3. Photographing Place and Character

Matopos National Park.
Hasselblad negative scanned.

Bill and I were talking today (I went to pay him for the Voigtlander!), about photographing a place like Matopos. The question in my mind is: why live in the immediate vicinity of an incredibly photogenic place like Matopos for nine years without making a serious effort to photograph it? Surely, it cries out to be photographed? There is so much: Grandiose granite would be a definite understatement! If it was manmade, many would have said that perhaps the architects went slightly beyond the original brief, if not completely overboard! 

Although the objective of our ambling conversation was not aimed at answering my nagging question, we did touch on it and probably came very close to the real answer.  The main reason why the lag between first seeing and seriously considering Matopos as the subject of a photographic project, constituted 9 years, is most probably a function of understanding, and I mean a fundamental understanding… Actually it is more than understanding - you need to feel the place, its character and moods. Once seeing how the seasons change and attempt to control and mould the place and in turn seeing how she fights back, resists and maintain her own… I guess you need to see it emerge from, heal itself, after a devastating fire, or being cut down again during the dry season after a spectacular rainy season… You need to freeze there, feel how the granite can sap the last heat out of your body, or you need to sweat in the heat, cycling a mountain bike through it - hating yourself for even attempting it, and enjoying the triumph of one of these views once you reach a summit. 

Hasselblad - Printed on Ilford FB paper & scanned. 

You need to experience it first hand on numerous occasions, with different friends for different reasons, alone or simply with your immediate family, to celebrate birthdays or sitting on a massive rock contemplating the death of your sister, a lifelong friend, or, as in my case sitting in the same spot coming to terms with the fact that I have escaped certain death. Seeking out a path through the labyrinth of rocks and boulders and trees in a two dimensional world, teaches you a lot about Matopos and about yourself. The first time I went back there I needed a helping hand - a guide. But things improved thereafter and now I am confident and can go there alone. I think its a process of seeing and experiencing these transitions, not only within the physical environment going through seasons and droughts and fires, but also the transitions in you as a human being going through this place. Its molds you, cradles you, supports you and if you open yourself to it, you learn from it. It has many lessons.

Hasselblad - Printed on Ilford FB paper & scanned.

As the granite changes at the pace of eons, slowly tinkered by frost, heat and cold and by the chemistry of the earth, similarly we have our own core, the rigid center of our being, which budges for nothing less than death itself. The next layer is still long lived, trees counting life cycles in hundreds of years growing alongside their granitic brothers. Further layers follow in the form of young trees, shrubs, grasses and brittle herbs in the early rainy season. The most vulnerable is the thin outer layer of lichens and mosses - fragile as our own skin or sensitive as our hearts. Often in the misty rains you will see the tears roll down these boulders and accumulate in tiny streams - feeding the earth, nurturing and promising this complex giant a new phase of growth and prosperity, starting another cycle. New life.

Defunct Gatepost. Matopos.
Bill's Voigtlander.  Printed on very old
Agfa paper & scanned.

In my human arrogance, nine years seems to be a reasonable apprenticeship… Seeing nine cycles before my eyes, in the morning on my daily commute, at dusk at down, in pitch black darkness during a fishing trip - watching goats and cattle auctioned with a the granitic backdrop of Matopos, seeing children grow up as they walk to school, seeing young women with proud shoulders carrying water in the mornings turning into plump mothers with blankets supporting new babies on their backs and fresh wheelbarrows turning into rusty wobbly wheeled devices of local frustration… I am almost convinced that the first chocolate donkey I saw as a young jolly soul, is now a harness scarred cynical old girl with a matted coat, but as stubbornly willing as the first day she was used in front of that cart.   

Having seen all of this, and being molded and shaped by life through some beautiful and some not so beautiful challenges - I think this place has opened up to me, a sliver wide enough to see her heart and to graciously  allowing me to point a camera onto her noble face and character. I shall take this honor with dignity, and do my utmost to portray this place with enthusiasm and passion.

I just love this place!
Hasselblad negative scanned