Last Sunday I had some of my photography displayed in a charity photo exhibition and ended up selling four pieces.  Liz and I had gone out to eat at Mesa Manifesto to properly send off a friend who had been staying in Shanghai for a couple of weeks, spreading the sounds of Africa throughout the music community here.  Another friend of ours, Shelly, was telling us about a function she was putting on at Mesa, a couple of weeks later, where photographers could sell their work and a portion of the proceeds would go towards the IDP Education Fund which helps sponsor children in Kenya to pay for their high school education.

I asked if she needed anymore pictures and surprisingly she said “Yeah, what do you got?  The theme is ‘Surreal World”  What do I have? Now I had to figure some things out.  First of all, what does a ‘Surreal World’ photo look like.  I told her I would go through the pictures I had, see if anything fit, and give it to her the next day.

That night, sitting in the den while Liz painted, I found a few shots that I liked and inspired, probably by the oil paint fumes in the room, put them through some different filters to get what turned out to be some nice effects. Again I was quite surprised when Shelly said she liked them and they would go great with the theme (I still wasn’t quite sure what the them was).

Petrus, Liz, and I walked in to the show on Sunday and I was taken aback.  It was set up swanky, with a live jazz band, South African wine and a plethora (I really love that word) of framed photographs displayed throughout the room.  Some of the pictures were really quite spectacular.  There was a mix of professional photographers and amateurs exhibiting, but everything looked great.

It was a ‘Surreal’ experience for me to have my pictures blown up to a large scale and watch as people walked by were intrigued by what I had put forth.  And, a few of my pictures even sold.

This will be an event that will encourage me to continue taking pictures and printing more of my pieces.