Category Archives: Photojournalism

Launch of The Arch Magazine

I got an email a few days ago inviting me to the launch of The Arch magazine.  And, of course, I said yes, it’s not often that I get invited to things like this.  The event was held at The Venue in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg… and was filled with local people, and a few celebrities.  The Arch magazine is a quarterly magazine that residents in the area will be getting, and it’s available for sale in the area, and will include local events and latest fashion etc from the centre.  It’s a good quality glossy mag, unlike the newspaper I get in my area!

Part of the event was a fashion show by Tiger of SwedenTamara Dey and Danny K, who were in the crowd, had also been dressed by Tiger.

Well… this was a bit of a challenge for me:)and I loved it!! I’ve never taken photos of a fashion show before, didn’t know it was going to happen so I wasn’t prepared…  and I think I did quite well, after the first few minutes trying to sort out light etc.  I actually took most of these photos without flash.

What a fun evening!! I hope the magazine works… it’s really a quality mag.

And I hope I get invited to more of these… the Venue is just a perfect spot for a fashion show ‘cos I could get to the top to take photos!  Next time though, hopefully I’ll get warned about what was going to happen so that I make sure I have the right lenses packed!

cat@juggling act (218 comments.) - August 28, 2010 - 6:59 am

I think you did great even if you felt you did not have the right lenses there. I love your fashion show shots.

Janet B (55 comments.) - August 27, 2010 - 3:04 pm

Awsome photographs Jeanette! Very well done!

Firefly (284 comments.) - August 27, 2010 - 11:06 am

It seems that being a blogger in Johannesburg or Cape Town has a lot more perks than here in Port Elizabeth. Here nobody really seems to notice us bloggers.
If it is one thing that I like about Jhb is that there are always celebs at everything.

Tanya (50 comments.) - August 27, 2010 - 9:36 am

stunning pics!
especially love the one of the dude in the grey suit with the blue tie…

Tanya (50 comments.) - August 27, 2010 - 9:36 am

stunning pics!
especially love the one of the dude in the grey suit with the blue tie…

Jeanette (31 comments.) - August 27, 2010 - 8:47 am

@Fiona, I only took one lens with me because I didn’t know the fashion show was going to happen… 24-70mm at ISO400 or ISO200 and f2.8. Was very cool to play around like that :)

Fiona - August 27, 2010 - 8:25 am

Your evening looks like it was alot of fun! I’m very impressed with the quality of the photo’s taken of the models on the walkway…especially because you didn’t use a flash. What lens did you use?

Elaine - August 27, 2010 - 8:22 am

WOW! I would have LOVED to come with you!!! :) The clothes looked awesome and so do the people! :)

You must have had a ball

Avril (Mom) (23 comments.) - August 27, 2010 - 7:32 am

Wow – a job well done !!! Love the clothes!

Pierre - August 27, 2010 - 12:25 am

Nice one ….see you happened to catch some of the band members of Flash Republic in the front row.

Tri Nations rugby at Soccer City in Soweto

As soon as the tickets opened for the Tri-Nations rugby match between South Africa and New Zealand, we booked!! Lance and I went with my parents and joined the 94013 rugby fans that thronged to Soccer City aka FNB Stadium outside Soweto to watch the match this evening.

What an awesome experience!! After quite a bit of deliberation, my dad and Lance decided that, instead of parking close to the stadium and walking, we should catch the Rea-Vaya buses from Wits.  And what a win that was!! It was so painless, and quick to get in and out of the stadium.  The match finished at 7, and we got home at 8:30! I didn’t think that was bad at all!

We got stopped by a guy painting faces on the way in… I liked how differently he painted everyone’s flags

It was the first time my mom had been to watch the Springboks play.

This cool marimba band was entertaining the crowds on the way in

As you can see, our seats were RIGHT at the very top of the stadium.  I really needed a bigger zoom, but I made do:)

This is my favourite photo… while the anthem was being sung, and a massive flag was being passed across the crowds

There are a few more photos on my Facebook page

Firefly (284 comments.) - August 24, 2010 - 10:10 am

Oh Jeanette, I am so jealous. About going to the game (even though we lost) and being able to take pics like this.

