One of the best things about Grahamstown is the hiking. On the south side of town lies Mountain Drive and beyond that you can hike down into Featherstone Kloof – crossing the headwaters of the Kowie River – and then up the other side and on to the range of hills above the Featherstone Brewery. At one time there was a two day hike all the way down to Thomas Baines Nature Reserve. Nowadays the Oldenburgia Day Trail takes you on a round of the Kloof. This wide panorama shot was taken from the head of the valley looking east (with the N2 behind you) towards Bathurst and Port Alfred. The sun was setting directly behind me so I could capture the lovely shadows from the clouds stretching down to the horizon.
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.