D-Seven: A fresh Capella

Francois, Eugene and Patrick


D-Seven is an all male capella (voice only) music group and man are they entertaining! You can not help but smile and be amazed by their vocal range and charisma. I was lucky enough to photograph D-Seven when they performed at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

Based in Cape Town they are setting stages alight and getting the crowds cheering, and I would not be surprised if soon they are pulling in even bigger crowds.
Singing their own cover versions of old classics and current hits they target all ages and are able to keep the audiences' attention.

At a time when tv shows like Glee are topping the most watched shows lists D-Seven will find their market becoming even more popular.
Now I know that I am a tad biased as I have met them and they are really good guys but their singing talents are definitely up there and I for one can not wait to see what the future has in store for them......

Raz and Patrick

Francois Swart

D-Seven

Something a little fun on a Friday!

Not that I remembered that it was even Friday until I turned on my radio. I have now entered the exam void where you have no clue whether it is Monday or Friday you just know whether you are writing today or not.

So here’s a little bit of fun for you all – it’s a can you guess what this picture is of?
Look carefully …..
HINT: the location is not what you should be looking at.

HAPPY FRIDAY !!!!!

Light Painting

One of the most fun things that I have learnt to do with my camera since starting my self-study of photography has been light painting. Most people are unfamiliar with this technique but it has been by far one of the most interactive and fun techniques I have learnt. The setting for light painting can be anywhere as long as it is dark as you either need to take the shots at night outside or in a dark room. Then you need a light source, which can be anything ranging from a torch to a candle. Now if you have a camera like I do that didn’t exactly come off the ark but it is also not a NASA creation then you will probably require someone to help you. You will also need a tripod in order to reduce camera shake as you will need to keep the shutter of your camera open for as long as possible. My friend and I went to the fountain here at Rhodes University as we thought it would be a cool setting and dark enough to take the shot. I set up the tripod, set the mode onto ‘bulb’ under the manual mode and we were all set. My loyal and helpful friend who gave of her precious time to venture out into the cold with me was the light painter. In other words she was the one that stood in front of the camera and wrote in the sky with the torch when I said ‘go’. The trick we found was to move quickly and point the light towards the camera and not on the ground as the camera shutter does not stay open long and it needs to pick up the light. Simple huh? Which is why it was so much fun! The results look awesome and it is so easy to do. I recommend that you all give it a try.
Happy shooting!

All in a day's work

During this last week Tales from a Rhodent has taken up the challenge of becoming SUPERHEROES in the comic book world. You are probably looking very confused right now and wondering what on earth I am talking about, so let me start at the beginning. Our latest assignment in our Narrative and Genre course of Journalism is to create a photo comic using a website called Comeeko. We would be responsible for the entire creative process from coming up with an idea, storyboarding, photos and dialogue. I must admit that at first it all seemed extremely daunting. Especially as it had to be done as group work, which is probably the most loathed way of working on any assignment. The hellish task of finding a time to meet is the main problem and from what I hear most groups have had many more like people not showing up or pulling their weight. But I must admit that I am glad to report that our group, Tales from a Rhodent were awesome to work with. They made the assignment so much fun and, as you can see from our comic below, very fruitful. Our tale is one of how when your drink is spiked and transforms in an evil creature out to get you, you need to step up to the plate and become a superhero in order to defeat it. We wanted to send out a message that the spiking of drinks does happen and that you need to be alert and your own superhero. It worked out really well with Nonhle as our super cool hero and Sarah as the ditsy but awesome sidekick. The photo comic was shot at The Old Gaol and didn’t feel like work at all but rather a hilarious photo shoot with the girls. The facial expressions of our drama princess Nonhle had us all rolling around with laughter and brought the comic to life. All in all a great time was had making the photo comic except for the last step of loading it all on to Comeeko which managed to make our dialogue disappear three times! To say that it was frustrating is putting it mildly but we conquered the Comeeko monster and ended up with a really kick ass comic!

Welcome

Welcome to my humble blog.

I’m afraid as you can see it is a work in progress but I promise you as soon as I find a uber geek to help me I will pimp it out for you all. So for now you will have to put up with my minimalistic amateur attempts.

For all of you out there reading this who do not know me. My name is Tarryn but you can all call me Savy (it’s a long story involving Pirates of the Caribbean and lots of beer). I am a Journalism and Media Studies student at Rhodes University in South Africa. I live in a mud hut and have a lion for a pet! Hehehe only jokes! I am in fact a regular student living in residence and working my ass off to make it into the 2nd year of Journalism so that I can study photojournalism.
You may be wondering why I would call my blog ‘Drawing Life with Light’ well the word “photography” based on the Greek φώς (phos) "light" + γραφίς (graphis) "stylus", "paintbrush" or γραφή (graphê) "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light." Hence my love for photography resulted in drawing life with light.

Photography is not the only thing that interests me. I also enjoy painting, politics, music, learning about ancient civilizations and people. Yes, people. I am fascinated by people: how we differ, how we think and why we do the things we do. So stick around and visit every so often to have a read and find out how life as a student is going and what it happening in the little old town of Grahamstown.