Me In Paris,Then

Another snapshot from my past, taken by my uncle and photographic mentor Juergen Schlichting.

Me in Paris, imagining my life to come.
I had not finished school yet. My uncle and my aunt had taken me to Paris with them
 I do remember this moment.

There was a determination in my mind to make the absolutely best of it.
To see life as what it is, as a generous gift. 

I still stick to it!

I See A Distant Land - A Self Portrait

A long time ago I have been dreaming of a distant land.

My passion for photography and creating visual, intriguing scenarios through the media of film started at a very early age. Staging photographic installations,  like a theatre play, centering around a certain chosen topic or idea was my favourite. I dreamed of situations and sceneries, would write my dreams down in my diary the next day and then try to capture them on film with the help of some of my school friends.

Dance With Your Brother When The Sun Goes Down

Once upon a time, my younger brother Chris and me in Holland at the beach

Practising the " pas de deux " while the sun went down and bathed the sky in a mother of pearl shade.

In ballet, a pas de deux (in French steps of two) is a duet in which ballet dancers perform the dance together. It usually consists of an entree, adagio, two variations - one for each dancer - and a coda. We did them all.

Ever since and wherever we are, and if we are together, we dance when the sun goes down our own pas de deux.

He is a special bru..

From then to today, he invented himself over and over again

and took everything a step further.

I Gave Him A Great Name

This was the moment when I saw my horse for the first time. It belonged to the wealthy trader in the picture, whose passion was to breed horses in Nara, Mali. He brought it to me knowing of my love for horses. It was born and bred in Nara. The horses of the Sahel have a great deal Arab blood in their veins but they are a desert breed of their own that has developed over centuries in the Sahel region. They are short, thin, strong willed and very endurant. But they are not nervous like race horses. Of course I bought it.

I called the stallion " Mandela" because he was so proud and strong. At the time I did not know that I would live in South-Africa later. The name came to me in the flash of a second. And Mandela became known in the whole village of Nara and in the "cercle". A cercle in West-Africa corresponds to a municipality in South-Africa.

And he has given me lots of trouble too. On more than one occasion I had to make my way back by foot through the bush while he was already home in the yard feeding grass, as if nothing has happened, or running through the roads of the village with an empty saddle on his back - embarrasing me by doing so! But he was too beautiful not to forgive him.

There is great contrast between my life then and now. The country of South-Africa at the tip of this beautiful African continent is a different planet compared to the West-African region. Both areas are beautiful. When going through the material, the work reports, the letters written home and the many photos recently, I have decided to tell the tales of this period on a blog of their own. It is worth it.

My First Friend

That was the first time ever when I asked someone to become my friend and I remember it clearly. At the age of two and a half the perception and understandiung of the difference between diverse and unique life-forms is amazingly not very profound - which is a beautiful thing in itself because it allows for simple communication. But since that time I like very tall people with a wide open face and a broad grin.

Akono

AKONO - from Ghana, worked at the Bar Kouame in Nara, North of Mali.
Was often home-sick to the bone.
But never made enough money to pay for the trip to go back.

Every night, for seven years, he kept a cold beer for me in the back of his parafin fridge!

Etosha - It Was Then......

It was in the year nineteen hundred really don't ask me when.......... when my parents with my younger brother and a friend where on the road in Namibia. With the best car in the whole world !