The Extended Body - a Workshop by Jenny Altschuler

A 4 month weekly lecture and workshops series on the history and discourses surrounding the photography of the human body, ending in an exhibition of work produced by participants to the workshops.

1st series run at the Dutch Centre in Pinelands from August to November 2007, for the Cape Camera Club long time photographers and new members.

"The Extended Body, was a workshop run with the explicit idea of breaking cliché that most people are stuck with when facing making an image about the human body and inspiring new horizons. The course highlighted that the parameters of the body do not begin and end with the flesh, the bones and physical characteristic. Non-material elements of feeling, thought, energy and life force also make up the persona of the human being. Through a number of critique evenings, where participants to the workshop were encouraged to bring their photographic responses to the project set..." excerpt from the November/December edition or the Cape Photographic Society newsletter. Read the full article (p. 5/6) and an interview on Mikhail Subotzky (p.4) in the Newsletter at: http://www.capephotosociety.co.za/html/cape_camera.html

The SACP is dedicated to offering workshops throughout the year.
Watch this space for 2008 opportunities. For dedicated workshops for your company or existing workshop schedule call Jenny Altschuler on 082 935-5522 or e-mail: sacentrphoto@iafrica.com

Assistants' Part Time Evening Course

During November Shani Judes ran a successful 5 week course offering an assistant’s grounding to enable participants to understand more about the Cape Town Photographic industry and photographic assisting within it. Participants were encouraged to be able to recognize and familiarize themselves with studio equipment, accessories, procedures, terminology and the expectations of any photographer they would be assisting. The participants, who had to already have a basic understanding and knowledge of photography, visited professional equipment and hiring facilities and a professional commercial studio. They received a basic introduction to digital capture systems used in studio environments.

Zones of Poverty

Zones of Poverty was an initiative between the Cape Town City Council and the Centre for Photo. In 1999 the Cape Town City Council Department of Community Development approached the Centre for Photography to run a photographic project in a number of disadvantaged communities in greater Cape Town. The project was intended to teach two residents of each township the basic photographic skills, give each candidate a camera and then ask them to photograph their living environments for a period of two months. Their photographs were used as a visual report to the City. Based on the imaged taken by this group, the City Council was able to improve its service delivery to these communities.

Tania Malgas jumped at the opportunity to photograph her neighbourhood in Manenberg. The 19-year-old matriculated from Emil Weder School in the Boland and dreams of being a journalist someday. And so she understands the marriage between photography and writing and said she wanted to tell the story of Manenberg like it has never been told before. When she saw the city council notice about this course at a library she grabbed the opportunity and with her new camera, tried to do just that.

"People's lives must change. Their way of life is passed onto their children and then onto their children. The adults sit in the parks with their friends and drink, which attract all the bad elements, leaving the children to play in the streets. Their attitudes must change.
Unemployment is the route to gangsterism and that is all Manenberg is really known for. When people hear Manenberg, they think broken houses, graffiti, and junk parks. It is all true. Now the residents believe that only bad things can happen in their lives which kills their self-esteem. Even the tornado stopped here."

"Jobs won't come soon, but if the government can help us make Manenberg beautiful again, we will at least know that we are not excluded from Cape Town as the rest of it gets developed."

Tania is hoping that the tornado was a violent wake up for the people of Manenberg so that they can "start doing things with their own hands".
As a volunteer at the Silvertree Community Centre, she believes that the presence of more facilities which offer affordable skill development programmes are crucial in the empowerment of the people in Manenberg.

Topography

In March 2001 the Zimbabwe Association of Photographers (ZAP) approached the South African Centre for Photography to curate a South African exhibition for the annual ZAP exhibition at the Zimbabwe National Gallery in Harare. Scheduled to open in August, the exhibition will also be shown during the Cape Town Month of Photography in March 2002.

The title given to participating South African photographers was "Topography" and photographers were asked to give consideration to the terms "landscape" "social landscape" and "land ownership" but were not limited to the traditional photographic representations associated with landscape photography. As a result we received an eclectic mix of photographs reflecting a diverse response by the different photographers.

The photographers who had work selected for "Topography" were asked to donate their images to the Centre for Photography to assist the Centre in assembling a collection of travelling exhibitions for future events.