The Wilds

This shoot was supposed to be of a Goddess of the Winds - but the wind did not co-operate LOL! So I decided to title it The Wilds and just focus on the beauty of my delicious subject and of the green, glorious nature all around us.

Boom In Ze Park

Just back from Kenya :) Was visiting a good friend on her wedding day, wedding and trip shots to come soon. For now, Boomerang in the Park *gleee*

Cartoon Network Dance Club - Behind the Scenes

Lorcia Cooper is hot! Nuff said! LOL! Also, amazing children :)

Animation Generation

Children are just the most amazing subjects. They're easy and free and the sheer, joyful spirit of them comes through in every shot. I've been lucky enough to work on a number of projects for Boomerang and Cartoon Network. Animation Gen is a competition run for children in SA encouraging them to create works of art featuring their favourite characters. These are a few of my favourite shots from the prize giving ceremony.

The Water Sprite

Michelle's death left me frozen. I've felt breathless, like the grief squeezed everything out of me and all I had energy to do was just keep moving. On Saturday, word came of her boyfriend - he killed himself. This is an incredibly dark post, and I know that when grief is not your own it may seem...tedious. But I want to remember her and what she meant to my life. I love you chick, so much, from the very bottom of my soul

I'm trying to get myself going again and so am posting here tonight in her memory. The shoot I'm showcasing is called The Water Sprite. My vision was to have it completely nude but because we were in an extremely public location we just couldn't pull it off to suit my exact desires. I must say though that I am still very happy with the results. Thanks to Tumi, my fantastic make up artist and creative partner, and also to an amazing model and fellow photographer, Amielle.

Crying in the Rain

The past two weeks have been brutal. A good friend died in a car crash on Monday 5th October - or rather, her body was found on that date. I still don't have the reserves to write anything vaguely approaching coherent about it. i will soon because i want to remember her as clearly as I do now. On Monday the 12th another friend commited suicide. I wasn't as close to him as I was to Michelle, but it was a huge shock. I feel as if I've been drowning in tears. I'll be posting pictures again soon, I just need the hurt to ease a little first.

Shape Shifting

I've had an amazing month - a month of tears and laughter and crazy, crazy fun :) I've also been busier than I've ever been in my life but I have beautiful results to show and I'll be posting these in the coming three weeks. First up, a shoot I did for Dylan Lewis's art exhibition: Shape Shifting. I adore this man's work - his sculptures looks as if they are about to jerk into motion, moving muscle and sinew cast from bronze in liquid, heated motion. I was not there to shoot the actual sculptures, I was more a society photographer that night - and it was hard work!!! I didn't realise how taxing events of that nature were - but now I know! I had a blast - I think the images speak for themselves :) What I couldn't get over was how similar shooting these pieces felt to shooting human beings - its something I'll be exploring further in future

BEEEEZZZYYY BEEEEEEE!!

OMG! I'm swamped - but very excited *glee* I've done two amazing, challenging shoot this week and I'll be posting the results soon - I just have to survive a work launch on Sunday and then I'LL BE BACK :)

GIBS Career Expo

My very first official event! I was asked to take pics of the Career Expo at the Gordon Institute of Business Science and it was FUN!!! :) Also, there was some seriously illegal eyecandy at this event LOL! I did this shoot in May - I barely had a clue about how to use my camera so the lighting is not as it should be - but I enjoyed some the angles and the models.

Into the Looking Glass

On the 26th of August it will be my parents 30th year wedding anniversary :) I'm so blessed to have these two amazing people as my mother and father - thank God for them because I would not be who I am if God had not seen fit to give them to me.

The shoot I've done recently is a set of self portraits. Self portraits have been the key to loving my own body. If it weren't for my camera and the self-images I had produced I would still not be terribly fond of myself. That little lens played a huge role in my mental and spiritual liberation, and this weekend I decided to spend a bit more time playing for the lens. I call this shoot: Industria and I did it in the gas room of our block of flats. I got fainter and fainter during the shoot - actually fell over at one point! LOL! I was about to commit an accidental Sylvia Plath but thankfully our dishy flat manager came by and advised that I leave the door open if I wanted to live LOL! And so, without further ado, Industria.

Fierce Night Shoot

OMG - shooting at night and on a budget is NOT easy. My roomie and I - who is the glorious creature featured in the blog header - trotted outside last week - it was freeeeeeeezing - and in the headlights of my darling KaChing (my car for future reference) we did this shoot. It was in the parking garage at our flat too!!! LOL! All these people were walking by gawping at us - poor T got the brunt of it cos she was so scantily dressed and the make up was crazy. But so, so much fun. On the 7th of August i'm sending out an official call for models who want portfolios for free. Will be taking free pictures from now till January the 1st and from then I'll be charging for my services *beams*

Joy

Do you ever get the feeling that life is so blindingly, almost hurtfully beautiful, it’s like staring into the sun its so overwhelming, and you can’t keep looking at it. That’s how I feel today. Woke up really cranky cos I keep having these amazing dreams – amazing where I’m doing a job I love, in a phenomenal relationship, flying without wings and chowing down on ambrosia on the regular. This is very much not reality – but still – life is just so good. It’s sharp, like a gleaming blade. Every moment is jagged and raw and sometimes too much to take. Sour, hot, blinding, lush, thick and just … good.

