Next year, at the end of April, all photographic roads will hopefully lead to Montagu, where the Cape Photographers’ Congress will be held from Sunday 28th April until Thursday, May 2nd, 2019. Join us by registering here.
Please see the programme here. Please visit the Montagu blog for regular updates of program and other changes.
This beautiful town was voted the Western Cape Town of the Year in 2018 and is known for much more than its muscadel: this is where Boland fynbos meets Karoo succulents amidst spectacular mountains, vineyards with leaves that will be turning red and yellow at that time of the year, Old Dutch architecture, historical forts, nature reserves and too many other photo opportunities to mention. Have a look at our promotional video on YouTube:
There is so much to photograph and do in the area during that time of the year (autumn), that Mareletta Mundey, head of Montagu-Ashton Tourism, recommends that prospective congress-goers add at least another week to their stay in the town between the mountains with its many top-rated restaurants, museums and arts and crafts.
Looking for accommodation? The tourism office will assist. Please email Mareletta mareletta@loudadvertising.co.za or call the office on 023 614 2728 or see the recommendations on their website www.montagu-ashton.info
The congress – where all photographers from across the country are welcome – will be held in the NG Church Hall, which can accommodate 160 people. Therefore, don’t hesitate to book your spot as soon as possible! Meals, teas and coffees and workshops are included in the congress fee, although some workshops require an entrance and transport fee.
As a further treat, a Protea Farm tractor ride to the top of the mountain from where the whole area can be seen and potjiekos lunch, has been added as an optional extra on Friday, May 3.
The congress programme has been planned so that there will be plenty of photo opportunities – several of them guided by experts. Detailed information about self-drive or -walk photo opportunities will be provided soon. The planned and workshops cater for all needs, but some of them can only accommodate limited numbers. To ensure your place, please download the workshop form here and return to Mariana Visser mv_wolfie@yahoo.com as soon as possible.
Credit: Mariana Visser
Photo: Kim Stevens
Credit: Steff Hughes
That is on offer in addition to a line-up of outstanding speakers on a wide variety of topics that all photographers are bound to find interesting – no matter what their specialised interests are. Have a look at their profiles.
Architecture by Bipin Prag
Art photography by Martin Osner
AV : use of music by Luana Laubscher
AV voice overs by Jeff Morris
Copyright by Steffne Hughes
Creative Process by Martin Barber
Impressionist photography by Adri van Oudheusden
Landscapes by Bipin Prag
Monochrome by Peter Brandt
Street photography by Peter Brandt
Time-lapse photography by Chris Daly
Travel portraits by Susan Greeff
Visual design by JJ van Heerden
Wildlife by Don Pinnock.
Speakers
Martin Barber
When the digital photography age dawned, Martin Barber exchanged his make-shift darkroom with enlarger station in the bathroom for Adobe Photoshop. Over the years his classes and lectures on the creative use of photo editing techniques inspired many other photographers to become more creative and showed them how a little fine-tuning can turn a good image into a stunning one.
“I enjoy all aspects of photography and see myself as a creative photographer,” he says. He especially enjoys fine art, portraiture, altered reality, composite and monochrome.
He joined the Alberton Camera Club in 2009, where he worked his way up to their highest level, Grand Master. He also served on the committee for seven years.
He won more than 100 medals in salons, in addition to many acceptances and certificates of merit, as well as numerous other awards in local and international salons. In 2017 these acceptances and awards placed him top of the Impala Trophy log in Colour Open and Monochrome. He also has an APSSA in colour and monochrome and FPSSA in colour.
Peter Brandt
Peter Brandt has a Higher Diploma in Fine Art from Technikon Witwatersrand. Following an initial stint as an art lecturer, he has since plied his trade as a designer – although his passion increasingly lies with photography, where he tends to focus on street photography and portraiture. “The more unconventional the better!” he believes. But he “does make periodic forays into other genres in order to grow in unexpected ways,” he says. He generally works in black and white, “partly out of a passion for tone, and partly in the belief that it allows me to strip the content of superfluities.”
Peter is also a recent chairman of Fish Hoek Photographic Society – “mainly because I don’t know how to say no”. He currently helps facilitate a judging group that discusses and adjudicates Fish Hoek’s monthly competition entries, helping new club judges to gain experience.
