A bit about me

The rather staid, censored version goes something like this..

I’m a self-taught photographer, working out of my hometown, Cape Town, South Africa.

EDIT: I moved to St Helena Bay in 2023, the home of pilchards, up the west coast, and loving it. As a longtime surfer, the sea runs rich in my veins.

EDIT EDIT: As of 1st Jan, 2026, I moved to Montagu, and am enjoying the change of scenery, but being so far from the sea, not so much.

Over the past 40 years, I have photographed in just eleven countries, am not included in any Time, National Geographic, New York Times, or Newsweek publications; nor held solo exhibitions in New York, London and Paris, or anywhere, for that matter, and my work is not showcased in any private or institutional collections around the world.

My only formal training was with the New York Institute of Photography. I did their correspondence course while living in London, way back in pre-internet 1980. I’d post my photos, taken with a Nikon FMII, to New York, and wait for my next assignment and results via return post. I do, however, attend many lectures by amazing photographers at Uni of Youtube.. ;)

Then the business of life intruded. I did my stint in the corporate world (important to have on one’s CV, as you know) before starting my own IT company, which still pays the bills, fortunately.

A turning point occurred at the beginning of the COVID chaos, in 2020, when someone wanted to buy some photos. The fact that the photos were taken with my cellphone was a deal-breaker, the resolution being too low for enlarging. That prompted me to invest in a camera-camera: a Black Friday special on an entry-level Canon 2000D, now put out to pasture when it died on me.

I now shoot almost exclusively with my new (used) mirrorless R50 Canon. As my old EF lenses don’t fit, I only use my Canon RF 24-105mm lens.

People tell me I need to find my ‘style’. In trying to describe my ‘style’, I used to say random or generalist. Now I just say eclectic. A bit of a creative polyglot, if you will.

My photos are just the way I inherently view life, not only in terms of compositions, colours and vignettes, but also fleeting, real-world stuff. A slight complication (or maybe my superpower, as a friend suggested, lol) is that I’m radically colour-blind and the butt of my friends' jokes, but it does give me license to go garish! Or resort to B&W, which often is more suited, anyway. Better yet, to give some images a ‘painterly’ vibe.

Influences from my youth might be my piles of Nat Geo (my folks had a subscription) and surfing mags, artistic family and friends, and great abstract, cubist and impressionist art gracing the walls of my childhood home, painted by my (step)grandfather, Alfred Krenz.

All I can say is I haven’t had so much fun in many years, reconnecting with my suppressed creative self.

And, if you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking around!

Best to you,

Perry

PS. If you’d like to get in touch, please drop me a message, and/or join my mailing list for the (very!) occasional newsletter. I’d love to hear from you!

photo by Sylvie

Being able to do a squat comes in handy :)

Silvermine Nature Reserve.

Photo by Sylvie.

A black-and-white photo of an older man wearing glasses, taking a selfie with a camera. The man's reflection is visible in the mirror, and a painting is hanging on the wall behind him.

One of the few times I’ve used a tripod.

photo by Sylvie