Fiona - August 23, 2010 - 3:54 pm

It looks like quite the experience!!! We wanted to go too but left it too late and before we knew it the tickets were sold out. Very cool pics Jeanette

cat@juggling act (218 comments.) - August 23, 2010 - 10:52 am

Thanks for sharing these – makes one feel part of it. I so wanted to go, but alas, going anywhere without the kids on a Saturday is near impossible.

Stella (25 comments.) - August 23, 2010 - 7:57 am

Awesome set of images!!

Corey~livingandloving (70 comments.) - August 23, 2010 - 3:17 am

These are just plain amazing! so vibrant and full of life. You really have a way with event photos. I suck at them. You rock it every single time. :)

Tara R. (58 comments.) - August 23, 2010 - 2:36 am

How wonderful! It looks more like you went to a festival than a rugby game. There is nothing quite as exciting as a live sporting event.

Angel (192 comments.) - August 22, 2010 - 9:44 pm

I LURV the one of the empty yellow seats!!

Tanya (86 comments.) - August 22, 2010 - 9:04 pm

Those are spectacular Jen! I know so many people that went I really regret not being one of them!

Janet (55 comments.) - August 22, 2010 - 6:58 pm

What a lot of fun! My SIL’s nephew is getting married at the end of the month, and they started his bachelors there! He was dressed in a white tutu, with a black t shirt saying “I Love Richie McGraw!” on the back! They had a ball!

Dave Kaplan - August 22, 2010 - 6:38 pm

Lovely work
you captured the mood and the essence of a great memorable day
DD

Avril (Mom) (23 comments.) - August 22, 2010 - 10:34 am

It was amazing!! Great photos(haven’t downloaded mine yet) – quite a few complaints on radio this morning about people getting stuck in traffic, queues, etc. The Rea-Veya way was defintely the way to go !! It was just so easy and quick!

Michelle - August 22, 2010 - 5:08 am

Wow, that look so amazing and the atmosphere must have been exhilarating. Such a pity the Springboks lost at the last minute, you can imagine all the ‘flak’ I am getting in NZ at the moment!!

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeanette, Jeanette. Jeanette said: Photos from #trinations #rugby at Soccer City earlier today http://ow.ly/2sTM6 [...]

218/365 – Day 2 at Tech4Africa

It was Day 2 of the Tech4Africa conference that I blogged about yesterday, and today was just as fantastic as yesterday… in fact I got more out of more of the talks today than I did yesterday.   I think I chose the right stream for me for every slot today, but I must admit that I was tired by the end and skipped the last session.

There were many more highlights than yesterday, but not as many WOW moments, if that makes sense.

I attended the Social Media panel discussion first.  It included Walter Pike, Alistair Fairweather, Jannie Vermeulen from FNB, Mike Stopforth from Cerebra and Andy Hadfield (who had to run out yesterday because his wife had a baby, how cool is that?).   And kudos to Sam Wilson from Women24 for joining the panel after tweeting “Guys? Men and women behave differently re social media. So why only men on panel? #tech4africa #socialmediaelephant” Btw, it was the first time I’d met her IRL… and she rocks!

One of the parts of the conversation that I enjoyed the most was the banter about whether every industry must be in Social Media spaces, and I tend to agree that not everyone should take part visibly, but every single company does need to listen at least.  I reckon that this panel would have carried on for hours if they’d been allowed to:)

One of my favourite parts of the day was the second talk in the business stream, which was a UX design panel led by Allan Kent (it was also really awesome to meet him IRL), and including Rian van der Walt from Yola, Basheera Khan from Playnice.ly and Mike Lewis from Origin. Loved what they did with redesigning the PayFine site, and the way that they did it.  I thought that the way they explained the process of UX design was also awesome.  Their presentation has been published on  Slideshare and blogged about on the Elezea blog.  One of the parts I found interesting was the content strategy, and the way that they planned the content, including all the detailed text, before they designed any of the wireframes.   That often gets left way too late in the process. I also think that they were right when they said that they think that the art of Content Strategy is going to developed more and more in the near future.  And kudos to PayFine for being in the audience to listen to them critting their site.

Oh and then I carried on in the UX vein, and attended the Andy Budd talk about UX.  Loved what he said about experiences on websites not being as good as they could be, and that web design needs to take learn from the way that the top hotels and restaurants approach client experience. Not that Dustin Diaz agreed with his examples though, and thought a lot of them were too cluttered.  I completely agree with how Andy responded by saying that you need to use the right design experience for the site in question… and he compared that to how people accept a doorman in a hotel, but cringe when there’s a doorman or greeter in a store.