He will share his extensive experience working in this medium, as well as street photography, with delegates in Montagu. His command of language and off-beat sense of humour makes him a sought-after lecturer on these topics at congresses.
Chris Daly
Always entertaining and engaging, Chris Daly manages to present an interesting new angle on any topic he discusses, and he is, therefore, a popular speaker at congresses. In Montagu, he will be talking about “Time-lapse photography”.
Even though he started developing his own prints at age 15 in a darkroom with homemade equipment, he only became seriously interested in photography after he bought his first digital camera in 2000. “Being reasonably computer literate, it was easy for me to pick up the techniques for enhancing photos using various software programmes,” he says.
After joining the George Camera Club and PSSA in 2004, he started submitting images for his club star grading and entering national and international salons. In 2007 he gained an APSSA in Digital Photography and the following year added APSSAs in Audio Visual and Published Works, to be awarded APSSA (Vers). In 2011 he was awarded an FPSSA as well as AFIAP.
He is a recognised PSSA judge for digital photography and AV salons and has also served as a judge on the PSSA Honours Panel.
Susan Greeff
Susan Greeff is an accredited life coach and counsellor whose passion for photography and travel took her on a journey of discovering her own creative expression. “Photography and travelling have the amazing gifts of opening up our senses to new experiences, to change our perceptions, to liberate us from comfort zones and to take us on inner and outer journeys,” she says.
Portrait, wildlife and travel photography are her favourite genres to work in, especially creating awareness of vulnerable cultures and species.
“I am more a feeling kind of photographer, connecting with my subject on an emotional and soulful level, intuitively looking for an expression, a behaviour, a pattern to capture that moment, which the late photographer, Henry Cartier-Bresson, coined the decisive moment,” she explains.
She attended photographic courses at Cape Town School of Photography, Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography in Colorado, US, as well as learned from numerous other photographic masters in fine art, portrait and wildlife photography. Over time she says she allowed her intuitive voice to create a style of her own.
Her photographs have been nominated, selected as finalist artworks and received honourable mentions in national and international photographic competitions. They also featured in several international photographic and art publications.
Susan became a member of the Langebaan Art Route in 2018, which includes joining their exhibition in November. She also joined the PSSA in 2010 and has been a supporter of Cape Photographer congresses, although she will attend as a speaker for the first time in Montagu.
At the congress, she will present a talk on travel portraiture, titled In the Face of the Other.
Steff Hughes
In her capacity as communications and training manager for the UCT Information & Communication Technology Services department (2000 – 2016), Steff Hughes ran Respect Copyright campaigns to raise awareness so that staff and students didn’t contravene the copyright laws.
Now running her own photography training and tour company, Steff Hughes Photography, Steff says that she follows the copyright debate with a more personal interest. “People are largely unaware of the issues surrounding creative capital and copyright and I’ve switched focus to help photographers protect their photos and their rights,” she says.
At the Montagu congress, she’ll discuss how copyright affects photographers today; how South African law differs from international law; the Artist’s Bill of Rights; and how photographers can amend their contracts to retain ownership of copyright.
Kina Joubert
As a keen photographer and Montagu resident for more than a quarter of a century, Kina Joubert is ideally placed to advise Congress delegates about the best photo opportunities in Montagu and surrounds.
A BA graduate from the University of Stellenbosch with an honours degree in history, Kina started her teaching career at Montagu High School 26 years ago. After she changed her profession, she remained in the town, where she was involved in the Montagu Tourism Bureau and became curator of the Montagu Museum.
In 2003 she and the well-known landscape photographer, Wicus Leeuwner, started the Ziya Fana Images company. After 16 years they are still making personalized souvenirs for the tourist market in South Africa and Namibia.
The Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson is their photographic mentor and friend and Kina attended his workshops in Namaqualand, New Zealand and Canada. She has a passion for wildlife and bird photography and loves travelling to remote areas in Botswana and the Maasai Mara in Kenya.
Luana Laubscher
The 2015 and 2018 Impala Trophy winner for AV, Luana Laubscher, was inspired to learn how to make AVs after she saw her first audio-visual presentation. That was after she joined the Knysna Photographic Society in 2008, and soon realised that she wanted to say more about an image
“Since then, I have been watching and learning, and drawing my inspiration from various AV makers – both locally and across the globe,” she says, adding that her main inspiration for producing AVs is music. In Montagu, she will be talking about the influence and importance of music in AVs.
