This is gonna hurt!

Argentina's Patricio Albacete runs into Percy Montgomery, Luke Watson and Pierre Spies during the test between Argentina at Coca Cola Park in Johannesburg that the Springboks won 63-9.CJ Van Der Linde and Beast Mtawarira on the attack.

Two example of pics I shot during the test between Argentina and South Africa showing Argentinians thinking, "oh, no , this is gonna hurt!"

Mandela's long birthday party

Bafana Bafana and the Springboks light candles on two cakes to wish Nelson Mandela a belated Happy Birthday at the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Even though Nelson Mandela's birthday is on the 18 July, celebrations still continue. Today the South African football and rugby teams visited him under the glare of the worlds media. The media piles in to the Nelson Mandela Foundation's small, poorly lit auditorium, as they always do when Mandela is involved. The two teams gave him a big cake each, they lit the candles, sung happy birthday, and shared a joke or two.

As I was leaving I noticed the untouched cakes being packed into boxes, "I'm sure he and everyone around him is sick of cake by now", I thought to myself. I found out later that after the throngs of media left the Foundation, a small group of people including Mandela visited a small hospice in Alexandra unannounced to give them the cakes...

I liked that...

Getting the call up..

Manchester United striker, Wayne Rooney coasts the ball past Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper, Khune Itumeleng during the final of the Vodacom Challenge yesterday. As was widely expected, European Champions and English Premier League champions, Manchester United won 4-0, but the match was played in good spirits and was loved by the many Manchester United and Kaizer Chiefs fans in South Africa.

I shot the final match of the Vodacom Challenge, which by its self was great, as the photographers are on the field right behind the goal line, one of my personal highlights was when the ball rolled out for a corner, straight to me and Ryan Giggs gestured for me to pass it to him. So, I gave it a sweeping kick straight to him (He then turned around to look at Sir Alex Ferguson, and pointed to me, so I guess I can expect the call-up for the first team any day now), OK, that bit didn't happen, but maybe it should have, as on Sunday in my weekly Action Soccer game, I scored within the first 20 seconds of the game and ended up with a hat trick, so I reckon they should consider giving me a call soon :)

Dance, Zuma, Dance!

ANC President, Jacob Zuma performs a Zulu dance during a event in which, he assisted Gift of the Givers in handing out blankets to the people of Tembisa in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg.
It seems that Jacob Zuma is starting to hit the campaign trail. He joined local radio station, Jacaranda and Muslim charity organisation, The Gift of the Givers in a media event to distribute free blankets to the voting masses of Tembisa. He delivered a speech, cracked a few jokes, then proceeded to hand some blankets and a few hugs to a couple of frail and elderly people, then a couple of cute, but scruffy kids, whilst the photographers went mad getting shots of this. Minutes later, after a brief dancing interlude, he sped off in his convoy of black BMWs, probably off for a shower. So fast in fact, that he forgot to sing his trademark song, Mshini Wami.
Yep, the campaign has begun...

No flash please!

Graca Michel reacts as the frail Nelson Mandela lifts his cane to acknowledge a member of the crowd as he is helped onto stage for the Sixth Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in Kliptown Soweto.

The Sixth Annual Nelson Mandela lecture was delivered by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of Liberia and the first democratically elected female President in Africa.

Photographing Nelson Mandela is always a bit tricky, so much so, that this is the second entry to touch on it. It gets trickier, when you are only able to photograph for a few minutes. The press sit in the waiting room and then at a specific time run (all the time jostling for that elusive front position) to a door, where we wait again... The door opens everyone squeezes through and gets to the front of the stage, pick your positions well, cause you can't move much. Low light, no flash allowed when shooting Madiba. He is lead to the front of the stage, and their is always one idiot that decides to use flash anyway (which resulted in someone coming and standing right in front of me, to tell him to stop). After what feels like two nanoseconds, we are ushered out, and you're standing outside, hoping you got something usable...luckily I did.