one of the cool things about Instagram is seeing what other South Africans are up to on their summer holidays – a lot of people go up the coast, or spend their days on the beach, or go on road trips. others travel further afield, visiting family and friends they don’t get to see during the year. a nice way to virtually travel through the country from the comfort of your iPhone.
someone whose holiday pics i really enjoyed following is Adrian De Sa Garces, a commercials director who i met through my husband (i blogged about his fiancé Neira’s bag line MOMO last week). Adrian’s amazing photos of Walvis Bay in Namibia, where he grew up, captured a different perspective of a country that i only really know a bit about from childhood holidays and classic tourist imagery of sand dunes and ghost towns. i asked Adrian if i could share them with you, and he told me a bit about the background to these photographs.
I was born in Walvis Bay, Namibia – My father still lives up there so I visit him as often as i can. Between spending time with him and my younger siblings, I enjoy exploring the town I grew up in and revisiting locations I have memories of. I find the place very interesting in that many of the locations I revisit haven’t really changed much over the last 20 years, so it’s like pointing my camera into the past. A particular aspect of shooting in Walvis Bay that appeals to me, is the wide barren salt roads and their light-toned pavements. Exploring a neighbourhood, I feel able to isolate a point of interest without the clutter of foliage and cars. This visual simplicity seems to mimic the surrounding desert which very much speaks to my sensibility. Henry Wessel’s says “part of the process of photographing is being receptive. To move through the physical world and photograph everything that catches your eye” In a place like Walvisbay and Namibia, it’s difficult not to be receptive – I never stop taking pictures while I’m there, because everything seems to catch my eye.
for those of you wandering about technical stuff: Adrian mostly shoots on a Fuji X-Pro1, but the majority of these photos were taken on iPhone. sometimes he uses Snapseed to balance a photograph, but he mostly uses VSCO for editing. follow Adrian at his VSCO page (where you can see all of his Namibia photos), Instagram and Tumblr.
