Archive for Africa
Travelling Back In Time Through Family Photos
Posted by: | CommentsI’m going to take you back in time to the late 70s when I was growing up in Africa. This is long before the days of digital cameras, camera phones etc. Films for cameras took 24 or 36 exposures either in black and white or colour.These are what my dad took and he processed the film himself to produce either photos or slides.
One of my Dad's old Kodak slides
My dad had travelled a reasonable amount after World War II and had taken photos from various places in Africa. Occasionally, he would set up the old slide projector and as a family we would sit down and look back at the photos he’d taken. Some were from places he’d travelled to before I was born. These were faraway places that sounded fascinating. Timbuktu was a place my dad mentioned a lot. We also looked back at our holiday photos. In the days before computers and the internet, looking back at pictures wasn’t as easy as it is nowadays.
Its probably more than 30 years since we last had a slide show and my dad’s slides have been stuck in the bottom of a cupboard for years. At Christmas, my mum asked if we should throw them out but I thought why not scan the old slides and look back at the photos we used to enjoy so much when I was a child. We tried to estimate the number of slides in Dad’s collection and our best guess was over 2,000 – thats a lot of scanning. It would have cost several hundred pounds to pay a company to scan the slides. However, I was in an electronics shop and found a little USB slide scanner for 20 pounds so I bought it and started scanning at home.
My USB Slide Scanner
Having owned an SLR for a few years, I’m used to looking at crystal clear, hi-res images and but cameras from a few decades ago were obviously not up to today’s quality. Add to that, the fact the some of the film has degraded slightly, the images weren’t always clear and needed a bit of cleaning up using Photoshop.
Its been a slow job but I’ve found it incredibly rewarding to see some of the old family pictures again. I’ve also found it fascinating to look back at old photos in general but when there is a family connection, its even more interesting. I’ll upload some of the better images to my Flickr account for anyone who may be interested – http://www.flickr.com/bbmexplorer
Taking The Plight Of The Rhino To Lisbon
Posted by: | CommentsThe Portuguese still have strong bonds with South Africa and when Adrienne and John Silva met Ana Paula Cabral at her gallery in Lisbon she expressed her longing or ‘ Saudades de Africa do Sul’.
Ana Paula was interested in Adrienne’s work on Searching for Roots and Meaning and also her Bonsai-people. Adrienne has painted the idea of how we force our children to shape into the people we want them to be, in Bonsai culture it may be a ’formal-upright’ or ’informal-slanting’ etc.
It was a year later that Adrienne Silva was invited by Ana Paula to exhibit with artists, Isabel Fideiro and Jirina Nebesarova. The exhibition opens 8 July until 6 August.
Adrienne’s worked with a theme, Breathe in the Future, Breathe out the Past, Savour this Moment Long as it lasts’ (Bonobo).
Day of Freedom
I Came to Look for You
On the Way
The Stars and You
The Pattern is Evident
Adrienne Silva, Cape-based painter with Dr George da Fonseca, Consul General of Portugal. Dr Fonseca wishes Adrienne well on her trip to Portugal for the exhibition and here is the work, First Step, that will also be shown.
For further information please contact;
Paula Cabral Art Gallery
Rua do Secula 171
1200- 434 Lisboa
Phone 91 236 6519