“I tend to lean towards a more artistic approach, rather than documentary. My presentation will try to illustrate my thinking process, and how a piece of music can transform a series of images into a story.”
This approach earned her an APSSA in AV, as well as numerous awards, both locally and internationally.
Jeff Morris
Jeff Morris is the founder of the only dedicated audio-visual club affiliated to the PSSA, namely AV Makers South Africa, first known as Pretoria AV Club. “Through this club I have been instrumental in running about 12 national and international salons with patronage and a few competitions without. The standard of AVs has been raised and new adherents encouraged to make sequences through workshops and festivals showing both local and international sequences.”
He has made about 25 successful AV sequences, 12 of which have been accepted in salons with FIAP patronage. He can also write the honours titles APSSA in digital, LPSSA in AV, LRPS and AFIAP behind his name.
By forming relationships with AV enthusiasts and organisations across the world, he is able to follow international trends and keep abreast of the latest developments. One of the well-known international AV makers he, for example, persuaded to visit South Africa is Howard Bagshaw, who subsequently became a regular visitor.
“I have dabbled in photography since the dawn of the digital era,” he says. He has been a member of various Pretoria camera clubs, where he developed his photographic skills for use in AV making.
In Montagu he will be talking about the use of voice-overs in AV, covering the theory of writing scripts and the required hardware essentials.
Martin Osner
Martin Osner is a multi-award-winning artist, an expressive, intuitive photographer who enjoys creating contemporary art using photography as a medium, a mentor through his School of Photography, and the owner of two galleries where he exhibits his work.
After growing up in Johannesburg, he soon gained a reputation as a professional photographer and artist, opening his first photographic studio in 1985. Eight years later he co-founded the National College of Photography, which in 2007 was acquired by Advtech and went onto evolving into a premier photographic training institution in Southern Africa.
Among the many awards, he has won he was voted the best contemporary international artist 2008 / 2009 by Arteque Art Volume 3 (Masters of Today) and served as an ambassador to Canon Europe for six years. His work is described as characterizing an urge to explore, with the willingness to experiment. For him, simplicity is the cornerstone of a successful image and he concentrates closely on elemental form, pattern and shape, paired with a necessary sense of restraint.
Currently, he is based in Cape Town, where he specialises purely in fine art photography, sold through his gallery in Green Point, as well as his private gallery in Hout Bay, where he collaborates with his daughter Samantha. The Martin Osner Photography school situated at his studio in Hout Bay offers high-quality part-time photography classes taught in a small class environment to ensure mentorship and guidance, and also offers one on one private photography lessons as well as masterclass programs in landscape as well as fine art photography.
Martin is an artist and lecturer who challenges photographers to explore beyond the obvious… he will open your eyes to the possibilities within the world of art photography.
Don Pinnock
Dr Don Pinnock is an investigative journalist and photographer who, some time back, realised he knew little about the natural world. So, he set out to discover it. This took him to five continents – including Antarctica – and resulted in five books on natural history and hundreds of articles.
His other books include “Gang Town”, which won the City Press Tafelberg Non-Fiction award, and a biography of the journalist Ruth First. He has degrees in criminology, political science and African history and is a former editor of Getaway travel magazine.
He was one of the primary drafters of the White Paper that became the Child Justice Act, is a trustee of the Chrysalis Academy for high-risk youths and is the facilitator of the Western Cape Government’s gang strategy hub. He is a member of the Conservation Action Trust. His day job is as an environmental investigative journalist.
Bipin Prag
Bipin is a landscape, architectural and travel photographer with a passion for chasing the light and finding unusual compositions of nature and the built environment. After studying ancient architecture, he found a renewed appreciation for design, geometry, light, colour, texture and form which is translated into his body of work.
He will be sharing some of his unpublished works in Montagu to illustrate some concepts which will have appeal to both the novice and professional photographer.
