The Grahamstown Project https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject Online Shop Wed, 28 Oct 2020 21:59:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/cropped-Favicon-32x32.png The Grahamstown Project https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject 32 32 Herding sheep for shearing at Ganora https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/08/21/herding-sheep-for-shearing-at-ganora/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=herding-sheep-for-shearing-at-ganora Fri, 21 Aug 2020 10:52:21 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=15362
Herding sheep for shearing at Ganora
The western side of the Eastern Cape’s hinterland has the wide open spaces of the Karoo. We go there regularly and stay at Ganora farm just outside Nieu Bethesda. Kate has a long term scientific study into soil erosion on the farm whilst I get to shoot the sky, the land and the activities. This past couple of days we have been witnessing the herding of the sheep for shearing. So today’s Friday photo shows the scene yesterday, lit by the late afternoon sun, as the last batch were brought in to the shearing shed. The sun was at my back and so the shadows from the ridge behind me focused nicely with the clouds above the farm on to the scene on the right.

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. 

]]> Makana Revive at work outside the Cock House https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/08/14/makana-revive-at-work-outside-the-cock-house-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=makana-revive-at-work-outside-the-cock-house-2 Fri, 14 Aug 2020 08:20:12 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=15356
Makana Revive at work outside the Cock House
The Cock House is one of Grahamstown’s iconic buildings so I just had to include it with my other Heritage pictures. The several thousand potholes that pock mark the streets of town are fast becoming iconic too and since the Council don’t appear to be doing a great deal about them civic organisations have taken the lead. On the day I went to take this picture Makana Revive had set up traffic barriers in the junction outside the Cock House and they were busy filling in the nest of holes. It was a grey day so I was pleased to get a lot of red into the picture from the house itself and the street signs. So this picture tells a story – and let’s hope that once the Council goes (it has been dissolved by Court Order) then the streets of the town can be repaired sustainably.

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. 

]]> Monday in Grahamstown https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/08/10/monday-in-grahamstown-11/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=monday-in-grahamstown-11 Mon, 10 Aug 2020 11:30:51 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14193
Monday in Grahamstown
The Sunday Times yesterday offers glimmers of hope set amongst episode upon episode of corruption, treachery and deceit. New Covid infections are declining from the record daily rate set in late July. Peter Bruce, unusually, seems mildly optimistic that anti-corruption structures under justice minister, Ronald Lamola, will put crooks behind bars. The glimmers are, I’m afraid, just glimmers that mask a second wave of infections and a long voyage of ever more turbulent economic waters. My concern is that with a band of pirates at the helm, ordinary citizens below deck are being sucked dry of resources, energy and, most alarmingly, hope.
While some may be counting on economic recovery measures and financial relief from government, The Grahamstown Project is not floating in that tattered little life-boat. Our flag is flying on the mast of entrepreneurship, the raw talent of people in Grahamstown, and a network of people and organisations who share a values-driven and hard work approach to overcoming the challenges that exist in Grahamstown and the Eastern Cape. At a practical level our woodworking / carpentry skills training pilot continues. “Building skills for life”, is the motto of our English partners, Khanya. In its wake is TGP’s Sewing Skills Studio (aka Project Akhona), led by the hugely talented Akhona Mguwe. A team of practicing seamstresses / tailors and trainees is being built around Akhona who is the product of Nombulelo High School and Dakawa Arts & Crafts Centre where he learned his sewing skills. He is an outstanding example of the talent that exists in Grahamstown.
TGP is working with an ensemble of partners to harness the skills of people like Akhona. Sewing skills will be learned by others and the range of products will become ever more varied. Bottom line, Akhona can sew and make just about anything. His speciality is Sheshwe but the range will find its focus in response to demand from clients. The target market is people with taste, money, and an interest in growing the economy of the Eastern Cape through hard work, team-work, and more work. Products made in TGP’s Sewing Skills Studio will shortly be available to purchase at our Online Shop alongside the delicious array of healthy venison and free-range Eastern Cape meat supplied by The Farm Butchery (Adelaide/Bedford,EC) and marketed as Buck-in-a-Box.
It is deeply saddening that our government appears hopelessly unequal to the critical task at hand and now appears to be competing with Zimbabwe for the All Africa lack of moral-compass booby prize. It leaves the average citizen (without a formal job) who wishes to migrate above a R350 monthly Covid grant with very limited options. Let this be clear. There are no jobs. Grahamstown has thus far been touched lightly by Covid from a health perspective but it has been completely capsized by Covid from an economic perspective. Entrepreneurship – and particularly the social variety – is the only way forward for Grahamstown, the Eastern Cape and South Africa.
Happy National Woman’s Day to you all.
Graeme

