Photographic Exhibition - Tjaart Van Staden

On the 27th of February a Photo Exhibition of the photographer Tjaart Van Staden will open at the Brazilian Cultural Centre in Maputo. Tjaart died in a plane accident in September 2011. He was taking pictures. I only knew him as a photographer, although he did much more than that of course; CEO of TMA here in Mozambique, amongst other things.

We did one photo shoot together, and what a memorable experience that was! Longtime Maputo residents will remember the 4-Season's hotel, a 30 floor skeleton of a beast built just before independence around '74 and never completed. Stories circulated of the Portuguese contractors pouring concrete into the ducts and pipes.. Various consortiums tried to lay claim to it, some foreign investors tried to buy it and finish building it. It remained one of the symbols of the city, and ironic reminder of the past.

Finally it was sold to the US Government, and the hotel would make way for the construction of a residential and embassy compound... In 2007, after months of on-and-off preparations, it was finally set to be imploded. An exclusion zone around the site would ensure no-one would get hurt (or get pictures or videos!). Well, Tjaart and I thought otherwise....

Early on the morning of the implosion, around 3am, we got dropped off by a colleague of his and snuck into a house under construction just near the fishmarket, which he'd scouted the morning prior. We got in there not a moment too soon, as shortly afterwards we heard the police cars driving around making sure no-one was around, and setting up road-blocks. We were in! We set up our cameras and videos, me with my Canon gear and Tjaart with his Nikons. To pass the time we rechecked the equipment, and then sat and waited...

This lead to passing the time, and what do two photographers do, when they can't take pictures? They talk about photography! We swapped stories of photo-shoots, compared ideas about great locations.. There and then we started planning another photo shoot on nearby Xefina Island, where I'd been taking pictures of the abandoned military structures. His eyes glittered with the possibilities of such a backdrop. Time flew.. But a siren quickly brought us back to reality, and we scrambled to get our cameras pointed in the right direction, just in time I might add, as the explosions set off and the once might 4-Seasons quickly slid down into a mound of concrete and bent steel, and sent a massive cloud of dust started coming our way...

The photoshoot was not a success for me. While I had 2 cameras shooting away, one film and the other digital, the film camera ran out of...film, way before the structure started collapsing.. And my digital camera ran into a buffer problem! ARGHHH.. I cursed my luck! But Tjaart shot away and captured the whole event. It all happened so fast, over in a matter of seconds, but we were so pumped up with adrenaline! We asked each other... "did you get it?!". Almost like children..

We were going to organise an exhibition one year after the Implosion.. I'd taken several "before" pictures of the 4-Seasons. Tjaart had the whole implosion sequence plus a video. Another photographer friend had gotten shots from the sea. Alas, we never got around to it... Nor did we ever get to Xefina together. After that he was either in Tete, or we'd cross paths at some party or bar, but he'd always have a camera with him, and we'd always excitedly talk about pictures and locations. The twinkle was always in his eye, whether talking about Namibia or Tete or the Maputo Marginal. His life was photography. In flying so close to the sun, as it melted his wings, I can only hope that he finally captured that elusive image that drives all photographers onwards.

Rest in peace friend and photographer.

POSTSCRIPT:
I thought that since I'd opened up this post with the story of my derailed photo shoot with Tjaart, it would be fitting to add some of our pictures. As mentioned we had intended to organise an exhibition with my before pictures and Tjaart and another photographer's pictures of the implosion, but which we never got around to organising. The first 4 pictures are by me, the final one is by Tjaart, one in a sequence of about 35 images that captures the implosion in detail from start to finish.

Atop 4-Seasons hotel looking down

Still-life with 4-Seasons in background

The last night of the 4-Season's reign

My last usable frame before my digital camera locked up.. ARGHH

Photo by Tjaart - 4-Seasons implosion