Summer always makes me want to go somewhere. It makes me restless, in a good way. It is a season that is always open to travel adventures. So this summer I went on a mini road trip to Tulbagh. Tulbagh is a small town located in the Tulbagh basin surrounded by mountains in what at first can seem like the middle of nowhere, but is very charming. The town boasts with beautiful Cape Dutch architecture, some notable wineries, and warm people. When I was in Tulbagh, of course, I stayed at the famous Tulbagh Hotel, and while I loved walking up and down Church Street looking at beautiful restored Cape Dutch style houses, I was attracted to the bays of hay that I saw while driving to Tulbagh. The trip coincided with the “cutting of hay” season and there was these beautiful bays of hay in the farms around Tulbagh and so I decided to take some pictures with the hay. Yes, I am sucker for a good prop, and hay was just perfect for intense images. There’s something beautiful about the dryness of the hay, the rural back drop and me with the white shirt and the red-come-pink flared print pants. I like the contrast. I like the out of place-ness of me in the pictures. I am a city boy through and through, and I have these romantic images and get very nostalgic about rural life, a life I’ve never really lived but find attractive. Weird. I know. More than anything, this was pure fun and adventure because we had to sneak into someone’s farm to take the pictures and hope that we won’t be arrested. Most of the farms have wire fencing, so you can’t access the hay, but luckily we saw an open gate in one farm and quickly ran in to take the pictures. These are the results.
