Phuthu Stay Phut, Don't go!

The very first commercial flight has officially landed in KZN’s new King Shaka International Airport. A local Durban pilot landed the giant SAA Airbus yesterday. Three air force helicopters led the way and escorted the plane onto the runway, just as a water cannon opened up, courtesy of the fire department. It cascaded over the run way, welcoming the the plane with a ceremonious curtain of water . The plane taxied on towards the brand spanking new terminal buildings without incident.

It kind of leaves a lump in your throat don’t you think? What an extremely proud and historic moment for all South Africans.

For Herselman (the pilot), landing the inaugural flight at the new airport was particularly special

“Some 30 Years ago, when the land here was first leveled for the new airport development, I did my pilot training here on what was an airstrip. Now so many years later, to be able to land the first flight is unbelievable. Not every day will you be the first to land a giant aircraft at a brand new airport”

The multi-billion rand airport will start operations tomorrow morning, with the first flight due to take off at 6.30am.

The final curtain will come down on Durban international airport tonight, when the last flight, SA585, departs for Johannesburg. That is so sad, although I have no doubt that the new airport is bigger and much better equipped to deal with the tourist influx during the SWC, I loved that old pokey little airport, it will be sadly missed…….sniff.

The older airport will be handed over to the SA Air Force to be used as a military base during the SWC. It will eventually be decommissioned as an airport……….again…………..sniff!

Out with the old- shame man!

And in with the new

Have a look at these strange watches. By cracking the logic which connects them, you should be able to work out what time should be shown on the face of the fifth watch.

Panorama.

You may think my posts are a little disjointed. That is because they are. I’ve decided that writing about my personal history of my involvement in photography is boring for me  so it must be absolute hell for you.

 So, I’ve decided to write about whatever crosses my mind during the week that bears even a slight relation to photography.

 This week I decided that I needed to create an image for our dining room at home. I needed a wide but narrow format to fit over the dining room table. A panorama is what I needed! Not a “chocolate box” panorama mind you, maybe something a little grungy……

 There is an old disused train station near my home that has always intrigued me. The old Gillits station is a beautiful old building, built with those wonderful warm orange Natal clay bricks, it must have stood there, a sentinel watching over the single railtrack for at least the last 100 years.

 I figured this scene would make a great night panorama shot. I’ve been there three nights in a row, trying to get the perfect shots to stitch together for this panorama. I had a clear image in my mind of how it should look. I think it’s important to visualize beforehand what you are trying to create. The software I had planned to use is called “Autopano”. This is an amazing program that can stitch together 360 degrees of images into one seamless panorama, technology rocks!

 But, I must confess, it didnt turn out to be as easy as I imagined! Firstly trying to level the tripod is an engineering exercise in itself! Secondly, running around trying to remote flash as many areas as possible in the 30 second exposure is a fitness session in itself. It went a bit like this:-

 Visit one. Flash battery died near the end. Images not quite good enough for stitching.(too dark in areas)

Visit two. Much the same as visit one.

Visit three. Got the perfect shots. Got home proud of results,  memory card promptly ate my images!  Bastard!

 Visit four. On the cards soon.

 My thought of the day is, I had better get this damn thing right next time, before some slimy homosapien notices this idiot wandering around in the dark at a deserted train station with expensive camera equipment, and decides this is a great mugging candidate!

 This is sort of what I’m trying to do but not really good enough yet. This is 4 images that have been manually joined in photoshop. The areas of dark are for drama.

Okay so it’s time for an exciting little numbered list summing up what’s been going on in life:

1. SARS only opens at 9.00am on a Wednesday so if you’re ever going there or were planning a trip there for a Wednesday, think again before you eagerly hop into your car at 7.15am whilst trying to guzzle down a piece of toast with Bovril on it. Don’t do it!
2. I went for a scan last week and you’ll never believe it but the little monkey was sucking its wee little thumb! Like its actually got a thumb and four other little digits on each hand. It has hands. And arms. Arms! Its got everything, the works, just like the car you’ve always wanted.
3. My man is going through a golf phase and is frequenting the driving range sometimes twice a day to perfect his swing. I couldn’t help but join in on all the excitement so I went along on Sunday to hit some balls. I was quite chuffed with myself because I alternated between Skyscraper and Moleraper shots quite consistently. Every time the ball went high into the air, I dropped the club, bounced excitedly and screeched to Jeremy whilst pointing skywards “Hunneeeeeee, look look look look look, my ball, can you see it, did you see it?!!!”.
4. I got whipped at Scrabble last night (by my man) and all I can say is that it’s going to take a lot of marshmallow mice to make me feel better about the situation.
5. And that’s all folks. Titillating stuff!

Doing a quickie today. Sites to maintain and stuff to do. All in a day’s work.

We stayed over at The Bottle Tree House at Sycamore Avenue, Midlands on Friday night. The tree house was something else, it appealed to my inner child. The hosts were jovial and chatty, the food scrumptious and the cosy fireplace great to chase the chill away.

Go check it out!

The Latest saga surrounding the negative impact of the Vuvuzela on the SWC.

South Africa has officially marked the 50-day countdown to the Soccer World Cup. Now I must say, as organising goes -with the help of FIFA- I think we’ve pulled it off quite nicely and I think we should be ready in time to host this major event. Unfortunately we have not been immune to the controversies that inevitably follow an event so widely covered as this. There have been many stories making their rounds lately and one in particular is the antipathy towards the ever faithful South African born Vuvuzela. Right from day one experts have been ‘playing down’ this instrument, stating the noise to be very distracting to the players and annoying to the spectators .

It seems that researchers from the University of Pretoria have taken it one step further by producing scientific evidence, based on tests at a soccer match that the sound level produced by Vuvuzelas, inside a 2010 stadium could lead to permanent hearing damage.

The test was comprised primarily by testing the hearing of 11 spectators before and after they attended a Premier Soccer League match at a FIFA-approved training stadium with 30 000 seats. During the match, ten of the 11 wore personal sound exposure meters fixed to their shoulders, and four of them blew Vuvuzelas. The researchers said the average sound exposure experienced by the participants during the almost two hours they spent in the stadium was 100.5 decibels. The peak exposure exceeded 140 decibels for eight of the ten participants, with the maximum peak reaching 144.2. The four who blew vuvuzelas had the most exposure to noise. South African standards for occupational noise requiring hearing protection are for people exposed to levels of 85 decibels and above.

Now a few questions come to mind when I read these results.

Firstly the benchmark for South African standards for occupational noise has been measured based on people who have prolonged exposure to this noise on a regular basis i.e.  In a work ‘occupational’ environment, is it not? Surely this does not apply to a once off event lasting 2 hours?

Secondly, people willingly attend music concerts and nightclubs knowing full well that they are going to be faced with a mountain of speakers, chucking out huge decibels of noise as well as additional crowd noise and so on. Do you walk into a nightclub wearing earplugs? Do you open a lawsuit against the owner stating permanent hearing loss due to his health and safety standards? I don’t think so.

Thirdly, maybe people should be warned ahead of time about the possible dangers and be told to take the necessary precautions if they think they will be adversely affected? Let each and every person be responsible for their own ears. That is not too much to ask is it?

South Africa is renowned for making problems disappear by putting signs up. It’s absolutely brilliant that if a certain road has problems with potholes, all they have to do is put a warning sign up informing people of such, problem solved. So much easier than fixing those pesky things, they always end up coming back anyway. Only in South Africa.

So let’s carry on with this treasured past time by putting lots of bright yellow warning signs up at all the major stadiums around the country, this should keep all the drooling litigators at bay.

I believe the Vuvuzela is here to stay, so let’s just build a bridge and get over it Ok?

By: Kerry

Ref: News24.com