We arrived early for Capetonians, which means we were actually on time. An hour later there was a clear distinction between those in the know and those in the Queue. I just can’t get over how good, natural, well-dressed and healthy everybody looks. While there is still a lot of light around I take out a 70-200mm f2.8, a mini-monster of a lens. I notice a lot of furtive glances at my piece. Everybody has just started sipping their first round of craft beer but another one or two honey blond’s should knock the edge off. Trying to take individual close-ups is not going to work. Rather just take pictures of what I’m seeing, the happy golden gush of it all. Laughing girls who love beer and still stay in shape. Foodie’s huddle together scribbling tastes before losing their mental notes later in the revelry. A warm fuzzy buzz of freshly crafted feel good washing through the chattering mobs. I switch to a 50mm prime and snap some friends, details, pourings, being all subtle about it. And now there’s Snoddie and Bauke crashing through the crowd. Bursting into your face with camera, microphone and open-ended questions.

The #RealBeer Festival was organized by Brewers &Union and Jack Black Beer. The other Breweries that were there included Mitchells Brewery, Boston Brewery, Camel Thorn, Paulaner Waterfront Brewery, Birkenhead Brewery, Napier Brewery, Darling Brew and South Yeasters.

On twitter:
Jack Black Beer: @Jackblackbeer
&Union: @andUnion

The Cops were having a field day. All the toys were out. White SAPS choppers, railway ladder operation trucks, polished 9mm’s, flashing blue lights. Very eager to protect us, The Public. While scouting the previous day, I had a traffic cop chasing me down the N2 screaming and waving his wad of pink love slips like a Father screaming at that bratty child who opened the Christmas presents early. “A thousands Rands Fine, a thousands Rands fine… maaan! It’s Daaaangerrris”, in that flat Skottle-Vlei accent which is particularly Western Cape.

There’s a tented VIP area, with a fat gold PEPPER 1 Bentley park in front. The Media are hushed around to their side pen through the crowds. So many people and so many cameras. The Media are an interesting bunch. There’s a hierarchy. There’s are street rules. Actually, one main rule. The More SH*T you have, the more respect you get. It’s the same at the Fashion shows. Film and TV guys are at the top. Reels, generators, cabling, DOP’s, Focus-Pullers and Producers get you two things: 1. The Best Shot. 2. Respect. One step down the ladder are the magazine and newspaper photographers, who arrive early and squeeze their heavy Manfrotto tripods in between the Film crews, staking out their 3 square feet of Holy Land. It’s against the rules to talk or be friendly, unless it’s to your own production team. Then there are the amateur photographers, with enough clips, padded lens pockets, ring locked ND filter thingy’s and spare polarizers to start a home-based eBay. You just know this shot is going to be mandatory dinner table conversation for the rest of the school week. Last on the list are the bloggers, the YouTubers and the New Media freelancers, some dressed in wizard outfits. The old school media crowd know nothing about this new generation of weird and wonderful new media journos and generally give them little regard, letting them do what they want. We line along a long grassy wet bank, an inconvenient angle to the Towers. Some half-lost blond assist commits that horrible act of walking (with a Point and Shoot! the arrogance!) in front of the Camera line-up and a mass of burly bearded men roar and wave her down. There we stood, the crowds of Cape Town behind, huge outdoor speakers booming prison stories and quips about explosives and gangstas. Robbie “On Time, Every Time” Ross tells us how the towers would crumble gently helped by a few hundred kilos of explosives. Local residents clamber onto tin roofs.

4 minutes to go. The rain starts beating, I wrap a scarf around my camera to stop the streaming downpour, indecisively switching between 200 / 320 / and 400 shutter speeds and tweeting furiously. The Sun drifts in and out of the clouds, messing with my exposures.  And suddenly those towers come falling. A few cheers, waving arms. A swamp of shutters clicking.

A side Note: The power of twitter technology amazing. The original twitpic I shared 2 hours after the blast has now close to 4000 views and was retweeted over 230 times.

Creatives: Jennifer MacFarlane, Cuan Cronwright and Alexi McCarthy

I *think* the photographer is Gavin Furlonger, not sure what the models name is.

What a Beautiful french sound track.

Backsberg are also very active on twitter, you can follow Simon Back or the official Backsberg Estate Tweets.

Follow: GrolschZA on Twitter
Follow: Design Indaba on Twitter
Follow: Ogilvy Cape Town on Twitter

You can follow French Connection on Twitter or the French Connection Man specifically here.

John Szarkowski said that “Photography is a system of visual editing. At bottom, it is a matter of surrounding with a frame a portion of one’s cone of vision, while standing in the right place at the right time. Like chess, or writing, it is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite.”

Fashion photographer Steven Meisel is a typical postmodern visualist. Like a chameleon borrowing the hue and colour of his surroundings, he has been praised for translating contemporary themes into compelling campaigns. His latest twitpic inspired shoot for Vogue Italia is an interesting example.

Christy Turlington for Vogue Italia's Meisel Pic shoot

Viktoriya Sasonkina for Meisel Pic

One of my Favourite Russian Constructivists Wassily Kandinsky

Interesting also how they put Lady Dior on twitter, www.ladydiortwitter.com Our twittering Lady writes: “Rouge symbolises anger, Rouge symbolises courage, Rouge symbolises passion. Rouge is universal: red, 赤, rot, красный, rosso, אדום,…” . Sounds like she’s got a lot on her mind. But, this is what happens when you give a blackberry to a model.