Category: Women I’ve Shot

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Projects Women I've Shot

Women Who Create
This is Anna-Tina Schaal

Women Who Create is an ongoing portraiture project all shot in B&W in my studio in Woodstock, Cape Town. I love to connect with other creatives and see what motivates them and find out what is behind there work.

Swiss-born Anna-Tina, a creator deluxe, moved to Paris after school to study fashion design and ended up living and working in the French capital for 7 years. She met her now husband in Key West, Florida, whilst on holiday and never left Africa again after she visited him in his home country Namibia the following year. With their two children, aged 5 and 8, they live in Woodstock, Cape Town now. We are dear friends.

There is never a dull moment in our lives: juggling the demands of kids, our home, my business and our social life; it keeps us rather entertained.

Anna-Tina loves making things with her hands and what started out as a hobby of hand-made gifts for her friends, has turned into a small business. She makes big high-quality handmade blankets, cot blankets and ladies clutch bags.

Every piece is an original, unique in its colour, textures and fabric combination.

Besides selling online via Instagram and Facebook I’ve also participated in Kamersvol.com in Cape Town and in Johannesburg over the last years. The best thing about my business is that my hobby and passion became my work and I feel privileged for that. Juggling the business with my family’s activities and everyday errands and still trying to find time for myself is the biggest challenge.

I’d describe Anna-Tina as passionate, a perfectionist, a highly creative being and a real “do-er”. Not just does she make each of her products to the best quality and with the highest of standards but she also somehow finds the time to make things like pasta from scratch and cook bread with her kids on a daily basis.

She’s a wonder women.

You can find her website “Anna-Tina Original” right here.

And you can find Anna-Tina’s Instagram feed here for all her latest makes and inspiration.

Now for a Q&A:

Why do you create?

I create because I have to, to be a happy person…

Do you have pet peeves?

It drives me mad if people don’t do things properly and with care.

Your worst trait?

I guess I drive people crazy because I expect them to do things with great care, attention to detail and to the absolute best of their abilities.

What is/are your greatest extravagance/s?

To sneak out for a morning in the ocean

What do you think is overrated?

Ugly expensive things…

On what occasion do you lie?

When I have to deal with authorities I don’t trust. So often their rules don’t make any sense to me!

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Why?

When and where are/where you happiest?

Somewhere warm by the ocean.

What is your most treasured possession?

My children (even if they are not a possession really).

What do you do to help put you into your optimal creative space?

I start doing and that brings me there.

What does your (physical) creative space look like?

Currently and mostly an organised mess.

What do you get huge satisfaction out of doing apart from your primary creative outlet?

To be in the ocean to clean my head and then to clean up the mess (in my house):  to create order and a beautiful space.

When creating what is your biggest frustration?

Having to deal with admin that is attached to most creative processes.

When you’re in your ultimate creative space what word would you use to describe the experience?

Peace and happiness.

The above is a new range of super handy up-cycled zipper ‘pouches’, they’re similar to her clutch bags except these are much more low-key and great to stash things away in an organisational manner in your cluttered handbag. They’re all made with 100% off-cuts from her blanket making business, so cool!

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Women I've Shot

“The Housewives”, Private Commissions:
This is Jane

(Note: “The Housewives” was a term I fondly coined in 2006 after I started getting shoot requests from private, individual women who became my clients. Many of the women who contacted me were married and in their mid 30’s and were doing the shoots as gifts to their husbands. The folder in my archives is still called this and so I’ve stuck to it, in part just for the irony: most of these women are not “housewives” at all, but strong independent and forward thinking women who I have had the honour of documenting.

All are private commissions and the demographic has changed substantially over the years. Some I’m still in contact with, others I’ve totally lost contact with, some have become friends, some may wish not to have their real names used, others don’t mind, some may have their faces obscured for privacy reasons, others have generously shared their experiences of being photographed.)

I first met and worked with Jane in 2006 when she came into studio for this shoot. It was a shoot I felt highly frustrated with and it just didn’t come out right which was the reason I offered Jane to come back into the studio in 2007 for this second shoot.

We shot about 6 (six!) looks over the session and, for that time, with my given experience, I was chuffed with the outcome.

I was thrilled when later that same year the Sunday Times newspaper picked up my Housewives shoot stories and published an awesome page three article on my work. Jane featured not just in the article but also on the cover of the newspaper above the headline, see below.

