Friday, June 19, 2009

Cape Town Daily Photo

Cape Town Daily Photo is one of my favourite blogs. As the name implies, it is a daily blog that was started a few years ago by husband-and-wife team Paul and Kerry-Anne Gilowey. Every day they post a photo taken in or near Cape Town and write a bit about the photo or the circumstance in which they found themselves that led to them being at that particular place or event. It's a wonderful snapshot of what daily life is like in our city and it does in pictures what I (occasionally) try to do in words with this blog of mine.

The Giloweys, who are soccer mad, are now in Bloemfontein, a city in the Free State province, far away from Cape Town, chasing the Confed Cup. (And you can read about how that nearly didn't come about in yesterday's Cape Town Daily Photo post!) The distance, of course, presented a little problem, as how do you run a daily photo blog when you're not in the city to take photos (especially since they have a little rule that they don't post photos that are more than a week old, to ensure that everything that is uploaded is always very fresh)?

The answer was to ask a few friends for help, so a couple of weeks ago Paul approached me and we had a look at my schedule (which has been ridiculous, as anyone following me on Twitter will know) and worked out some days and potential events I was expecting to attend or circumstances that I would be in that might lend themselves to good photographs. (Paul and Kerry-Anne will still be writing the text - they just need help with visuals.)

We're now one day in and already half the original (now secret!) plans are out the window but we're on to new plans. So check out the site, and some of uploads, starting today, by Special Guest Star Mandy J Watson! I'm very excited as even I don't know what's going up when or who else may be guest starring.

Labels: ,

Monday, June 15, 2009

The Flyovers Behind The Convention Centre, Cape Town


Above: A stitched three-photograph panorama of the flyovers behind the CTICC.

Last week I attended two of the three days of the World Economic Forum on Africa 2009, which was held in Cape Town at the CTICC (Cape Town International Convention Centre).

As I was leaving on the first day and heading to one of the many CTICC car parks I noticed the (semi) symmetry and beauty of the lights and reflections that occurs between the highway flyovers. For an area that is always buzzing with activity, whether it's morning or evening bumper-to-bumper vehicles stuck in traffic or lots of foot traffic heading to or from a conference at the centre, this scene was rather tranquil.

The building on the left houses a massive ad billboard that is always lit at night and can't be missed by the thousands of commuters heading home in their cars. The ads change every few months but very few are well designed or attractive.

In the centre is a small body of water that serves as the start (or end) point of the new water-taxi service that operates between the CTICC/five-star Westin Grand hotel and the V&A Waterfront. Unfortunately, although I've read about it in the newspaper, I can't find a link about it on the Web. They should have invited me to the press launch!

The building lit up on the right is this building, a 15-floor office block called Convention Tower, which sprang up a few years ago. At night for a few hours it is lit around the edges with the most ridiculous light pollution and it makes it look as if someone plonked a radioactive giant rectangular slab on the foreshore. I have wondered how environmentally friendly the lighting is - does the building collect it via, for example, solar means during the day or is it another unnecessary drain on our already strained electricity supply?

I like my panorama though.

Labels: ,

Home

(Since Blogger broke my template you'll have to access
older/newer posts via the archive links in the sidebar.)