Sarie Magazine Review Diesel & Dust.
Ek is gek na Obie Oberholzer se foto’s en het met groot verwagting deur dié fotograaf se nuutste boek geblaai…
John Simpson
I was greatly honoured by the visit to my studio in Piazza di Santa Georgio by the world famous British journalist , writer & TV producer, John Simpson. He came around to look at my latest Karoo images. I don’t think that I have ever had anyone that important in our Piazza before, especially not more »
I’ve just posted this Amazon review to the UK site (won’t show up for a couple of days) – hope you like it :)
Obie Oberholzer is (or should be) a South African National treasure. He has been traversing the byways of the southern African hinterland (and sometimes further afield) and producing coffee table books since the mid 1980’s, and in the process creating a truly unique chronicle of a part of the world that has seen massive changes in those years. Truly unique because this has never been his intention; he is not a reporter, not a travel photographer, not a fine art landscape or portrait artist: he is – well you have to leaf through one of his books to really understand. But his modus operandi is to get into his covered ‘bakkie’ (pick-up truck) and drive with the motto ‘one good picture a day post-it noted to his dashboard – sleeping in or by the bakkie, often in graveyards, where there is usually a supply of water. His journeys are sketched out in advance, but not planned in detail – “Freedom is not quite knowing where you are going. Freedom is writing ’freedom’ in the dust on your dashboard.” – “Beyond every horizon lies another horizon.” – “Life without adventure is, after all, not really life at all.” His subjects are whatever catches his eye; he will photograph landscapes and people he passes on the road, or roll into town and ask at the bar who the local eccentrics are. But he is no happy-snapper either – he has a Masters Diploma in Photography from the Bavarian State Institute and a long advertising portfolio, and many of his images are highly contrived, whether painstakingly posed or painted with light – but always – and this is the thing – always about the subject, never about the photographer. He uses is art, his technique, his creativity to say a little more about whatever he photographs, and his pictures are poetic – the same sort of hard gutsy poetry that rings out of his words – oh yes – he’s no purist either – there are captions – amusing or poignant stories or wry or affectionate observations attached to many images and in forewords to his books, because his books are songs of love to his Southern African ‘Happysadland’.
Diesel and Dust (a title borrowed – or in his words stolen – from the the 1987 album by Aussie rock band Midnight Oil) is the perfect emblem for Obie’s travels – and this collection sees him visiting Egypt, Ethiopia, Yemen, the UAE, Oman and the Emirate of Al-Sharga (I suspect he flew to these) as well as Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. Not like many of his books the record of a single solo trip, but an album, a collection places seen through his eyes – as diverse and satisfying as any of his books. Five stars? Of course – it’s an Obie Oberholzer book: if you love Africa, you will always find something in his books that makes you yearn to go back.