Then WOW, the key note speaker, Clay Shirky, just blew me away.  Yes, yes, I’m one of the few geeks that haven’t seen his TED talks before, or in fact, any of the countless videos on Youtube apparently, even though I did know a bit about him… so I was enthralled by what he said.  One of the take home points for me was when he said that you have to know when you’re designing or planning for extrinsic (financial) motivation or intrinsic (culture) motivation, because if you mix them and too tightly, it could be damaging.

Alex Hunter‘s talk about brand was also fabulous! In fact, I had one fantastically fabulous day!! My favourite bit from that was when he said that if you keep it real for your users, you’ll be able to change the world. He also backed up what was said in the first session when he said that you can’t build brand loyalty on a crap product… rather to spend the money fixing the product than trying to market it. If you have a good product, then you’ll have natural brand evangelists.

It was a fantastic event!! Well done to Gareth Knight for putting it together, and I really hope it’ll happen again!!  One change I would request though… please add our twitter handles to the name tags… I had to constantly explain that I’m Jenty!

See the full set of 2010 photo-a-day photos on my Project 365 Flickr Set.

Jannie Vermeulen (1 comments.) - August 16, 2010 - 3:49 pm

Thanks for the mention. Great summary of the conference and yes to the following observation: “I reckon that this panel would have carried on for hours if they’d been allowed to” – Its a social thing :-)

Janet (3 comments.) - August 14, 2010 - 9:33 pm

Glad it was worth your while!

Henti (16 comments.) - August 14, 2010 - 5:35 am

Looks awesome ! Really wished I could have gone. Maybe next year :P

H

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeanette, Darren Smith. Darren Smith said: RT @Jenty: A couple of photos and a few thoughts from #tech4Africa day 2 http://ow.ly/2prmL < Great post Jenty! Spot on. [...]

209/365 – A walk in the city

One of my colleagues took us on a little tour of a few blocks around the office building we’re working from.  We walked around quite a bit of the financial district in Johannesburg, and it was fascinating walking with Jason because he knows quite a bit about the history of the buildings.

This is the first time that I’ve really noticed how much gorgeous Art Deco architecture actually exists in the CBD.  And I just love the way that some of the old beauties exist next to glass towers.


One of the first place we went was to the Guildhall Pub. It’s the oldest pub in Johannesburg and opened in 1888. Such character in there!


This is the building, the National Bank Building, that we’re working in for the next few days. It’s one of the oldest buildings in Johannesburg and was opened around 1902-ish. I really really wish I had a wider angle lens to take a better photo of it. The greenish dome is on top of the corner of the building, and is copper (hence the green). I took that photo from the balcony at the top. What fascinated me was in the inside of parts of the building… we went around the bottom floor of the one part, and it’s more than impressive with the art deco mixed with older styles and all the marble and gilt etc… it’s such a pity they didn’t let me take any photos of it.
\

The best part of the walk was when we stopped outside the Rand Club to admire the stunning building, and as we were commenting on the columns and the detail at the top, we were stopped by a guy watching us and he asked us what we were doing. We told him, and we had a discussion about the architecture of the building. He told us that the building there now was built in 1904 (it’s the third building that has been on that site), and it’s all art deco in styling. That surprised me, because I thought it was a mixture with the art deco styles columns, yet for some reason I thought the top of the building was pre-art deco (but then again I’m no architect). He also told us that it was designed by the same architect that designed the National Bank Building which we are working in!! How cool!

Just before he got in his car, I asked him how he knew… turns out he’s the Chairman of the Rand Club!! LOL!

I would love to have seen the inside of the building, but we were completely inappropriately dressed for the place:)

It was an awesome experience being a tourist in my own city.  Loved it!! Made me realise what a special place it is, and it made me hope that this revitalisation of the CBD just goes from strength to strength… because those old beauties deserve to be restored to their former glory.

I just love the contrasts in this city… old Johannesburg has got so much soul… with this beautiful district and the mining district and the more funky Newtown… compared to the almost heartless Sandton.

See the full set of 2010 photo-a-day photos on my Project 365 Flickr Set.

Elli Davis (1 comments.) - August 8, 2010 - 10:34 pm

What a stunning pictures. I love Art Deco architecture just like you, but have never been to Johannesburg. It looks like a really beautiful city to visit.

