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Dawin Meckel and Ole Keune first came to South Africa from Germany in 2001. After spending two months at City Varsity in Cape. Town, they decided to discontinue their studies, and came up with the concept for Straight Talk – a series of interviews with South Africans from every walk of life. Their aim was, through the medium of photo-journalism, to try to gain their own insight into this country as it is today, after a decade of democracy. Straight Talk is intended as a vehicle to allow people from the most diverse echelons of South African society to speak, and in their own voices to give their impressions of the lay of this land.

About the Author(s)

Ole Keune was born in Braunschweig, Germany, in 1976. He studied graphic design at the University of Applied Sciences, Bielefeld, specialising in typography. He became interested in web-design and animation and worked for various companies, including Delius Klasing Publishers. During his first visit to South Africa in 2001, he fell in love with the beauty of the country, its people and its music. He says a three-month practical training at Wireframe, a Cape Town-based multimedia company, and all the people he met while working on this book have deepened his desire to live and work in South Africa. Keune is finishing his studies this year, with a music video for the South African band Moodphase 5ive as part of his degree.

Dawin Meckel was born in 1977 in a village in Hessen, Germany. After an apprenticeship as a draftsman, he studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld, where he and Keune met. He will complete his studies shortly before this book is released. Photography, he says, offers him the opportunity to interact with people he would otherwise never meet. He thinks South Africans are kinder and more open hearted than any other people in the world. Meckel was nominated for the 2004 World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass and in 2004 shot a photo-documentary about water supply in South Africa for Greenpeace Magazin in Germany.

Hardcover, 156 pages, 256x205mm
Authors: Dawin Meckel & Ole Keune

ISBN-10: 1770070087
ISBN-13: 9781770070080