Fat Idenitities

I love me my forums - dims and ff - a lot of the conversations there have contributed a lot to who I am today. Dims can get controversial - simply because it has many feeders and feedees onboard. I've enjoyed it though. I've gone from being judgmental - yes - I was judgmental *hides head in shame* - to kinda,sorta maybe getting it. And realising that, like all fetishes,its not about my getting it - its not about me at all. So ja, I've learnt a lot there since signing up on the forums in February.

New lesson learnt: I've found out that I'm not fat enough to participate on one of the boards there - the SSBBW board. BBW = Big, beautiful woman. Its not used much outside the plus community cos most people tend to mock it and what it stands for. I hate using the phrase outside of the fat community. SSBBW = Super sized big beautiful woman. I always thought I was SSBBW. I'm always the fattest person everywhere I go. I've explained before - fat is a class issue here so people my age who move in the circles I move in - which tend to be wealthy, professional and very white - just arent as big as i am. But even when it comes to going home and being around older bigger women, I'm still pretty damn big! LOL! I'm 1,49 meters and 111kilos. Doctors call me obsese - the fuckers. So how am I not fat enough to participate on this board???

The argument is that the board is exclusively for women who are 450 pounds and above - don't know what that is in kilos. I'm trying to understand why. I thought we were one fat community, that there were lessons we could all learn from each other, ways we could all enrich and shape each other?? Was I sleeping the day in class that that was explained?? I confess I was kinda ...hurt? I don't know what I felt - but it wasn't the warm and fuzzies. I'm sure that wasn't the intention but I was kinda taken aback.

It got me thinking bout fat identities though. I've met girls and women who have told me about how fat they are - most of them from Europe - when in my country they are beyond average - in fact they are considered to be thin girls!!! LOL! I started paying attention then to perceptions of weight. On South African television most of our news readers are what the US categorizes as plus size - i.e sizes 12 and up. In fact most of the black news readers are a size 16 and up. The women who act on our soaps and dramas are often a 10 or 12, some a 14 or 16. There are the ridiculously skinny ones - and those are celebrated and applauded and worshipped cos they've achieved supreme skinniness *eye roll* but for the most part the famous women in my country would be considered plus size. That means that my perception of super sized is seriously supersized. For a girl to be considered a fat girl in my country and in my eyes you have to be BIG! Add to that the fact that girls with big asses arent considered fat where as in the rest of the world a booty automatically seems to make you a BBW, and you've got an intensely different world view than the one found in the Western world.

Now after I find out I wasn't fat enough (still so surreal!!) to be on the super sized board I realised how unfair some of my comments have been to 'smaller' fat girls. I mocked their fat experience and that's not right. Because in my head they are thin doesn't mean that where they come from they haven't been discriminated against, laughed at, or had fat experiences similar to my own. One of the girls I've met on the forums who is Asian often speaks of how growing up in Singapore she was 'that fat girl' She was abused and laughed at and censured and she lived that fat experience. Now she's in the states people keep telling her to get over it or shut up cos she's not fat! It was eye opening. It also opened my eyes to how some SSBBW may feel when a supposedly regular BBW like myself (LOL! I'm still getting over that) tries to claim their experience. The sad thing though is that I believe it is a shared experience, no matter how big or small you are and no matter the category you fall into.

I posted on facebook today how shocked i was that for the first time in my life I was excluded from something cos I'm not fat enough hahahahahahahaha! Those were, I swear to the God, the oddest words I've ever had said to me. It was like I'd entered an alternate dimension where I was thin - regular even! I just thought to myself - where the fuck were you 15 years ago - I'd have loved to hear that then. Now, well - it just felt like one more person telling me how my being different made me not good enough and not wanted. That sounded incredibly lame and oh woe is me but at the time I heard that thats what it felt like.

So ja, my fat identity has an undergone a bit of an extreme makeover LOL!

The Birth of Fierce

Hello World :)

I'm Nomonde - photographer, writer, some-time drama queen, fat girl, black girl, romantic, pervert hehe! and lover of beauty. This blog is to show case Fierce Fotography - my brand new endeavour into the world of digital imaging. That sounded terribly posh LOL! This blog will also be about my various views and opinions on most things of this world. I'm open minded and love seeing and hearing and feeling new things. I'm always on the look out for new world views so if you have anything to share WELCOME! Picture posts coming soon.