GRAEME HOLMES

Before moving back to Grahamstown in Oct 2017, Graeme was a bank executive based in the big smoke and craziness of Joburg. He has 20 years’ experience in the Payments Industry. He is a Chartered Accountant, has a Masters in Management by Research (MMR) from Wits Business School, and attended an Advanced Management Programme (AMP) offered by INSEAD (The Business School for the World!) in France.  

Graeme is the founder of The Grahamstown Project. It’s simple. He says, “Grahamstown is a microcosm of South Africa. If we can’t get this place to function properly then the whole country is stuffed. Many of the troubles we experience as a country today have their roots here in Grahamstown. it is here where black and white people first engaged in conflict on the African continent. It is here where 9 wars of dispossession over 100 years took place and virtually destroyed the amaXhosa nation. But we are where we are. I don’t have a British passport and the boat-trip back to where my ancestors came from is exorbitantly expensive. Furthermore, this is my home. I am a son of Africa. We must work together to redress the injustices of the past and move as one into a brighter future.”

Graeme is an avid historian, writer, vlogger and public speaker. Like and follow the Facebook page. Join him on a tour. Contact him. He would love that.

]]> Kyle and Diego on Church Square https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/08/07/kyle-and-diego-on-church-square/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kyle-and-diego-on-church-square Fri, 07 Aug 2020 14:00:54 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14155
Kyle and Diego on Church Square
When you are out taking street scenes one of the nice things can be the encounters you have. I was taking pictures of Church Square on a quiet Sunday afternoon last year for my Heritage Photo book when these two characters came over to see what I was doing. I explained and they asked if I would take their picture – of course I said yes, but they’d have to pull a couple of poses. This is the best of them. Kyle and Diego said they were happy for me to share the pic on Facebook – which I promptly did – and now they are on the page of Church Square street scenes in the PhotoBook!

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. 

]]> Day 15 https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/08/02/day-15/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=day-15 Sun, 02 Aug 2020 20:20:02 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14144
Day 15

I’ve been nominated by my mate Ross Randall to a 25 push-ups for 25 days challenge to hopefully raise awareness for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), anxiety, depression and suicide.
I nominate my mate who will also no doubt love this challenge, Grant Hillary
The rules are simple:
*Once you are nominated your 25 days starts the following day.
*Everyday you record yourself doing 25 push-ups even if you have to drop to your knees to get 25
*Every day you must nominate a different person.
Let’s reach as many people as possible.Let’s hope by doing this we can build awareness for different forms of mental distress. You are not alone and we are here for you.
Don’t be afraid to speak out!!!
Michael Barrow

GRAEME HOLMES

Before moving back to Grahamstown in Oct 2017, Graeme was a bank executive based in the big smoke and craziness of Joburg. He has 20 years’ experience in the Payments Industry. He is a Chartered Accountant, has a Masters in Management by Research (MMR) from Wits Business School, and attended an Advanced Management Programme (AMP) offered by INSEAD (The Business School for the World!) in France.  

Graeme is the founder of The Grahamstown Project. It’s simple. He says, “Grahamstown is a microcosm of South Africa. If we can’t get this place to function properly then the whole country is stuffed. Many of the troubles we experience as a country today have their roots here in Grahamstown. it is here where black and white people first engaged in conflict on the African continent. It is here where 9 wars of dispossession over 100 years took place and virtually destroyed the amaXhosa nation. But we are where we are. I don’t have a British passport and the boat-trip back to where my ancestors came from is exorbitantly expensive. Furthermore, this is my home. I am a son of Africa. We must work together to redress the injustices of the past and move as one into a brighter future.”

Graeme is an avid historian, writer, vlogger and public speaker. Like and follow the Facebook page. Join him on a tour. Contact him. He would love that.

