LANCE SLABBERT the thing I think I love about photography the most is that it is visual, non verbal communication. Instead of words and sentences that must be read or listened to, requiring time for a message or story to be shared or transmitted, photography uses signs, symbols and semiotics (its own visual language and grammar) and has the ability or potential to transmit or communicate this same message instantaneously. In this way, the very best photography transcends time and space. Photography is like quantum physics in a way, as we become certain it is this, it becomes that. It has become both a truth and a lie at the same time. The challenge to the viewer, and often the creator too, is knowing when it is which. these days, the hardest thing about photography is to make a living from it. I think a lot of photographers thought that with photography becoming both more popular and accepted as an art form, it would become more understood, appreciated and respected. but the truth is everyone’s a photograper now, meaning less work paying less money. And the clients, the people buying our work, mostly they have no respect. Maybe they’re just responding to market forces, but the audacity and arrogance of offering to swop product or a bar tab for work created is just mind boggling. the confluence of technology, digital photography with the internet, has added further to the challenges of photography today. Before there was an original, something real, something unique, something that could only be in one place at one time. but now, there are infinite originals, or mabe
Koki Hendrawan takes to the bingin sky over Lance Slabbert’s head and water housing.