Hills - Sunsets In March, 2009 Outside Of Cape Town, South Africa / John Morrison Drove & I Snapped The Pictures Quickly With My Trusty Canon Camera

There's so much natural art and beauty all around that it is almost painful and certainly too much to ever appreciate or observe or serve or deserve or absorb with just our senses at play that simply/just cannot handle it all by themselves without help.




Thank the men and women that invented and perfected the cameras like this Canon that has enabled me to capture just a very few of these incredible and wonderful/dazzling split-second images of the sunsets that I enjoyed in the week that I was in South Africa ( in and outside of Cape Town ) with my extraordinary guide and South African wine importer John Morrison.




John was nice enough to take me to South Africa and to drive me around the various areas in and outside of Cape Town. We saw some of the wonderful wine vineyards, too on this trip as well as places like Table Mountain.




While John drove me around explaining so many various things about the South Africa that he loves so much I had the time of my life taking many of these pictures.




My hands snapped away ever so quickly as there was just too much for me to absorb so quickly.




These pictures in fact help me to better appreciate all that was occurring naturally around as we drove through this astoundingly beautiful countryside in and outside of Cape Town, South Africa. Thank you John and Theresa Morrison for all of this.


Enjoy these photos. Cheers, TONY

Life Through Glass, Blaauwklippen, Moreson : Water, Oil , Wine, Fermenting Grape Juice That Will Become Wine - In South Africa 3/09

Enjoy these photos that I took on my one-week trip to South Africa with importer John Morrison this March 2009. It was a wonderful blast as these photos attest. Cheers, TONY

Moreson Winery : Sometimes All It Takes Is One Picture, South Africa, March 2009 With John Morrison 'N Me ( Anthony Quinn ) ...

I just stopped at this picture to see what I had captured and the more I looked the more I saw. I'm pleased with the light, the reflection off the glass , the small amount of red wine still in the glass at the bottom of it and coating the sides, the glare, the bit of green behind it ( what it is exactly? I also like the machine in the picture : what does it do exactly at the winery? The white of the wall is nice for a backdrop/background. Was I at MORESON winery here? I can't remember exactly but I think I was.

I think I took it as we walked around from the office to the cellars to the tasting room on this beautiful afternoon of wine-tasting/appreciation : discovery of a whole new place, new people, new setting, new language with Africans. I was completely in my element and snapping pictures like mad and trying to capture as much as possible because I knew that there was a whole lot that I was experiencing and yet could not focus on because it was constantly changing, evolving, appearing-disappearing - never to be quite the same - never to be " the moment " I had then and there with whoever and whatever just happened to be then and there like me at just those particular instances - flukes, chances, incalculable, spontaneous, combustible and engagingly undescribable and intoxicating and that pulled me in and towards them whether under the influence or not of wine because they were so appealing and intriguing on their very own - and ALL so new to me then.

The little bit of red at the bottom of this glass is still fermenting grape juice of : Petit Verdot/ Merlot/ Cabernet Sauvignon / Cabernet Franc / Shiraz / Malbec : which one ? I don't remember. I'd like to think though that it was either the Petit Verdot or the Malbec as I was happy to discover both there, especially the Petit Verdot that I think that Clayton at MORESON should bottle as well as Curly at HILLCREST and Rolf at BLAAUWKLIPPEN.

I looked at the picture just now again. What I wrote above was from remembering this photograph. Now on looking at it again I see the clump of green leaves on the ground that is really nice. What kind of flowers did they provide earlier in the summer? I also like the triangle of sunshine on the glass and the sun on my hand as well as the green plaque. And for the life of me I cannot recollect what the patch of green is through the glass - maddening!

The reflections off the glass are amazing . You can see the red curve of the fermenting grape juice at the top of the glass at the rim where it gathered and could go no further because my lips had earlier been there to taste it. I like that : my hand holding this beautiful glass that had herd already so much liquid pleasure for me ( and with the promise still of more to come ) and the mark where my lips had just been and soon would be somewhere close there again.

Nothing like time off to saturate oneself in one's place and time, exact moment and joy and sense hopefully of awe and bewonderment.

And saving one of the most important aspects for last : the ground from which all this sprung and which was fundamental for any of all of this to be : the brown earth and rocks just below the glass.

Oh, sometimes all it takes is one picture ... South Africa and it's wine country sometime around March 19th, 2009 I believe with my excellent guide and host John Morrison from South Africa himself who is so proud of all of this and knows it because he lives and breathes it daily ( even though he is living now in the U'S. ) : and shared it freely with me on this trip and always lamented what we did not have more time for more of it as there was so much.

Thanks John and all of you there that made this so rich for me.

Cheers, hope you like this picture and it's subtlety/richness. TONY

Art In Photos Beaumont, Blaauwklippen, Camberley, De Meye, Elgin Valley, Moreson- Taken By Me In South Africa March 14th-22nd, 2009 With John Morrison

Funny, I took these pictures just a month ago in March and as I post them here on my art blog I begin to appreciate some of the work I did while there. Though a labor of love it was still nonetheless a labor as I believe I took around two thousand photos or so that long week.

I acted quickly as as often as not was upset at missing some of the many pictures that I could have attempted if only I was quick enough, there was memory in my camera and the two betteries were charged!

I also took some short videos that I still have not seen. Oh well : that's just something more for me look forward to seeing myself and then sharing with you.

I am an artist and so for the time-being photography is one of my main, current art forms. I love it, really I do. Here I often had to compose pictures quickly in my hand and allow for the movement and the exact moment that my two cameras would actually snap and frame the photo as I held the camera waiting!

I'm not a professional and yet I take it very seriously. I realize that I frame the pictures and see quickly main components that I want in each of them. I do miss some of the richness that the final pictures may have with reflections and distortions in the glass : sometimes making the faces and people smaller within the glass and larger just outside. It's a curious effect that I enjoy because it forces one to look longer to see exactly what has happened, planned or not.

I'm delighted that I do not know ever exactly what I will get : that's fun and keeps me guessing and on my toes.

Some of the pictures I take with the idea of preserving a memory, time and place and people. Others are more whimsical and of-the-moment, totally unplanned and uncalculated. I just snap and see what turns up!

In many of these pictures you see grape juice that is fermenting and will become wine. They often llok quite murky. I like that, especailly when I get it as the glass is swirled around madly, exactly as to add air but stay comfortably within the confines of the glass.






I hope you like the way I framed some of these pictures. Sometimes strange things came out, too as my new camera and I were learning to get along together on this trip. Cheers, TONY