]]> Day 14 https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/08/01/day-14/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=day-14 Sat, 01 Aug 2020 20:08:06 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14139
Day 14

I’ve been nominated by my mate Ross Randall to a 25 push-ups for 25 days challenge to hopefully raise awareness for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), anxiety, depression and suicide.
I nominate my mate who will also no doubt love this challenge, Grant Hillary
The rules are simple:
*Once you are nominated your 25 days starts the following day.
*Everyday you record yourself doing 25 push-ups even if you have to drop to your knees to get 25
*Every day you must nominate a different person.
Let’s reach as many people as possible.Let’s hope by doing this we can build awareness for different forms of mental distress. You are not alone and we are here for you.
Don’t be afraid to speak out!!!
Michael Barrow

GRAEME HOLMES

Before moving back to Grahamstown in Oct 2017, Graeme was a bank executive based in the big smoke and craziness of Joburg. He has 20 years’ experience in the Payments Industry. He is a Chartered Accountant, has a Masters in Management by Research (MMR) from Wits Business School, and attended an Advanced Management Programme (AMP) offered by INSEAD (The Business School for the World!) in France.  

Graeme is the founder of The Grahamstown Project. It’s simple. He says, “Grahamstown is a microcosm of South Africa. If we can’t get this place to function properly then the whole country is stuffed. Many of the troubles we experience as a country today have their roots here in Grahamstown. it is here where black and white people first engaged in conflict on the African continent. It is here where 9 wars of dispossession over 100 years took place and virtually destroyed the amaXhosa nation. But we are where we are. I don’t have a British passport and the boat-trip back to where my ancestors came from is exorbitantly expensive. Furthermore, this is my home. I am a son of Africa. We must work together to redress the injustices of the past and move as one into a brighter future.”

Graeme is an avid historian, writer, vlogger and public speaker. Like and follow the Facebook page. Join him on a tour. Contact him. He would love that.

]]> Township Taxi https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/07/31/township-taxi/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=township-taxi Fri, 31 Jul 2020 14:20:42 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14149
Township Taxi
Some of the pictures I take end up in books, some at exhibitions and others never really see the light of day – Township Taxi is one of those. It’s an overlay of two scenes. The top of the picture was taken in April last year on the corner of High Street and Bathurst Street when a taxi passed me by. I was taking a shot with a long lens of the Observatory Museum down the road and the conductor hanging out of the taxi window called out ‘take one of me’! So I did.
The bottom scene is another long lens shot taken from up in Fingo Village and, if my memory serves me correctly, it was on more or less the same day. I thought there was a good chance that I could overlay the pictures and that the perspectives would blend nicely. I think they did.

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. 

]]> Day 12 https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/07/30/day-12/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=day-12 Thu, 30 Jul 2020 16:30:22 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14132
Day 12

I’ve been nominated by my mate Ross Randall to a 25 push-ups for 25 days challenge to hopefully raise awareness for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), anxiety, depression and suicide.
I nominate my mate who will also no doubt love this challenge, Andrew Morris
The rules are simple:
*Once you are nominated your 25 days starts the following day.
*Everyday you record yourself doing 25 push-ups even if you have to drop to your knees to get 25
*Every day you must nominate a different person.
Let’s reach as many people as possible.Let’s hope by doing this we can build awareness for different forms of mental distress. You are not alone and we are here for you.
Don’t be afraid to speak out!!!

GRAEME HOLMES

Before moving back to Grahamstown in Oct 2017, Graeme was a bank executive based in the big smoke and craziness of Joburg. He has 20 years’ experience in the Payments Industry. He is a Chartered Accountant, has a Masters in Management by Research (MMR) from Wits Business School, and attended an Advanced Management Programme (AMP) offered by INSEAD (The Business School for the World!) in France.  

Graeme is the founder of The Grahamstown Project. It’s simple. He says, “Grahamstown is a microcosm of South Africa. If we can’t get this place to function properly then the whole country is stuffed. Many of the troubles we experience as a country today have their roots here in Grahamstown. it is here where black and white people first engaged in conflict on the African continent. It is here where 9 wars of dispossession over 100 years took place and virtually destroyed the amaXhosa nation. But we are where we are. I don’t have a British passport and the boat-trip back to where my ancestors came from is exorbitantly expensive. Furthermore, this is my home. I am a son of Africa. We must work together to redress the injustices of the past and move as one into a brighter future.”

