Behind-the-Scenes Story:
I’m not exactly sure how this idea came into my head! Well – I guess it couldn’t get more classic. If you go to the Table Mountain Cableway, or to Cape Point, or to the top of Boyes Drive, you will see many a tourist – often particularly an asian tourist – with a camera in hand…Yes, that’s it! I was driving home on Boyes Drive, just like any other day, & there they were: a bus-load, capturing the panoramic of False Bay! I knew I had to try to capture this!! Table Mountain was of course the most quintessential backdrop!
I called the Cableway, but as you can imagine, there were a LOT of loopholes, & they were unfortunately not keen on letting us pull up to the load-zone & ask the first group of asian tourists we saw to jump on the bed! (it was the loading zone that concerned them – not the jumping!)
So then, I started calling the tourist agencies. I found out the great majority of the Chinese would be gone until after the World Cup. The Japanese group I contacted were in another part of Southern Africa at the moment. I called language schools…You Name It!
My photographer Inge Prins suggested we do the shot just up from the Lion’s Head parking lot, as she has captured the Table many a-time from there. I got the permit, but we still didn’t have our jumpers, & it was beginning to feel risky to just Hope that we’d find them coming off Lion’s Head. We had our assistants lined up, lighting rented, & truck borrowed…
I went to Mr. Chan’s restaurant in Sea Point, asking the staff if I might have any willing volunteers. I think they thought the white girl was NUTS! Finally – it was the morning of…We had just done our tricycle shoot on Long & Wale Sts. We saw an asian man getting out of his van. Inge ran up to him – showed him her computer filled with our bed-jumping images, & asked if he might be willing to rally the troops. He said he’d ask his family & get back to us in a couple hours. We crossed our fingers, & yes! SURE ENOUGH! He brought his nieces & nephews, daughters & sons…& we brought the cameras. Thanks to Daniel – who owns a backpackers on Wale St. (@ Long), & his whole Korean family for their representation, & being so willing to jump on the bed! 🙂
*Check out my:
“Behind the Scenes Asian Bed-Jumpers”
on my Facebook Fanpage for more of their shots straight off their cameras.
Asian Tourists Bed Jump!:
Location: Table Mountain backdrop, up from Lion’s Head parking lot
Conceptualist/Producer: Kelly Vaagsland Wainwright
Photographer: Inge Prins
Photographic Assistant: Jakob Karte
Assistants: Saul Wainwright, Ariel Gordon, Julian Gordon
Sponsors: Bed King, Mr. Price Home, Restorabilia
Letter-Size (A4) Limited Edition Print:
Price:
R650 (south african rands)
US Dollars: $123
A2 Size Limited Edition Print:
Price:
R1500 (south african rands)
US Dollars: 265
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