Debi Diedericks
‘Have you ever driven a car on a flat piece of land as fast as you can blindfolded?” Obie Oberholzer asks. I shake my head. “The longest I’ve lasted
was four minutes.” That is the spirit of famous South African photographer Obie
Oberholzer whose work work will be on exhibit at the Standard Bank National Arts
Festival.
Oberholzer’s latest exhibition has no specific theme. Most of the prints are
taken from his book, Raconteur Road, which takes the reader on a journey through
Kenya, Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands, the Drakensberg, Grahamstown, the Overberg,
the Hantam Karoo and Lderitz in Namibia, but some of the photos on exhibit are
shot in Papua New Guinea.
What makes this exhibition different from Oberholzer’s previous ones is the size
of the prints most are 70x90cm and six are 1,20×1,70m and the printing process. The prints are scanned into a high-resolution scanner. All corrections
are done digitally and the data is sent to a digital printer. An optical nozzle
with paint transverses the surface hundreds of times according to the digital
information, and the result is an enlargement of the original print.
But not only Oberholzer’s prints will be on show. He has included three- dimensional objects, mostly found on the Skeleton Coast between Swakopmund and
the Kunene river. These include a beautiful piece of burned-out stinkwood, an
elephant femur gnawed by jackal, wind-blown bottles found in the ghost towns of
the Skeleton Coast, and fossilised mussels and oysters.
Oberholzer was born in 1947 on a farm outside Pretoria. At the age of 15 he stepped out of the Dutch Reformed Church because the dominee would not allow his
black friend, Philemon, to sit inside the church the sermon was on the love of God.
He studied and failed graphic design at the University of Stellenbosch and married at the age of 23. Oberholzer eventually obtained his master’s in photography at the Bavarian State Institute of Photography in Munich in 1979.
In 1983 he moved to Grahamstown, where he took up a post at Rhodes University as lecturer in photography.
“I photograph what I love, let’s not worry about the art,” says Oberholzer, quoting Andr Kertesz, one of a group of photographers in the early 20th century
who revolutionised photography by taking photographs of his immediate environment and not just copying paintings. This coincided with the invention of the 35mm camera, which allowed photographers to shoot with much more freedom
because they didn’t have to struggle with the old, bulky cameras.
Oberholzer says he has “an unbelievable passion to travel”. Clearly the titles
of his five books tell a story of their own: Ariesfontein to Zuurfontein, Southern Circle, To Hell ‘n Gone, Beyond Bagamoyo and Raconteur Road. Each takes
the reader on a photographic journey through Africa.
What makes Oberholzer a good photographer? “I’m a good photographer because I
can place things, coordinate images.” What makes Oberholzer a great photographer? His passion for people and colour and stories. His love for life.