“I grew up in a very strange way,” says Dave Harker. He is sitting in his house in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, talking about the meandering journey that led him to where he is now. He shares the story in a gentle, confident manner, with a kind and compassionate regard for everyone he met along the way.
His father was a woodworker who installed cupboards and his mother a furniture saleswoman. The family, consisting of Harker and his sister, grew up in a middle-income neighbourhood, nestled between Gugulethu and the rest of the Cape Flats.
“My father started off installing cupboards in the rich neighbourhoods, such as Constantia and Rondebosch. But then he decided to cater to people in the townships and to build nice furniture for them. And he never advertised a day in his life. It was all word of mouth, through people in the townships. Working for him was my first exposure to township life.”
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Analog Festival Poster 2020
Festivals of any nature take many months of planning and organising. This one, not so long – more weeks than months. The idea came about during a conversation last December between two friends, both photographers. Graham Abbott (who now lives in Barrydale) and Johan Wilke. Johan died suddenly in July and partly as a tribute, Graham decided to go ahead with their dream of the festival and exhibiting some of Johan’s documentary and street photography with it.
With help from Jonathon Rees they started asking some of the country’s top photographers to take part, others have picked up on the event and volunteered work. Most photographers have moved to digital in the past 20 years, so they had to dig in storage containers and garages to find some of their hand-printed work from many years ago to exhibit. It takes a lot to get old photographers excited and the idea of an analogue festival has done just that, as the smell of the darkroom never really fades