Helping the Healing

Physiotherapy in Grey’s Hospital, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

Photos, John Robinson.

Helping the Healing. The physiotherapy department of Grey’s Hospital plays a part of a multidisciplinary healthcare in the care of both hospitalised and outpatients in this health facility. Grey’s Hospital is is a public tertiary health facility of the South African department of health. The hospital serves the greater western area of the KwaZulu-Natal province on the eastern seaboard of South Africa.

Available for image use and publication via Zumapress.com

Camera & Coffee Sessions, The Camera In The World

People Behave In A Normative Way In Front Of The Camera.

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, A FATHER WHO IS DISABLED.

Photo John Robinson

Order coffees.

The camera produces a photograph which is a representation of what is in front of the camera lens, this photograph is not a painting that is first interpreted by the eye and mind of the artist and then painted onto a canvas or other surface.

When taking pictures the photographer must feel as at home with the camera in hand, as with the very fingers when picking up a mobile phone for example. Get to internalise the aperture, shutter speed and ISO of your camera and photography. Photography is about the images photographed as brushing teeth is about mouth hygiene and not the toothbrush its self. There are many people around that are more interested in the technology of photography and the camera then the moments seen with it. I feel photographers must keep the main thing the main thing…

Taking a photograph is as much about what is cropped out as much as what is left in the camera frame. A photograph is also about the position of the photographer and the camera introduced onto the scene or moment captured too. When a Photograph is taken the photographer has left some aspects of the scene out of the picture entirely, made other things seem small and insignificant in the background and highlighted other aspects of the scene in the foreground giving them more prominence.

Stop for some coffee.

The act of photographing needs the photographer to introduce into the scene a camera body and lens. This act alone lets the subject know that they are now ‘on camera’ as it were and the photographer is there to record their activities while there. The mere introduction of a camera into a situation can cause situational changes once it is out there… Pierre Bourdieu says the introduction of a camera into a subject’s setting introduces a reaction from the subject, people behave in a normative way in front of the camera. There are decisions that the photographer has made during the moment in time it was captured.

The social documentary photographer Dorothea Lange said that to know ahead of time what you were looking for meant that you were only photographing your preconceptions. Lange said that you should rather work by looking at that which you instinctively respond. Certain moments just catch the eye…

If you like what you have seen and read here, you can always buy me a $3.00 coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/JohnRobinson or PayPal.Me/jrphotographer

Visiting Mom

Images Of an Old Lady At the End of Her Life and a Girl Who Is Starting Out on Life

At the time when my mothers independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady nearing the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting out on her’s. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth. ©John Robinson/South Photographs africa afrika afrique aged ageing disabled elderly frail

At the time when my mothers independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady nearing the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting out on her’s. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth. ©John Robinson/South Photographs africa afrika afrique aged ageing disabled elderly frail

At the time when my mothers independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady nearing the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting out on her’s. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth. ©John Robinson/South Photographs africa afrika afrique aged ageing disabled elderly frail

At the time when my mothers independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady nearing the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting out on her’s. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth. ©John Robinson/South Photographs africa afrika afrique aged ageing disabled elderly frail

At the time when my mothers independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady nearing the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting out on her’s. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth. ©John Robinson/South Photographs africa afrika afrique aged ageing disabled elderly frail

At the time when my mothers independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady nearing the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting out on her’s. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth. ©John Robinson/South Photographs africa afrika afrique aged ageing disabled elderly frail

At the time when my mothers independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady nearing the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting out on her’s. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth. ©John Robinson/South Photographs africa afrika afrique aged ageing disabled elderly frail

Photos John Robinson

At the time when my mother’s independence failed her, my daughter Erin’s (1) was just developing. These seven images are aspects of an interaction between an old lady at the end of her life and a little girl who is only starting on her life. We are all somewhere between these two points. These images were taken during family visits to the frail care centre where my mother spent the last few months of her life on this earth.

My mother Lin Robinson had an Astrocytoma grade 4 tumour removed from her brain, after the operation, the surgeon said to my dad and I that mom had 3 to 6 months to live. Lin Robinson went on to live another 10 years or so. After one more operation, my mom opted to have no more surgery done in her head. The last years of her life were quieting ones, there were the visible effects of brain surgery and the invisible ones too to be detoured around by the whole family.

My dad cared for mom at their home until the point came where mom had to be cared for in a frail care centre. Lin Robinson always liked to walk around in the garden with her husband holding the flowers that he grew for her. She died in a room with a wheelchair beside her bed and had to rely on my dad to get food into her mouth. The last time I saw her alive she knew that I was taking pictures and she smiled at me, it was too late for words.

I feel that my mother just got tired of what is, my father and mother were people of great faith and she wanted to move into the great beyond.

That night I drove home under a starlit night after taking the last photograph of my father’s hand and my mother’s now dead face.