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Women I've Shot

Birth: This is Romy’s Story
The Birth of Shyla & Tatum, 9 December 2015

The highway was quiet and dark on my way to the hospital. The robots on my way changed colour fluidly, I was grateful.

This was going to be an emergency C-section, a true emergency to save the two babies lives. I parked at Kingsbury hospital and within moments I slipped into the operating theatre in a set of blue scrubs.

Romy’s back was exposed, a long needle going into it – it always makes me cringe. Romy’s husband, my cousin Cal, holding her in the safety of his arms. The two were intertwined in such a gentle embrace and I didn’t want to disturb it. It’s a crazy space, so many doctors and nurses, the amount of equipment, the colours. One knows that very soon many things will be changing, a baby, in this case twins, will be arriving in moments.

Romy lies down with Cal at her side and I watch as the doctors prepare her. She looks so strong and so courageous and when I think back on it, she must have been terrified. This was going to be an emergency C-section, the first I would witness.

I watch as that first line of blood meets the blade at the point of the incision and then a gush of fine fluid as her waters are broken. It’s quite surreal- the fact that such major surgery takes place while the patient lies awake, I never get used to it.

The light is hard and harsh on the camera.

Romy is quiet holding Cals hand, its strange to think that she can’t see what is happening to her own body so close by. I watched and felt like a guardian. Romy and Cals eyes were locked.

The doctors gently pulled out the first tiny baby girl. I stood so near as she emerged from Romy’s stomach. She was perfect and so, so small and was carried into the warm light of the heated receiving table on the right. It was a weird feeling to know that there would soon be another baby emerging…

There was quite a bit of conversation. Many hands moved swiftly as they guided out the second baby, feet first. This baby is a totally different colour, dark and red whereas the first had been pale and creamy. Baby two is also smaller and she’s immediately carried to her sisters’ side. The doctors intensely and carefully watch over them both and communicate back and forth in low tones. It’s extremely tense.

It’s hard to believe what I’m seeing and yet at the same time I’m working and documenting. I can’t explain the strangeness of the experience: Romy on the bed, meters away, Cal in awe, standing with the babies, tears in his eyes, speechless, two tiny crying baby girls. The operating room feels heavy.

They wheel the babes almost immediately away to the NICU. It all happened so fast, I’m a bit taken aback by the abruptness, Romy hasn’t even laid eyes on her girls, in fact nothing has been said to her at all! She’s asking but getting no response as each of the doctors is managing the medical situation at hand. I walk around to the bed to show Romy an image on the back of the camera, I feel nervous about what to show her, these two tiny babes look so fragile. I watch as the reflection of the LCD screen of my camera, held above her face, dances in her irises as they move between the two little figures, she’s seeing for the first time in this small image. I can see she’s trying to absorb it, to grasp the intensity of every last second that’s just passed. It’s a huge triumph, a miracle and a trauma.

She looks so incredibly beautiful in this moment. I can’t believe the courage she must have had to hold herself together. She’s like a lioness, a mother bear and these are her precious treasures.

The doctors take a long time, it feels, to sew her up. Romy wants to know about the girls but not much is communicated except that they are in NICU. Cal is by her side holding her hand, his other hand protectively around her head, stroking her hair. I watch the procedure intermittently. I don’t feel phased by the practicalities or technicalities of it but am rather aware that Romy has still not seen her babies. It must have been the hardest thing.

When the doctors are finally finished the nurse’s wheel her out and then do some checks and blood pressure monitoring. Romy looks pale and she’s shaking. It’s the drugs, the shock and the experience.

Romy’s parents are desperate to reach out to her over the red line on the ward floor between the theatre space and the outside area, it’s just a few meters away and they wait impatiently to embrace her. Eventually she is wheeled to a room and her parents hold her, reassure her, congratulate them both, hug her. They are overwhelmed too. Romy’s sisters are already on the plane. Our family WhatsApp groups are humming with congratulations and wishes.

Finally, a doctor comes in. Romy has been desperate to have news of her babies, almost an hour has passed by now. It’s hard to hear what the doctor is saying, I watch the focus on Romy’s face. When the doctor leaves she melts into sobs and is enveloped by her family, it’s so hard.

