Category: Photography

At the beginning of 2016, I committed to completing a Project 365 (366 for the leap year); a pledge to take one photograph a day, every day for the entire year.

1/365 Not the most original slant. Maybe this is the year I complete a photo-a-day project. #ifttt #dslr #selfportraiture #365project

A photo posted by Saaleha Idrees Bamjee (@saaleha_b) on Jan 2, 2016 at 5:27am PST

To make this goal more achievable, I allowed myself some slack. I could shoot with my DSLR or my phone. I didn’t assign any particular theme to the photography and if I found myself in situations where I was absolutely unable to take a good photograph (transit days or tight work deadlines), the concession was that I could take an older unprocessed photograph and give it a fresh treatment. Out of 366 days, about 8 were older images that were processed on challenge day. My rationale; post-processing is as vital a part of image-making as clicking the shutter button, especially if you shoot in RAW format.

Completing a Project 365 is challenging, frustrating, fulfilling and instructional.  There were times where I was an hour or thirty minutes away from midnight and just beginning to conceptualise my shot. And there were instances where the photo just created itself before me. There’s a meditation in that somewhere.

284/366 There are bigger things to document than half of a peeled naartjie. But this was the moment presented to me. #project365 #dslr #ifttt #stilllife #litbylume

A photo posted by Saaleha Idrees Bamjee (@saaleha_b) on Oct 10, 2016 at 12:58pm PDT

Take on a Project 365 and you will learn:

• Light. How to read it, use it and create it.
• To recognise patterns and incongruities.
• To see the soul of a thing.
• To slow down.
• To be patient.
• What your photographic clichés are.
• How to coax out the magnificent from the mundane.
• That your first shot is often your best shot.
• Your true passions.
• How to document those passions.
• To embrace risk and take chances on new techniques and equipment.
• To be brave and talk to strangers.
• That the best camera is the one you have.
• That self-portraiture is not always an exercise in vanity.
• To anticipate moments.
• To see with your eyes first, and then your lens.
• That there is always something around you worth taking a picture of.
• Confidence in your craft.
• To embrace the weird.
• That it’s worth getting up close to your subject.
• That as in life, it all depends on the angle you take.

366/366 This year; I learnt to pay attention, to appreciate the pauses. I was going to end with an elaborate selfie but this portrait of Robertsham-based tailor Edrees seemed far more fitting. #project365 #dslr #lrinstagram #ifttt #people #portraits #johannesburg

A photo posted by Saaleha Idrees Bamjee (@saaleha_b) on Dec 31, 2016 at 3:36am PST

And at the end of it all, you will have something to show for every single day of the year. Apart from maintaining a daily written journal, there is no better way to document 365 days of living.

Click here to view all my Project 365 – 366 posts on Instagram.

It’s a complicated time to be at a university in South Africa. It feels like an act of detachment to sit in an office on the fifth floor and write while men in padded riot gear accessorize the buildings. I can not be unaware of what it means to be in this space when others are protesting the price of their access to it. The careful thing to say is the cause is legitimate, the violence is not. Buildings and bodies are under threat. A militarized campus ticks with sharp menace. Writers do not exist out of the context of their time, even genre writers. World-building is about presenting alternatives to the status quo.

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A month’s worth of uninterrupted writing time is Writivism’s most generous gift. At first, I am giddy at the luxury of pure writing hours set before me. Stellenbosch is wine country and it’s just as well that I do not drink, for I would celebrate every evening with abandon. After I come to terms with what it is I am to write, paralysis sets in. My story seems too big for me. It sits before me, the highest peak in the Boland mountains and I do not have the agility or the endurance to begin the ascent. These are the excuses writers make for themselves. What is failure really? Evidence of effort, at the least? Writers block is the fear of the ugly sentence. I have written and will write many bulky things. I just have to keep reminding myself that, before an edit, no one else will ever have to read them.

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When I’m stuck in a writing ditch, I skim through books and go through cupboards. I open a drawer in the office assigned to me and it’s full of rolled up socks. I pull another one open and find hairdryers among other appliances. The closed storage under the bookcase contains rows of shoes and black bags filled with things I am too polite to rummage through. Does someone live in this space when I am not here? I really must ask someone. I think about how this could be the premise of a short story. When i am meant to  be writing one thing, I am writing another. Like a paragraph of writing that looked like it could dress up as a poem and pass.

I settle into a writing rhythm after a eureka moment on the first Thursday of the residency. I’ve worked out a way to incorporate into a new manuscript some of the experimental writing I’ve been doing over this year and last. I don’t like wasting writing in the same way I will never throw out a jar of Nutella without scraping it clean with exacting precision.

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A month is hardly any time at all. I must mine it for all it’s worth.

I got Naeem a Canon 24mm f/2.8 pancake lens for our wedding anniversary. What’s his is ours, what’s ours is ours, isn’t this construct of a life-long partnership magical?

The 24mm is pocket-friendly both in size and price. It’s sharp, wide enough to fit in all the details, and is also good enough for close-focus. Though not made for portraits, you could get away with photographing people at a bit of a distance to avoid distortion. I think it’s ideal for travel; light and unobtrusive, especially if you’re into street photography. Prime lenses may not always be practical, but they force you into carefully considering each of your frames and I’ve found them to be quite versatile. And the image quality is always on-point; with sharp details and beautiful bokeh from the benefit of wide apertures.

I was invited to a Krispy Kreme Sandton Gautrain experience today. You only need to mention coffee and doughnuts for all three of my wobbling chins to be there. It also seemed like a good opportunity to take the 24mm through its paces.

The Krispy Kreme Sandton Gautrain station on West Street branch is the second outlet to open in South Africa. At least six more stores will open in Gauteng before the end of 2016. Original glazed nirvana for everyone!

Other images taken at Rosebank Mall: