Mandela on Film

A couple of weeks ago I was in Pretoria at the Union Buildings – South Africa’s equivalent of the American White House – and saw the new Nelson Mandela statue for the first time. The statue was unveiled last December just after Mandela’s death.

I shot some photos of the statue using my Holga film camera from Zavi Traders, and also with a disposable panoramic camera that I got from Zavi. Similar to the last time I shot with film, I have mixed feelings about the results I got from these two new rolls. But I’m really happy with the Mandela shots.

Mandela’s outstretched arms, shot on a Rollei panoramic disposable camera.

I had no idea that disposable film cameras still exist, let alone panoramic disposable film cameras. But I really loved shooting with this one and I’m hoping to do more disposable camera photography in the future. Apparently this particular model has been discontinued, which is a bummer.

Once again, I accidentally double-exposed this shot and achieved an interesting result: Mandela superimposed over some Joburg aloe trees. I shot this on the Holga using Rollei Redbird film.

On a totally separate and un-Mandela-like note: I recently attended a fascinating dinner theatre performance called Madame Zingara and took some photos with the Holga before the show. Unfortunately none of the shots came out and I can’t bring myself to blog about something when I don’t have photos of my own to include in the post. (Note to self: Stop trying to use the Holga in the dark.) But the show was fantastic and I want to do a quick plug for it. Madame Zingara is playing at Montecasino in Fourways through the end of December. You should go.

I’ll share more shots from my second round of analog photography in a future post.