INTO THE LIGHT WE SLIDE

One of my great indulgences in life is walking down a street I don’t know, preferably in a country or city I don’t know, armed with a camera, a prime lens and an attitude of “seeing”. I mean really seeing. Smelling the scene unfold, hearing the scene unfold and then waiting for a moment in time when I fire the camera shutter and capture that tiny slice of life in a 60th of a second. I have been doing this my entire life, from when I was a young boy being brought up by my ranger father on a game reserve — often walking on my own through the bush — to now, working as a staff photographer for an international news agency. The only difference is that now I tell the story of the human condition with my cameras.

This image, shot on a well-known seaside promenade in Cape Town, is a case in point. I was in the city to cover a sporting event and walked down the promenade knowing that at the time of the day the setting sun would backlight all my subjects.

Once I found this scene I waited for the moment to happen — children at the top of the slide, seagulls flying past and the sun directly behind.

I still connect with the two-dimensional image in an emotional way. I am captivated by those memories of the smell of the sea, the sound of the strong wind blowing through the palm trees and the voices of people on their evening promenade walk.

The trick is to totally immerse yourself in the scene you are photographing. It’s not about being in a place and just “taking” an image to put on “instaspam” (my term for the Instagram app that I both love and hate in equal measure).

It’s about fully immersing yourself in the moment in order to capture the moment, to be a Zen photographer.

To stand a chance of winning R500, tell us the name of the promenade

● where Ludbrook took the picture. Send your answer to travelquiz@sundaytimes.co.za before noon on Tuesday December 3. Last week’s winner is Kethabile Hlatswayo. The correct answer was the Hang Soon Doòng cave.