Here I am

When you see that somebody like @ned is in your follower list, it’s time to take this more serious.

So, let me introduce myself. My name is Johann van der Walt, and my Steemit id is JohannvdWalt which is very close to my personal website name (http://johann.vdwalt.net.)

In my heart I am a programmer – mostly php, C#, TM1 (bet you that there are not many people who knows what TM1 is) and also a little bit of Python. Seems like Python is the language that makes people of this neighbourhood sit upright when mentioned. Although my Python coding is limited, I am the developer and owner of an application called Photo Vault Online (http://www.photovaultonline.com) which uses Python to move photos between the hosting server and the Google Cloud Store on a minute by minute basis. Currently the photo vault manages close to 600,000 photos for my members.

But what you will mostly see here is about what I am doing when I am not busy with my day job – photography.

If programming is in my heart, then photography is the blood in my veins. I’ve been photographing since my later school days, and already received my first photographic acceptance in an exhibition in 1977 with the photo called “Bome in die mis” (Trees in the mist).

(My first exhibition acceptance in 1977 - Bome in die miss / Trees in the mist)

My photography was all these years just a (serious) hobby and still is, although, the last couple of years I have endeavoured into hosting photography workshops and tours. Landscape photography is my passion, so most of these workshops and tours are about landscapes. This photo called “The storm in Hex River Valley” I took last year on one of my photography tours for overseas photographers in the Western Cape, South Africa.

(The storm in Hex River Valley - Photo taken in 2015 while hosting a landscape photo tour in South Africa)

This year I took my third group of photographers to China to photograph some of China’s amazing landscapes. We visited mainly the Xiapu area and got some really amazing photographs – but being a photographic tour, we all came home totally exhausted. Landscape photography is not for sissies (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sissies).

(Living on the Water - photo taking during the photography tour in Xiapu, China)

In 2002 I joined the Photographic Society of South Africa (PSSA) and successfully applied for my Licentiateship (LPSSA) in digital prints with the Society. In 2006 I became an Associate (APSSA) of the Photographic Society of South Africa and in 2011 I successfully applied for my Fellowship (FPSSA) with the Society.

I am also a Fellow (FRPS) of the Royal Photographic Society and a member and country representative of Global Photographic Union.

My involvement with the Chinese photographers letting me to receive an honorary membership from China Photographers Association in 2015 and I am very proud of this achievement, as they do not willy-nilly bestow this upon someone.

I am a director of the Photographic Society of South Africa since 2007 and served as president of the Society for a 2 year term from November 2011 until October 2013.

I like to teach, so it is just natural that I also present lectures and workshops in photography. Last week Friday (28 October 2016) I presented an inspirational talk at the Photo & Film Expo in Johannesburg on Creative Landscape Photography – This was in my capacity as a Fujifilm Ambassador (http://www.myfujifilm.co.za/johann-van-der-walt/). Here is one of the photos I used in this lecture.

(Off Center - A photo used in my lecture called "Creative Landscape Photography)

Over the past couple of years I've been an international judge for several photographic salons and also exhibited some of my own photos at several photo festivals in China and locally in South Africa. I also presented photographic lectures at some of these photo festivals (in Lishui, Yixian, Beijing and Shanghai) .

Since 2013 I co-curated 7 photographic exhibitions.

Note: I am still very reluctant to post blog entries that contain my photographs here on Steemit.

The reason being that currently we do not have any control over the formatting of images.

Posting a large version of an image is most likely going to result in misuse of my copyright. When posting a small(ish) image as part of a blog entry it gets resized to fit the viewport, and thus it loses its quality. This will reflect badly on me as a photographer. My photo of 1977 above is a good example of how bad a photo looks when you post a small version.

I noticed that this issue was already discussed as far back as 5 months ago, but still no changes were introduced in the markdown engine to accommodate better control over images.

Currently this creates a huge dilemma for me; Do I wait with participating in creating good quality content until this is fixed or do I create bad quality content (images) to protect my own photos.

I hope you will all understand if I choose the latter.

You may also read more about my photography endeavours on my personal site http://johann.vdwalt.net. (While there, note also that I have added a link-back in the footer to my account here on Steemit.com.)