Follow his work on https://goo.gl/sfoUYq
Kim Stevens
Kim Stevens’ passionate affair with photography began in 2003 with an epiphany. She was attending a photo workshop in the Northern Cape with the celebrated “Master of Light”, Freeman Paterson. His slideshows of photographs depicting the extraordinary in the ordinary, changed her view on the world forever.
Photography has since become both a passion and an addiction and she views her world in images. She has also become a very accomplished photographer who has won many accolades for her work and has been awarded an APSSA for her work.
She enjoys all genres of photography, especially dance and stage photography, landscape and wildlife and street photography.
She is an avid traveller and loves to explore new horizons with her camera, searching for light and compositions to tell her story.
She enjoys the challenge of developing and growing as a photographer every day and likes to facilitate the growth of other photographers too. She will be assisting photographers at the Montagu congress during workshops.
See more of her word at www.limelightphotography.capetown
JJ van Heerden
Johann van Heerden is one of several South Africans who developed a passion for photography after attending a Freeman Patterson workshop. JJ attended his first workshop in Kamieskroon in 1991 and the following year he joined the Kamieskroon team, at first doing the film processing and then joining Colla Swart and Freeman Patterson as a lecturer in 1993.
This heralded a new life of lecturing and sharing knowledge for the former naval officer. In 1995 he presented a series of audio-visual shows for the South African Consulate at the UN in New York to celebrate World Environment day. This was combined with photographic workshops presented in Long Island, New York.
He has been presenting the Overberg Photographic Workshops with Wicus Leeuwner since 1998.
An extended period as Photography Lecturer at the Foundation School of Art in Cape Town allowed him to merge his interest in design with his passion for photography.
He photographs with the philosophy that images are not taken, but created, using principles of design and an understanding of human psychology and visual perception.
Besides presenting more than 60 workshops and seminars, JJ has held 9 photographic exhibitions and regularly presents audio-visual shows. His work has been widely published. His other hobbies include writing a book on photographic design and expression which never gets any closer to completion.
In Montagu, delegates will have the privilege of hearing him share his knowledge and insights of visual design.
JJ stays on a farm near Stellenbosch but lives in the desert. Any desert, he says.
Adri van Oudheusen
Adri van Oudheusden has been known to photographers countrywide as PSSA Board member and Chairperson of the audio-visual division for the past six years.
In this capacity, she has always been willing and available to assist and guide the clubs and AV makers keen to improve their skills and generally worked hard to promote audio-visuals. She also has wide experience in lecturing on the topic and delegates can, therefore, look forward to a top-class presentation from her on AVs at the Congress.
It is no surprise that Adri’s main interest was ciné when she joined the Shutterbugs Camera Club in Vanderbijlpark in 1972.
An interest in monochrome and 35mm film subsequently opened new avenues for her, but after Freeman Patterson’s first visit to South Africa, she saw the possibilities and challenges AV offered and this medium took precedence for her.
The recent exhibition of her beautiful tree photographs at the GFI Gallery in Port Elizabeth earned her an Honour in Applied Photography. The exhibition bears testimony to her “out-of-the-box” thinking and subtle communication style as a photographer (see image). “The ability to really see brings great joy,” she says. “Enhancing those skills increases our ability to photograph what we see and in turn, we will observe our own style forming.”
Her artistic and photographic skills have won her many AV honours, for example, an FPSSA in Audio-Visual, a five Diamond rating in audio-visual, an AV-AFIAP, and in 2016 she was awarded an EPSSA in Audio Visual. Adri also has an APSSA (Vers.) in colour slides, audiovisual and monochrome and has won many gold-, silver- and bronze medals, honourable mentions and acceptances in national and international salons and Interclub competitions in colour slides, e-photography and AV presentations. She is also the FIAP Audio Visual Observer in South Africa, responsible for contributions to FIAP’s Audio Visual Library.
She has also judged digital images and audio-visual Honours panels, as well as national and international slide, digital and AV Salons. Adri has also served on various photographic clubs as a committee member and served on the committees of various national and international congresses, organised salons, and presented audio-visual shows at congresses and photographic societies.
In addition, between 1995 and 2001 she was editor of Lumen, the magazine of the Port Elizabeth Camera Club, which won three Ribbons/HMs three years in a row as best club magazine. It was also the first electronic club magazine. She has published articles in Image and on the AV Section on the PSSA Website.
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