Hall of mirrors

My first book, Ariesfontein to Zuurfontein, was published 40 years ago and featured Ouma Roos Cloete on the cover. I have always been somehow linked to this gentle being with her pink kappie. The first chance meeting we had as she sat on her stoep in Eksteenfontein in 1989 is as vivid as yesterday. In some kind of way, she is an icon that travels with me in my search for everything pictorial; she is the kindness that guides me and the lines, shapes and colours that mind me.

Born in 1911, she married Jan Cloete and together they had 10 children, six of whom have passed away, according to a recent letter from Eksteenfontein. When she died in 1994, she was buried by two of her sons who were both ministers of the NG Church. For the latter part of her life, she was affectionately known as Ouma Rosie Cloete.

The peculiarities in photography are many and its history enormous. Generally, a photograph taken documents a moment in time. Of course, these moments can be stretched with time exposures. Fewer images can record moments stretched over days, months or even years. In 1989, I took the first picture of Rosie Cloete. On my return home, I chose her for the cover of my first book.

Two years later I returned and photographed her holding that book. Then we produced a second book using this image on the cover, which she once again held proudly, there on her stoep in Eksteenfontein. One day, around 1999, I travelled back to her town to show her this photograph. Her stoep was empty and a neighbour told me that she was in the graveyard. I found her grave, and, with tears, I left her the photograph beneath a simple cross, a mound of hard earth and some faded red plastic flowers.