I’ve always said that I can’t draw to save my life, and I really envy people who can draw; they don’t have to worry about sets and locations like the rest of us. I accepted an assignment from the Kwani Trust to illustrate some stories for one of their upcoming publications the other day. The original plan was to make some sort of photo collage thingie – but the stories turned out to be quite abstract; photography wouldn’t cut it (how do you illustrate a story about lovers who like playing chess and having abstract conversations in a bathtub?).

So – with deadlines looming – I borrowed a tablet from Mbithi (who only gave it to me because he’d borrowed a Cintiq from Daniel who was on holiday) and started playing around with it – these are what came out. I’m probably jumping the gun here, blogging about them before the client has actually seen them (hope they’ll approve).

Excitement! Obviously, with my less than abundant drawing skills, I’m cheating a lot – using lots of photographic references. It’s probably not ‘real’ drawing. I’d call it sketch-trace-drawing or something. Mad experiments shall follow – to the drawing board (excuse the lame pun)!

Shooting a catalog sounded like it’d be boring, but Sandra (the model) and I spent an afternoon ooh’ing and aah’ing at a coming-soon new collection by Kepha Maina – it’s all very curvy and sleek, and should be out in a little while – thought I should share.

The STINGO team and I had a very eventful photo shoot (I’m really enjoying the STINGO shoots, by the way) about a month ago – we drove out to Magadi with colorful menswear from Kepha Maina (one of our team-mates) with a grand plan to shoot in the wild with our model – Alwy (who’s awesome). For a start, one of our cars broke down on the way there, and we were towed to the location (not the grand entrance we would have liked – ).

The location looked very different from what we’d imagined, but we recovered and shot. The way back was just as adventurous; we had to keep stopping to re-attach the tow-line (which was a long piece of ‘bladder’), and then darkness fell and the tow-car stalled, and we had to exchange alternators several times.

Anyway, long story short; we did get back (dusty and irritable: see our frantic tweets on STINGO’s Twitter page), and I remember asking if the photos we had were worth the trouble. Here are some of the photos (see the whole set at STINGO) – what do you think?

And here’s some behind the scenes photos:

We really were in the middle of nowhere.

Sunny and Kepha messing around with Alwy.

Kangai “grooms” Alwy (she says when it’s a guy it’s called “grooming”, not makeup).

Here’s a piece I was proud to be involved with, for Kuweni Serious – which involved persuading random strangers on the streets, at work and at home to stop for a minute and stare at the camera (and in the case of one waitress, asking her boss for permission to stop working for a minute).

Everyone was generally very nice about it. This is also the first time I got to fiddle around with the Canon 7D, which is all kinds of awesome!

CREDITS
Produced/Directed by Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu for Kuweni Serious. Edited by Mbithi Masya. Narration by Bill Sellanga, words and music by Jim Chuchu.

Despite appearances (on this blog, anyway) I have been working! I’m happy to introduce STINGO; a collaboration between old and new friends like Kangai Mwiti (makeup), Kepha Maina (fashion design) and Lucille Kahara (production); and Sunny Dolat (photographer/stylist/casting director/ball-of-energy).

Stingo is part fashion blog, part photo experiment, part workshop. We’ll make up the rules as we go. We’ll see how it goes…

The good folks at the Goethe-Institut Nairobi asked me to help them design the logo, graphic elements and the event space of the first of the BLNRB-NRBLN concerts in Nairobi. The BLNRB-NRBLN is a project that intends to bring together the electronic music and hip-hop scenes from Berlin and Nairobi respectively.

Find out more at the Goethe-Institut website, or on their Facebook page. Their first concert was held at Club Undecided in Westlands, on Saturday the 27th of March, and it featured performances by Modeselektor, Ukoo Flani, Jahcoozi and Abbas among others.

I stopped doing freelance design work, but this seemed fun – created using stroked lines and lots of displacement mapping in Photoshop, and using projected visualizations, UV blacklight, blue and green lighting for the space (and a healthy dose of panic about the rain’s effect on all the DIY wiring we put up). It turned out OK, in the end.

DESIGN> Magazine interviewed me for their Edge Issue (16), asking me about inspirations and creative philosophies. You can find the interview on pages 72 to 81 of their Issuu Powered online publication, and visit their website here.

You may have noticed that I haven’t done many photo shoots in the past few months (long story). In January this year, the people at the We The Change Foundation asked me to photograph a tiny nursery school in Mathare which needed some help to keep going.

I was hesitant about it, because I’ve always felt I’m not very good with documentary photography. Anyhow, I ended up doing it – went to Mathare with just one camera: no lights, no fancy wireless triggers and this is what came of it.

Here’s a newly finished video project – the latest Just A Band music video for their single, “Ha-He”. I got a lot of help with this one (more on that later), specifically Mbithi Masya‘s help with directing and editing, and the usual chipping in of friends.

[UPDATE: 25TH March, 2010] So, wow! That didn’t go like I expected: 32,000 YouTube views in a week and the resulting “Makmende Phenomenon”, Kenya’s first viral phenomenon, articles in the Wall Street Journal and interviews for CNN – this has been overwhelming! Thanks, everyone!

It was great fun creating our vapid spoof action-hero type based on things we remember watching like Tahamaki, Chuck Norris films and Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon – in which angry men walk around beating truth out of hapless people.

The subtitled ‘dialogue’ consists of phrases lifted from various sources – particularly my favorite mind-bender: Waking Life.

Cast: Kevin “K1″ Maina, Patricia Kihoro, Mbithi Masya, Kibugi Wamae, Mugambi Nthiga, Renee Sewe, Kwame Oddenyo, PA Okaalet, Kevin “K2″ Maina, Moses Wataka, Lucille Kahara and Diana Nduba.

Additional Credits: Edited by Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu. Many thanks to Penya Africa, Njoki Ngumi, Lucille Kahara and Rachel Gichinga for all the help with styling/catering/transport.

I shot Dela’s first single promo for the song, “Ulivyo” from her debut album “Paukwa” last year – just before the Christmas break – and I was worried about how tired everyone was, but I guess it turned out OK. Black and white is fun, and the cast were very helpful (Kule would tell us things like, “It would be better if I was standing here”).

As always, I’m happy to hear what you lot think. I’ll upload the HD version at some point.

My thanks to the Penya team, the cast and to Lucille Kahara for allowing us to mess about in her house, and for getting props and catering (she’s awesome!). Thanks to Mbithi Masya, the problem-solver and man who keeps everyone sane on the set – indispensable. The people from the Kenya Grip Company remain the best light and grip people I’ve ever worked with (do I sound like I’m plugging them?).