Competition winner owes his luck to his mother

Winner of the Fotofun / Newcastle Advertiser Photographic Competition, Seun van der Merwe testifies to the age-old adage, “Mother knows best.”

Having had no prior photographic knowledge or training and using his cell phone camera to take the winning photo, he says that he only won the competition on account of his mother’s intuitive advice.

Mr van der Merwe, who was has been down on his luck lately, was encouraged to enter the competition by his mother who hoped that focusing his attention on something new might cheer him up and breathe new hope into his life.

“At first, I was reluctant to enter and I told my mum that there wasn’t anything I could think of to photograph, but she insisted that I try. She drove with me to the top of Hilldrop and we took a number of photos there, but I wasn’t happy with any of them. We also went to the town hall and took photographs there, but I wasn’t happy with those either. When we were at the Newcastle Mall on the weekend, my mother pointed to the ‘silver woman’ and she said that that would make a winning photograph. So I went to the mall very early the next morning and spent a few hours taking photos from different angles until I got one that I thought was just right,” said Mr van der Merwe.

Owner of Fotofun Newcastle, Adrian Law, said he loved the photograph and was pleased someone took such a keen interest in photographing Newcastle that he went through the trouble of looking for something.

“I like the fact that he took the time to think about what he wanted and then spent hours to get it right, and it was worth the wait,” said Mr Law. Upon receiving his prize, a Cannon digital camera, Mr van der Merwe said he couldn’t wait to drive out to Wakkerstroom. “The nature is lovely and I can’t wait to take photographs there,” he concluded.