Onelargeprawn
Relais & Châteaux Africa commissioned a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter to capture some of the majestic scenery and wildlife that call Africa its home. Have a look at the wonderful drone’s-eye views of Cape Town’s picturesque coastlines, the Devil’s Pool at Victoria Falls, and herds of wandering elephant on the plains of northern Botswana. Check out A Drone Through Africa below, and be sure to watch it in HD.
http://youtu.be/e6FcfnqKjrw
[via Rhino Africa]
If there’s a nonconformist hipster living inside you, they don’t want to watch this video. It’s already received 300+ views, so you totally need to boycott this mainstream malarkey.
However, if your hipster level is camo pants and middle partings, you may like the latest music video from comedy duo of Nic Smal and Gareth Allison. The hashtag besties wax lyrical about hipsterdom in Cape Town from the nesting doll approach to storing pencils to using hamster milk in flat whites. Hipsters tend to watch viral videos on Vimeo, so check out Hipsters and Hashtags on YouTube.
[via @walker_texas]
In a series entitled Invasive Species, South African photographer Dillon Marsh didn’t photograph pockets of Eucalyptus trees growing amongst the indigenous forest on the slopes of Table Mountain. Instead he made references to the (badly) disguised cell phone towers that have been dotted around Cape Town.
In 1996, mobile telecomms company Vodacom commissioned two gentlemen, Ivo Branislav Lazic and Aubrey Trevor Thomas, to create a set of materials specifically for the concealment and disguisement of the antennae atop the cell phone masts. The duo created what was supposedly the world’s first cell phone tower to be disguised as a palm tree. In 2009, Marsh tracked and photographed these fake palms and other cell phone towers disguised as coniferous trees as they spread across the city. Have a look at the Invasive Species after the jump.
Dave Meinert, a director and filmmaker in Cape Town, was asked by a friend look after their dog, Lemon, for the weekend. Meinert did what any filmmaker worth his camera would do — he custom-fitted a GoPro camera onto Lemon and took the dog to the beach, for a round of putt putt (mini golf), and to visit other sights around Cape Town.
He gathered all the footage and edited it to form the music video to local artist Johnny Neon’s song, Hearts. Lemon has quite the charmed life, see the exuberant music video below.
[via Lost at E Minor]
Today is a good day for food fail, and it seems we’ve found a special at McDonald’s in Cape Town. Some people are cackling about it while others are feeling sick to their stomachs.
Popular South African blogger, Christopher Graham Mills of imod.co.za isn’t normally a patron of McDonald’s but yesterday evening, events forced him to purchase a burger at the branch in Kenilworth. To his surprise, he found what looks like a garden-variety snail tucked away in his burger box. We can imagine he exclaimed “Nee Fok!” before taking a photo of it and uploading it to Twitpic.
Comments on Mills’ blog are that of horror, sympathy (for both him and the snail), and a lack of surprise. Twitter user Shy_Mogwai seemed to think there might have been a mixup with the order:
The order was McEscargot, with garlic sauce, and a chicken burger on the side.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, in Long Street, someone making their opinion about McDonald’s known by making some minor alterations to a rather large advertising billboard. It’s succinct and does get the point across.
Have you had any interesting experiences at McDonald’s? Do let us know.
[via ChristopherM | Don’t Party]
I’m an member of local PS3 gaming forum, PS3ZA, and I get to interact with a diverse bunch of people. Aside from our shared love of gaming, I also get a chance to see people’s other sideline interests. Just the other day I spotted some fantastic illustrations by by PS3ZA member and fellow Capetonian, Pr0x-E. I wanted to see and know more about him so I got on the blower and asked him a couple of questions. Have a gander at the interview and a small collection of his images after the jump.
Another day, another “viral” video. I know precious little about graffiti but as any other illegal activity, there is a right and a wrong way of doing things. In 2009, when Banksy was had told another graffiti artist, Robbo, that he hadn’t heard of him, he received a swift klap and told that he would never forget his attacker. This reportedly resulted in Banksy taking a trip down to the Regent’s Canal and having his decorator clean up a Robbo tag that had been there for some 25 years. Robbo replied to the conversation by improving the Banksy piece.
This feud seems to have hit our shores and a bunch of local graffiti artists have opened up a South African chapter of Team Robbo to fight the good fight against Banksy. According to the video Team Robbo SA released a week ago, they planned a cunning ruse to cash in on Bansky’s Oscar-nominated stellar documentary/mockumentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop. As comebacks go, it’s not particularly stinging but seeing as you’re here, you may as well watch it. Incidentally, I’m in the video playing the part of the unsuspecting movie watcher.
If you’re still interested, hit the jump to see the pieces that started this feud.
We don’t condone reckless driving here on Onelargeprawn, far too many lives have perished on the roads due to false bravado some people think they have when they get behind the wheel. Take the gentleman in this Youtube clip, his blue Subaru is hurtling down Rhodes Drive, tyres screeching, overtaking motorists. They clearly can’t see the speed limit signs because they’re whizzing by too fast.
The occupants joke about their speeding and at one moment one of them is heard saying, “180“. One can imagine they’re not talking about a darts score or geometry homework. The original video, entitled Bit of Fun on the Road has since been removed by the uploader, reportedly because boasting about illegal activities in the public domian could be used as evidence in a court of law. Another YouTube user however has made a copy of the clip. See it below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9waU_IUAZ0
The comments on YouTube and the article on the newspaper point fingers to a driver named Shandor. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the police eventually catch up to him.
Update: Another video has surfaced, this time of Shandor driving on a Cape Town highway at reported 250 km/h. It’s not as exciting as it sounds but evidence is evidence I suppose.
[via Cape Argus | Mantiger1000]
I love my hometown and I definitely fall into the Cape Town stereotype. Every day on my walk to work I have the best view anyone could ask for and when I’m not struggling against the wind I can actually admire it. Another thing I love is photography and beautiful imagery, so I really enjoyed this timelapse video shot all around Cape Town by Silver Bullet Productions. Even if you are from Joburg and insist that the mine-dumps are equally as mesmerizing as any ‘mountain’ Cape Town has to offer, you will be hard pressed not to admit the Mother City really is a good looking older lady.
Sometimes I wish I the ghost of Henri Cartier-Bresson would inhabit my body. It’s not just because I want to have a suave French accent, more so for his talent for snap-shooting photography. His goal was to capture the candid moments of life and it’s that kind of thing I attempt to do when I snap Mina and Panya on our outings.
I’m far from being an accomplished photographer so I end up with a boatloads of crap images which I have to sift through before finding a few gems to post here on the blog. I see a lot of bum shots, and ordinarily that would be a good thing, but in my case, the rear ends belong to a pair of dogs. In any case I thought I’d share some of these rubbish shots with you after the jump.