2nd July 2010

From Left:  Cwenga Zozo (Morningside High), Ross Adami (Grey High), Jason Herrington (Grey High), Andre Visser (Grey High), Litha Sixakwe (Brylin High) & Dumisa Faltein (Westering High).

This is what they had to say:

After arriving and settling down into their rooms the teens headed down to the kitchen for a supper and an introduction to photographic genius by Pine Pienaar. Following a super interesting lecture on stars and galaxies, everyone grabbed their warmest clothes and headed out into the Klein Karoo night for some real - life star gazing.

The teens were completely blown away by this opportunity – “the telescope that we looked through enabled us to see Saturn’s rings; I never thought I would ever see that in reality!” admitted Litha. On Saturday Pine ran through some important points about photography before the teens headed into the local settlement in search of the perfect picture.

The locals were so friendly and helpful – no one will ever forget Martha, the toothless dancing auntie! Under Pine’s guidance, the teens managed to take some really amazing photographs – I think even they were surprised at the quality of their own work! The visit to the township was a definite highlight for Dumisa who said that “the outing to the township was most memorable, it is amazing to see how others live, it was totally great!”.

After refuelling at lunch time, the teens joined Hester and JP for a look at the fossils and bushman paintings found in the area. For Cwenga, “checking out the bushman paintings was a wow moment for me; it’s crazy to think that you are standing in the same spot as they did thousands of years ago”! At sunset Pine introduced the teens to the art of using silhouette images, lighting up the sky to create original pictures.

After a huge braai, it was onto the technique of light painting where a pitch dark object is lit up and the photo is taken with a long exposure allowing for an interesting composition. This was a highlight for Jason, who listed it as his biggest achievement of the weekend. The weekend was wrapped up with a lekker boerekos breakfast in the middle of the township.

Everyone enjoyed a huge breakfast of boerewors, eggs and vetkoek in a corrugated iron shack decorated in doilies and African township flavour.Truly a weekend to be remembered! Our teens were completely inspired and arrived back in PE empowered by all that they had learnt.

Fly Magazine is a teen based publication that goes into 28 high schools in and around Port Elizabeth on a monthly basis. The aim of the Fly Magazine is to get teens to think outside of the box and to think outside of themselves. We run a Teens on Tour event every month and take teens on a wonderful adventure inspiring them and creating an opportunity to do the extra ordinary.