Winter Sunrise, Grahamstown

I have to get up before dawn during the Arts Festival. There’s our dog to be walked and various chores that need to be done before getting to my exhibition venue. That does mean, however, that I get to be out when the sun rises and see this lovely winter light. I took the image on Monday when the cold front had just arrived and there were rain clouds blowing across the sun letting shards of light through and on to town. I always have a few Grahamstown pictures at my exhibition so maybe this picture will make it to next year’s Festival? You can see my other Grahamstown images (until Sunday 8th July) either in ‘Metamorphosis’ upstairs at the Carinus Art Gallery or visit my website roddythefox.co.za for a download of the full catalogue.

RODDY FOX

Roddy is a self taught photographer whose first camera, a Zeiss Ikon, was bought in 1974 from a second hand dealer in Glasgow. Through the forty years since then, he's taken landscape photographs with Pentax, Olympus and FujiFilm systems for his teaching and research as a geography academic at Kenyatta and Rhodes Universities. He has always been inspired by great nature and landscape photographers such as Nick Brandt, Beth Moon, Obie Oberholzer and Hans Strand. Since taking early retirement he has been able to pursue his passion for photography, published a photobook ’Symmetry in Nature’ and held three solo exhibitions at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa.

His landscape photography is about light: often at low angles, of forests, mist and clouds, the night sky and lightning. He prints on different media depending on the affects he wants to produce: brushed aluminium for reflecting angled light; Hahnemühle German Etching paper for soft diffusion; Ilford Metallic Gloss for vibrant night pictures.

His conceptual photography uses mirroring and merging of layers to explore patterns, motifs and the feminine in nature.