Graeme is an avid historian, writer, vlogger and public speaker. Like and follow the Facebook page. Join him on a tour. Contact him. He would love that.

]]> Day 10 https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/07/28/day-10/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=day-10 Tue, 28 Jul 2020 15:56:52 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14125
Day 10

I’ve been nominated by my mate Ross Randall to a 25 push-ups for 25 days challenge to hopefully raise awareness for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), anxiety, depression and suicide.
I nominate my mate who will also no doubt love this challenge, Richard Gush

The rules are simple:
*Once you are nominated your 25 days starts the following day.
*Everyday you record yourself doing 25 push-ups even if you have to drop to your knees to get 25
*Every day you must nominate a different person.
Let’s reach as many people as possible.Let’s hope by doing this we can build awareness for different forms of mental distress. You are not alone and we are here for you.
Don’t be afraid to speak out!!!

GRAEME HOLMES

Before moving back to Grahamstown in Oct 2017, Graeme was a bank executive based in the big smoke and craziness of Joburg. He has 20 years’ experience in the Payments Industry. He is a Chartered Accountant, has a Masters in Management by Research (MMR) from Wits Business School, and attended an Advanced Management Programme (AMP) offered by INSEAD (The Business School for the World!) in France.  

Graeme is the founder of The Grahamstown Project. It’s simple. He says, “Grahamstown is a microcosm of South Africa. If we can’t get this place to function properly then the whole country is stuffed. Many of the troubles we experience as a country today have their roots here in Grahamstown. it is here where black and white people first engaged in conflict on the African continent. It is here where 9 wars of dispossession over 100 years took place and virtually destroyed the amaXhosa nation. But we are where we are. I don’t have a British passport and the boat-trip back to where my ancestors came from is exorbitantly expensive. Furthermore, this is my home. I am a son of Africa. We must work together to redress the injustices of the past and move as one into a brighter future.”

Graeme is an avid historian, writer, vlogger and public speaker. Like and follow the Facebook page. Join him on a tour. Contact him. He would love that.

]]> Day 9 https://rorbaxprojects.co.za/TheGrahamstownProject/2020/07/27/day-9/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=day-9 Mon, 27 Jul 2020 19:13:52 +0000 https://thegrahamstownproject.com/?p=14117
Day 9
I’ve been nominated by my mate Ross Randall to a 25 push-ups for 25 days challenge to hopefully raise awareness for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), anxiety, depression and suicide.
I nominate my mate who will also no doubt love this challenge, Chris Wood
The rules are simple:
*Once you are nominated your 25 days starts the following day.
*Everyday you record yourself doing 25 push-ups even if you have to drop to your knees to get 25
*Every day you must nominate a different person.
Let’s reach as many people as possible.Let’s hope by doing this we can build awareness for different forms of mental distress. You are not alone and we are here for you.
Don’t be afraid to speak out!!!

GRAEME HOLMES

Before moving back to Grahamstown in Oct 2017, Graeme was a bank executive based in the big smoke and craziness of Joburg. He has 20 years’ experience in the Payments Industry. He is a Chartered Accountant, has a Masters in Management by Research (MMR) from Wits Business School, and attended an Advanced Management Programme (AMP) offered by INSEAD (The Business School for the World!) in France.  

Graeme is the founder of The Grahamstown Project. It’s simple. He says, “Grahamstown is a microcosm of South Africa. If we can’t get this place to function properly then the whole country is stuffed. Many of the troubles we experience as a country today have their roots here in Grahamstown. it is here where black and white people first engaged in conflict on the African continent. It is here where 9 wars of dispossession over 100 years took place and virtually destroyed the amaXhosa nation. But we are where we are. I don’t have a British passport and the boat-trip back to where my ancestors came from is exorbitantly expensive. Furthermore, this is my home. I am a son of Africa. We must work together to redress the injustices of the past and move as one into a brighter future.”

Graeme is an avid historian, writer, vlogger and public speaker. Like and follow the Facebook page. Join him on a tour. Contact him. He would love that.

]]>