.:icedsoul photography

as you might have guessed… I am BACK!!!

and as I am back and in the middle of my everyday chaos again I have a little bit of time to reflect on the past south africa trip. as you might or might not have noticed I was very lucky to be sent by kodak to south africa while the 2010 fifa worldcup is on to capture the memorable moments the people experience along the way.

I have written about how I disagree with the media hysteria talking about how dangerous south africa is and how unfair and dangerous that itself is, so I wont go into it too much, but only wondering how the fifa was not able to control this. they control nearly everything about this worldcup, so this makes me wonder.

 

click on more for the whole story and the video.

 

 

I am very thankful to kodak for sending me to south africa, letting me experience all the wonderful energy and moment and most importantly… meet the wonderful people that I met along the way and was able to spend time with.

from the people I only spent a few minutes with to the guys from the team we only ha a few hours with or the others I spent days with.

of course there is madlen from kodak, who was the driving force behind this whole operation and who did a wonderful job. and I am very happy she joined our journey as it was a lot o fun!

then there was alfred, who was our local kodak hero. he took so good care of us in joburg, with his happy and caring way. especially impressive was seeing him in his traditional maasai clothing. I am looking forwad meeting you again at photokina mate

tiny was our second driver and guide in joburg who had the unfortunate case of extreme road rage, where a group of crazy chicks started hitting on her, because they couldn’t pass here on the street as fast as they wanted… poor her. I hope you are alright tiny.

junior is a buddy of alfred, who was just visiting and got caught in our craziness great meeting you sir!

another guy I had not enough time to spend with was alessio. I met with him in amsterdam already as we were on the same flight, but overall we just had a bit of time in joburg to hang out together. gladly he lives kinda close by and this gives me a good excuse to visit wonderful milan

also in joburg I had the pleasure of meeting young designer AJ. very fun and fresh british lad, sorry ’bout that mate. I’ll be in london soon enough I hope, so we can see how everything worked out for the british team…

it is a shame I do not have a photo of sergio who is our man from the US, but I certainly failed to get one of him. our meeting was even more brief, but hopefully we can change that at another time.

at the breakfast of my first “real” day in joburg the wonderful and inspiring shelton introduced himself. and I was lucky enough to have him with me in durban! its very seldom you meet a guy this much fun with interesting stories, photographic knowledge and ability and all the means to share all this. PLUS the amazing bonus of a great voice and musical talent. I think we still have a karaoke duett to attend to sir! it really is a shame you live this far away.

and last but not least another wonderful member of the team and I am very happy about that he was with us in durban also is shem! southafrican wildlife and nature photographer. and what a wonderful one. I am very very impressed by his work. and of course by him. a great guy, so open and friendly, just being him. again.. why do you live so faaaar away? I will come back to south africa either way and surely take part in one of your tours.

it really was a pleasure meeting you guys and I can’t wait until we meet again! and if you ever come anywhere close to cologne, please let me know!

besides our team we met so many other people, even if just briefly and while walking by, they still had an impact on me while roaming through joburg and durban.

and then there where the lions

the zebras

the giraffe

the gazelles

the fans

the turtles

the rays

the sharks and other fish

the birds

and the man, the myth…

well of course there is no photo of the myth… he wouldn’t be a myth if there were photo books about him now, right?

and here now finally the kinda raw video. I unfortunately seem to have misplaced some of my other footage, but it still is quite long, so excuse the poor storytelling in this, but enjoy the impressions even more!

 

 

again thanks you all sooooooo very much for a wonderful and great time. and to everyone ever thinking about it… YES GO VISIT SOUTH AFRICA and enjoy the time!

all the best,

teymur.