She has been so strong up until that point, so brave and courageous, now her emotions come flying out in a release. All she can do now is hope and wait the doctor tells her.

Her babies are so separated from her and it’s all so out of her control. The babies are not out of the woods yet and all everyone can do is hope and wait to see what news will come from NICU. The doctors are doing their very best to look after those two tiny little souls.

I watched Romy in all these moments and admired the woman that she is. My mind is blown. I leave the space quietly and head out of the hospital in a daze. I consider the incredibility of the miracle I have just had the honour of witness. The first moments of these two beauties into this world. The love and courage, the strength and caring of all those that surrounded her and I know this is all really quite something. Romy is quite something. Then I’m back on that quiet dark highway with just the memories of what I’ve just seen.

(The babies stayed in NICU for about 6 weeks and both underwent a surgery, both are happy and bouncy 5 year old’s now).

Categories
Projects Women I've Shot

Women Who Create
This is Michaela Younge

Women Who Create is an ongoing portraiture project all shot in B&W in my studio in Woodstock, Cape Town. I love to connect with other creatives and see what motivates them and find out what is behind there work.

I’ve followed Michaela’s work for a while as I find it intriguing, another world but also our own. I met her for the first time when I invited her into my studio to participate in Women Who Create.

She brought with her soft clouds of colourful, loose merino wool (which we used in her portrait), one of her complex, beautiful and completed pieces and a dangerous looking felting needle.

Michaela Younge is a South African artist born in Cape Town in 1993. After high school, Michaela attended the Michaelis School of Fine Art, where her father lectured in the Sculpture department. She graduated in 2015 receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction. While at Michaelis, she primarily worked in the mediums of sculpture and print, however, after graduating she began working with wool, constructing felt tableaux depicting scenes of the everyday, the violent and the bizarre.

Her works are created by needle felting merino wool into textiles as well as found fabrics, such as old curtains and tapestries. The works are textural and are characterised by colourful, busy scenes that often play with perspective. Michaela is interested in the absurdity of everyday life, often finding humour in theatrical scenes of violence or through a comedy of errors. These scenes invite a closer look at human relationships and interactions – sometimes skewering the subjects in the process.

Below is a Proust-like interview with Michaela:

Why do you create?

Art-making is generally exciting, and expressive, and making money from something like that is rewarding, so I guess I create because I get pleasure from it.

What is/are your greatest extravagance/s?

“Decorasie” type objects, second-hand toys, ceramics, clothes.

Your greatest fear?

Alien abduction, going under anaesthetic but it doesn’t work and you’re just paralysed.

What defines your idea of happiness?

Watching BBC with my mom next to the heater is pretty good.

What do you think is overrated?

Pasta; everybody seems to love it, but let’s be honest it’s just long pieces of cooked flour and egg! I’m not saying it’s terrible, cause it can be good, I just think its overrated.

On what occasion do you lie?

If there was no benefit in telling the truth, and the truth was really a massive sack of awful.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Using expletives, such as “fucking”, “bloody” and the word “wow”.

When and where are/where you happiest?

Having a drink on Bakoven Beach in the late afternoon on a hot summer’s day.

What is your most treasured possession?

My grandmother’s ring, gifted to me by my mother.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Apparently I give very good hugs, but that’s not useful in the time of Corona! A friend said that I get excited by things or going places some people wouldn’t, and I always have a story from it.

What do you do to help put you into your optimal creative space?

If the weather is bad, I have to have a hot water bottle as I find being cold very distracting, and a hot water bottle has the placebo effect of making my concentration better.

What does your (physical) creative space look like?

I work off a big desk, with a large lamp and I always have to have a pencil and some paper, especially if I’m talking on the phone as I get pre-emptively nervous that I may have to take notes at any point. Then there are two large boxes of colourful merino wool on the floor, and a lint roller.

What do you get huge satisfaction out of doing apart from your primary creative outlet?

I’ve been using pencil crayons and khoki pens and doing more drawings, and I’ve been experimenting with resin which is a hot mess but I love it.

When creating what is your biggest frustration?

Balancing admin, chores and creative work. I have to set aside time for emails as they give me a lot of stress!

When you’re in your ultimate creative space what word would you use to describe the experience?

“Quiet” or “quick”.

You can find Michaela’s Instagram profile here.