Page 22 - Cape-Camera-March-April-2021

Cape Camera March/April 2021

A member’s profile

Jacoba van Zyl

My interest in photography grew from my love for travel. When After I joined CTPS, I attended workshops with Martin Osner,
we first began to travel overseas, my partner Marius was the Paul Bruins, Hougaard Malan, Nicole Palmer, JJ van den Heever,
photographer so there was no need for me to own a camera. I Wicus Leeuwner, and Peter Haarhoff. Each of these people
remember that during a trip to China in 1995, I used his camera added a lot to my photographic journey.
(a Pentax, all manual) to take a photograph of an elderly pipe When I retired from Metropolitan at the end of December 2016
smoking man. I still have nightmares today as I totally messed it after 35 years, I was able to spend more time on my photogra-
up because I did not understand aperture and depth of field. His phy and I believe that my photography has improved since I
hands were in focus, but his face completely blurred. retired. It is definitely true that using your camera and practice,
However, something must have triggered my interest because practice, practice will bring the results. I still have a very long
towards the end of that trip, I bought my first camera in Hong way to go but I am positive and eager to learn and improve my
Kong - a Rollei point and shoot. I was barely back home, when photography.
the camera was stolen. I then replaced it with a Minolta SLR and In 2017, 2018 and again 2019 (sadly we had to cancel the 2020
used it in Programme mode. Marius gave me a few lessons on tour) Neels Beyers, Marius and I and a few others did road trips
how to use a camera and I subscribed to Amateur Photographer to Namibia. Not only did I fall in love with the country, but
magazine, but it was difficult to capture on film what I was actu- spent time with other photographers who shared their passion
ally seeing in reality. The following years my photography was for photography and used every opportunity to capture the
mainly limited to when we went on holiday. I also had a few beauty of Namibia.
other mishaps with the Minolta, like it falling into the river in
Bangkok and again in in Vietnam when a local child opened the My other favourite places I visited are:
back of my camera. • Rajasthan and Varanasi in India for the colour, the absolute
In January 2006, I enrolled at the Cape Town School of Photog- willingness of the people to be photographed and the
raphy (CTSP) where Vanessa Cowling really helped me lot and noise and chaos which keep the adrenaline pumping;
made me believe that I can actually do this. I also attended a • Bali for the beauty of the island and the friendliness and
course on darkroom processing which I enjoyed. calmness of the people. Here I also found that a good way
Later that year I bought my first digital camera, a Nikon D200, to balance a family holiday with photography is to hire a
which made things much easier to learn because one can im- local photographer for a day to take you to the best places
mediately see if one is more or less on the right track. I attend- to photograph things you are interested in;
ed some more courses on digital photography at CTSP which • The Greek Islands for the beauty of the small villages where
helped along the way to improve my photography. you can walk around all day and take detailed shots of ar-
My progress however was slow as photography was something chitecture – like you can do in the Bo-Kaap;
I mainly did during my annual holidays. At that time I was still • There are so many others, but Venice is one that for me
working and really loved my work which therefore always took ticks all the boxes as all the things I most like to photograph
priority. are within short walking distance;
On a workshop at CTSP I met Pat Scott and then sometime later • Locally it is Arniston, Storms River Mouth, West Coast, and
I again saw her and Jean Bradshaw at the school and they told in and around Cape Town.
me about CTPS where they were both members. I joined CTPS I also had the opportunity to attend a workshop with Jonathan
the same month in May 2012. Later that year, I found myself on Critchley on the West Coast of France and with Jay Vulture in
Council, as secretary. One thing I remember clearly is that I did Venice. Both do most of their work in black and white and a
my first set of Council minutes before I entered my first image lot of long exposure photography, which is what I enjoy most.
in a monthly competition. Initially I did not have any post pro- I can spend hours next to the water doing long exposure pho-
cessing programme and entered images which I took as jpegs tography.
straight from the camera. Judges would make suggestions on I have learnt never to go on a workshop with the expectation of
how to improve the images in Lightroom or Photoshop and I coming back with lots of winning images. The weather is not
had no idea what they were talking about as I had never used it.

Cape Town Photographic Society 21