Charms (5 comments.) - August 6, 2010 - 12:24 pm

Absolutely stunning.

Avril (Mom) (23 comments.) - August 5, 2010 - 3:03 pm

Lovely! I never appreciated the buildings ‘in the old days’ on my fast walks (during my lunch hour) to the city centre where the grand old shops were .. and they were ‘grand’. Hoping the revitalization continues to restore them to their former glory.

Amanda (2 comments.) - August 5, 2010 - 1:15 pm

Hi Jeanette!! Wow these really are beautiful photo’s of Jozi – I think living in this city we often look past the beautiful details that you have captured!

Fiona - August 5, 2010 - 11:41 am

I enjoyed looking at all these photo’s of the old buildings. It makes me proud to be a Joburger :-)

cat@juggling act (218 comments.) - August 5, 2010 - 10:20 am

Absolutely beautiful pictures of beautiful buildings. We are involved in revitalization of quite a few buildings over the last few years (and at present) and it is truly amazing to see some of these come to life. We were even involved in a project that won a Halala award in 2008. http://juggelingactoflife.blogspot.com/2008/06/halala.html

Linda (6 comments.) - August 5, 2010 - 9:38 am

Stunning – just stunning!!!

Alet (37 comments.) - August 5, 2010 - 8:12 am

For a moment there I was back in London!
I honestly love these Jeanette!!

Henti (16 comments.) - August 5, 2010 - 6:31 am

I’m so jealous ! Those are beautiful and I’ve been planning to get into the CBD for a while after our Ethiopian experiance to get some more shots there.

Maria - August 5, 2010 - 5:52 am

These are gorgeous! I have always loved the Jhb CDB. Like you say it has some amazing buildings. Agree the revitalization is so important. I like the area around main street in the afternoons. Also driving on the highway past the city at night is always a treat for me. Love the way you captures the beauty of the buildings! I always stare out the sunroof at the tops of the buildings when stopped at a light etc in town – not great from a “being aware” perspective – but so good to get a sense of the majestic beauty of those buildings! Ok, enough – but I really do love the city and your photos!

melanie janse (12 comments.) - August 4, 2010 - 10:52 pm

OMW Jeanette, these are amazing!!!!

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeanette, Jeanette. Jeanette said: Photos from today's walk through the old finance district in Johannesburg http://ow.ly/2l7wl [...]

208/365 – Johannesburg CBD from above

I worked from an empty office in the middle of Johannesburg CBD today, with the rest of the team on the project I’m working on.  The office is on the 7th floor of a heritage building, in fact, one of the oldest office buildings in Johannesburg.  It is stunning, with parquet flooring and exposed brick walls and sash windows.   I would love to use a space like that as a studio… it’s just gorgeous.  I’m definitely taking more photos of the building itself tomorrow, but today I took quite a few from our vantage point up high.

Isn’t the facade of the building gorgeous?  This part is underneath the dome that is on the corner of the building.

The middle of the buildings fascinate me.

How gorgeous are these art deco lift lights?

Oh and the stairs… love the worn stairs. Can you see the dip in the middle?  This staircase leads up to a roof balcony where hundreds and hundreds of smokers must’ve congregated over the last 100 or so years.

And what’s a day in the CBD without a quick lunchtime protest.  Not sure what they were protesting against.

…yes, we worked quite late this evening…

See the full set of 2010 photo-a-day photos on my Project 365 Flickr Set.

Firefly (284 comments.) - August 4, 2010 - 9:21 am

A couple of great photos to show off your allround ability. I love the indented stairs, but the evening one is my fav.

Avril (Mom) (23 comments.) - August 4, 2010 - 6:58 am

Looks nice from up there .. not so nice on ground level! And to think I used to walk those streets every lunch time – 5 blocks – in high heels (!) to get the shopping area in the centre … EVERY day !

cat@juggling act (218 comments.) - August 3, 2010 - 9:46 pm

These are stunning! We have done redevelopment on quite a few buildings in JHB (and PTA) inner cities. Some of them have the most amazing details.

melanie janse (12 comments.) - August 3, 2010 - 9:44 pm

This is so cool!! What were you guys doing there!! btw awesome idea for a studio!!

Another day in my life | The Real Jenty - August 3, 2010 - 10:31 pm

[...] 1pm – hear protest in streets. Go up to roof to take a few photos. [...]

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