As a photographer I get to travel quite a bit and so it was that I recently traveled to Postmasburg in the Northern Cape to photograph an awards event for Anglo American Kumba Ore. The awards ceremony was for their Kolomela Mine situated just outside the blooming Northern Cape town of Postmasburg.
While the rest of the mines throughout South Africa struggle with all sorts of issues, the iron ore mines in the far Northern Cape seem to be thriving. Their community is small and intimate and to a large extent free from the pressures of the big urban areas plus demand for iron-ore from China and other industrial countries continues unabated.
The actual awards ceremony went off very smoothly and all the big shots from Kolomela Mine were there to present the awards. The catering and decor were first class and most of the service providers were local. I have shot weddings in Postmasburg before so it was not my first visit to this little Northern Cape town. The amount of growth in Postmasburg is phenomenal and in the last few years I would estimate that the size of the town has doubled due to the development of a brand new suburb featuring posh upmarket double story houses that continues to grow. The same can be said for other nearby Northern Cape towns such as Kathu where mining is also booming and there is a huge demand for housing. Stories are common of people paying rentals of R 30 – 40 k for normal 3 bedroomed houses.
The Northern Cape always will always be very close to me and I love travelling through it. I still want to travel really slowly through all the remote little towns taking photographs as I go.
One day soon.
