Richard Stupart

Camera in hand, I follow Hailey through the roads of Glenmore as the Sunday afternoon beats down on us. She, in turn, is following Ben Mafane, the township patriarch whose athletic frame understates his age. It’s easy to understand why he is dubbed the ‘Mandela of Glenmore’, having been a former boxer who now teaches the sport to many of the local youths. Some of them are with us, forming his entourage as we go from house to house. Hailey interviews a teacher here, the owner of the community creche there. For my part, I chase laughing children down a side street as they pose with daft expressions in the hot dust. Then laugh madly at their faces on the back screen afterwards. Read the rest of this entry »

The irony of being on a journalism course and at the same time suffering a bad case of blogger’s block is painful. Which of course, doesn’t make it any easier to force thoughts into the words I want. Imagine trying to fit a cat into a box with a narrow opening, when the cat has other ideas. It’s a lot like that inside my head at the moment. Read the rest of this entry »

Been talking to myself forever. And how I wish I knew me better

The lyrics had been bouncing around my head for the last two days. Some songs come and go, others stick in your brain when they happen to strike the right note and refuse to leave. This is one of those this morning. Intellectual house guests with no shame in overstaying their welcome. Hanging on until you find the right person to pass them onto. Waking up for my first lecture as a journ student, they were still kicking around, terrible at taking a hint.

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My plan on returning home was always to pass right through and into something new. Not to turn my back on the people I know and the work I do in that place they call the Real World, but to augment it. To do more. More of the things that excite me. More of the things that fill not just a day, but a life with purpose. It’s that plan that has drawn me to the beautiful but oh-so-tiny town of Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape of South Africa for the remainder of this year. To study photojournalism.

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