of the cardboard packaging still busy burning. In the foreground more of the destroyed fruit can be seen scorched by the fire.

  A fire broke out at a truck yard as the temperatures reached above 35 ° C one day, all the fruit and the packaging caught on fire and went up in flames. I had my camera with me at the time and my first instinct was to pick it up and just start shooting. Just after the people who worked at the yard realised what was happening, they immediately started to attempt to put out the fire. It took over an hour to put the fire out as the plastic packaging wouldn’t stop burning. I was fortunate enough to capture this amazing moment of a man by the name of Efraim using a hose to put out the last of the fire. Although it was the first time that I saw this happen, apparently it had happened before an on a regular basis. 

  As David Lynch said, “Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, cinema.” I have always been fascinated by photographs that are usually described as “creepy” although I don’t know why they are described as that. On a family holiday my brother and I were walking through this forest and I noticed that a thick fog started to roll in and I had the idea to take this photograph. I asked my brother to go and stand in between the two trees and look down at the ground and to look up when I asked him to. The moment I said now my brother half lifted up his face to look at me and at that moment I took the photograph. This resulted in what most people would consider an odd or ominous photograph. This photo has always stuck with me and kind of describes my style of photography.

  As Alex Tehrani said, “Anyone can shoot chaos. But the most preceptive photographers can make compelling pictures out of uninteresting moments.”  I was driving in the passenger seat of a car one night on a street that is usually very busy during the day which made me feel uneasy while driving on this stretch of road. Even though there was a feeling of uneasiness within me I had noticed that the street lights were reflecting colour on the road that was wet from the rainstorm that had taken a break that evening and the moment I focused on the colours bouncing off of the wet road I started feeling a sense of peacefulness and gratitude that I was able to see the colours of the stop street lights blending in with one another in such harmony. The abundance of the green colour in the scene compelled me to take the photograph. 

As Rob Sheppard said, “Good black and white photography is not about the removal of colour!” Seeing photographs in black and white helps you to notice the details of the photograph that was once overlooked when the photo was in colour. My inspiration for this photo came from my love of light and fire. In this shot I positioned my model in front of a white piece of cloth that I suspended from my roof. I used side lighting from my bedroom window for this shot and for my subject matter I used my mother because the colour of her black hair contrasted nicely with the white sheet and the sparkler. The reason for me using the sparkler as the main focus for my photo is because it reminded me of my childhood also because of the free movement of the sparks. I also chose this photo because I think the shadows in the photograph add a mysterious mood to the photo as half of my models face is hidden by the shadow and the other half by the sparkler almost as if the two elements are trying to...

It is especially important to keep in mind when taking a photo for an advertisement that your subject is not the product being photographed but rather the benefit that is derived from owning the product. Advertising shots are not just confined to still lifes and pack shots, you could take photos on any scale.  The inspiration for this photograph came from my love of fruit and total chaos. I decided to arrange the fruit in a chaotic manner to make it look as if the fruit bowl was being knocked over. I used a hollowed-out pineapple as the “fruit bowl” as well as a combination of grapes, blueberries, kiwi, strawberries and nartjies to spill out of the pineapple. I used these fruits because their colours complimented each other very well.  I placed the “fruit bowl” that looked as if it was knocked over with the fruits spilling out of it on a silver platter as it showed some reflections of the fruit and photographed it up against a cream coloured wall that wasn’t ...

As Andri Cauldwell said “To see in colour is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.” Seeing photographs in black and white makes you notice details of the photograph that you missed when the photo was in colour. My inspiration for this shoot came from a similar photograph that was taken by James Pond. In this shoot I made use of a piece of black cloth as a backdrop, side lighting from my bedroom window and for the subject matter I chose to use a yellow Lego man, a Sigma lens and an earbud. I planned the photo in a Still Life manner. The black material that I used as a backdrop adds a different texture to the photo which can be seen because of the light hitting it from the side coming from the window.   The reason for my choice of the Lego man using the earbud to clean the lens was to portray whimsy in the photograph. As you can see in the photograph the lens isn’t clean, I left it that way so that it looks like the Lego man still h...