One modifier to rule them all.

Once you get into using flash in your photography it soon becomes apparent that you absolutely have to modify the light that is emitted from your light units; be it a great big 1000w/s AC powered strobe or a small 50w/s battery powered hot shoe flash like a Nikon SB910 or Canon 600EX. There are certainly times when bare flash has it’s place, but for the most part we tend to modify the light by softening it, bouncing it or colouring it. From the time that I started shooting lit commercial work the one modifier that seems to rise above all others is the incredibly versatile 140 or 150cm octabox.

Wandering The Wild Coast part 3 - The waves of Luphathana.

 

At the end of a long straight dirt road that seems to disappear over the edge of the horizon into the Indian Ocean, is the sudden drop down to mouth of the Luphathana River. Curiously, the drive from Lusikisiki seems devoid of the usual panoply of colourful houses that are the signature mark of the Wild Coast and Pondoland. Instead, there is this remarkable flat plain that stretches on for miles, populated by nothing but wandering cattle, the odd posse of donkeys and a resident family of ground hornbills. The road itself is flat and straight as an arrow, belying the fact that in the wet months it can be practically impassable. Now, with the dryness of winter, we sped across the top of the gravel surface, sending a plume of dust into the air like some wandering caravan of camels in the desert.

Wandering the Wild Coast part 2 - Port St Johns - Hippy Central and home to Raconteurs

 

Only 70 more bends to the Spar, proclaims a sign some twenty or so kilometres from Port St Johns. Growing up, I remember the endless corners as dirt roads, soggy and slimy in the wet, sending unwary drivers to the bottom of the pass, often with mortal consequences. Our family experienced this quite terrifyingly as we slid into a spin on one wet corner in the early nineties, saved only by some dense thorn bushes that stopped our descent and the fact that it was so wet and slippery that the car didn’t go into a roll. Now the roads, once terrifyingly interesting, are tamed and smooth with asphalt and innumerable speed humps as the crawl through towns on the road between Mtata and Port St Johns.

Wandering the Wild Coast - Part one, Hole in the Wall

Travel agents use lots of hyperboles when they describe a place that they want to market. Unspoiled, untrammelled, idyllic, virginal and quintessential all come to mind when I think of coastal regions that have been written about in the quest to fill a few more bed nights. The Wild Coast isn't any of these though. That isn't to say that it doesn't deserve it's own set of hyperboles, but that the feel of the Wild Coast is completely different to say that of the Sunshine Coast, or Kwazulu Natal's Hibiscus Coast. Slowness is practically enforced and you need to take a deep breath before entering onto the hairpin bends patrolled by decaying pickup trucks and suicidal taxi drivers. You'd be forgiven for thinking that cattle are sacred as they wander to and fro amongst the traffic and dogs take on a death wish of their own as they run helter-skelter between dangerously swaying trucks.