Went driving around with my son Jude looking for photographs. It was fairly late in the afternoon and my creativity was rather dull. I drove down one of the main streets with a row of trees of which one in particular regularly catches my eye. This tree is like a conjoined twin with a beautiful twist. The tree being right on the roadside allowed me to very conveniently park next to it, wind down the Landy's window and photograph. The light was fairly flat and I was just going to shoot with the Nikon D7000 and 35mm F1.8 to see what possibilities there were and how the background would look.
From further down the street this young man slowly approached. Living in South Africa one is still wary of the dangers on the street and with this in mind I still kept photographing but with the other eye tracking him. He slowly arrived at the tree and then slowly moved out from behind it. It was clear that this young man was not in the best of shape and had the appearance of a typical streetkid.
I then asked him his name and if I could photograph him. I had the Rollei Sl66 with 80mm loaded with Kodak TMY2 in the car and with 1/60th and f3,3 took a few shots. There wasn't much time for metering but I knew that shooting below 1/60th would be tricky and I set the f-stop between f2,8 and f4. A few of his friends had then arrived and we exchanged names and the the first fellow, Paulos asked for food and money. I had none of these with me however I think we were both equally surprised that we could have a bit of a chat and a laugh together.
The others were younger and didn't have that streetkid look. Streetkids have a tough life and are often orphans due to their parents succumbing to AIDS. They often hang out at food outlets and are often pretty smart. I still have to give them their photographs however this interaction was a breath of fresh air. The Twisted Tree still eludes me but the true twist was that I had a moving encounter with some real people!
