Schneider’s work reflects on ‘stillness of nature and energy of wild places’

MOIRA SCHNEIDER

Born in Cape Town, Schneider left here at the age of 21 to live in London. She was away for 23 years, returning to this country 10 years ago.

“When I returned I began travelling and visiting places in nature and I began to photograph the landscape. I realised that this process was helping me connect with being back here after such a long absence,” she reflects.

“I am nourished and restored by both the stillness of nature and the powerful energy of wild places.”

Titled “Intimate Earth”, this, her fourth, exhibition, is a collection of 33 works that trace her travels in the Western Cape and further afield. Schneider still shoots on the same Hasselblad camera she bought in London second-hand as a photography student some 31 years ago, using black and white film.

“The simplicity of one camera, one lens, and only 12 frames per film imposes a sense of structure, a discipline to create within these constraints,” she reasons. “The most exciting part, however, is the uncertainty of what has been captured while one waits in anticipation for the film to be processed.”

Opening the exhibition, Malcolm Kohll, head of production, postgraduate studies at AFDA, said the photographs were “all about evoking emotion, and demonstrate the power of landscape to help us mirror our inner world with our outer world, and in that reflection to find a connection, not only to our land but to ourselves”.

He noted that Schneider had covered “thousands of kilometres recording the images”, including the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape, the Karoo and Free State.

Ten per cent of the proceeds from the sale of the photographs will go towards providing sanitary products to girls in need from rural and underprivileged areas. Girls who cannot access adequate protection miss up to 50 days of schooling annually, often resulting in them dropping out of school altogether.

• 6 Spin Street Restaurant Gallery, 6 Spin Street (off Plein Street), Cape Town. Gallery hours Monday – Friday 08:30 – 17:00. On Thursday January 5 (first Thursday) it will be open in addition from 17:00 – 21:00. Other times by arrangement. Tel (021) 461-0666.