Hillbrow New Years Eve 2011

The Hillbrow Tower standing tall, not at all an ugly sight in the night sky.

Between the two brows, unibrow and Hillbrow, there's only one worth seeing on new years eve and that's Hillbrow. Ok a lame joke but why not. hehehe.

Every year on new years eve, Hillbrow tends to get some extra attention from the Police, JMPD and emergency services due to its reputation. So me, fellow photographers, Cornel van Heerden (Beeld), Lerato Maduna (Beeld) and Nickolaus Bauer (Journalist at the Mail and Guardian) decided to go and see what the fuss was all about. 

We arrived in Hillbrow around 8 o'clock  and went to the assembly point where all the media was supposed to meet, and found out that we missed the first ride in the Nyala. The next one would only be at 9. 

So while we waited the rain started pouring down and we found shelter underneath a bus stop, that we had to share with a glue sniffing bum. Was interesting thou seeing him sucking that milk carton. 

Eventually the Nyala arrived and frenzied media piled in fighting for seats like shoppers in a crazed Christmas rush. Ok maybe not as bad, but as soon as your butt left the seat someone was there to take it.

Of we went then with a trumpity trump into the streets of Hillbrow, all of us full of expectation, waiting for something exciting to happen. But yeah im just gonna tell you guys now that it was pretty chilled in Hillbrow, and with chilled I mean no real crime, the police had everything under control. What we did see was a lot of fireworks, whoever sold fireworks in Hillbrow must have made a killing. 

The video below shows some of the fireworks that people tried to shoot into each others flats. 

We mostly photographed through the open door of the Nyala so most of the photographs are street scenes. We did however stop on some occasions to get out photograph if there was something interesting happening.

A homeless man sits and prays on the street in Hillbrow just before new years.

The two photographs of a naked man that was just standing outside a block of flats. What the reason was, I will never know because we only stop for a couple of seconds and then drove off again.

The two photographs above:

Some more of the fireworks I mentioned earlier. The fireworks was difficult to photograph because you never knew where the next one will be coming from. But we managed to get some in our frames.

This photograph was taken at 24:00 as everybody started celebrating. We were looking for a spot to stop and get pics as new years arrived and decided on this block of flats as there were lots of people having a good time on their balcony's. Everything was fine for say about 5 minutes then the bottles started flying from the flats. And the scariest thing about bottles being thrown from a couple of stories at night is that you don't see them coming, you only hear them when they hit the ground. Sometimes next to your feet. Yes a couple did come close, but luckily we were into the Nyala at top speed. So we drove around for a while more and then headed back to base. At around 1:30 we decided to call it a night because we were getting tired and so our little adventure came to an end. 

The photographs below were some street scenes we came across.

Children just having a laugh.

A man walks on the side-walk past many peoples possessions that were thrown out of flats as is the custom in Hillbrow. I really don't know why they decide to do it. But it happens every year.

A man picking up parts of broken appliances.

A drunk couple having an argument.

People looking at the street that is littered with chairs, appliances etc.

The same drunk couple that were having an argument in 2 pictures above, trying to explain to the cops its just an innocent argument nothing serious.

More mayhem on the streets.

Then the only blood we saw, was from a woman who cut her foot on something.

All in all it was a fun experience that I really enjoyed even though we didn't see a lot of action, and we got to drive around in a Police Nyala for a night. Beats sitting at home on standby watching TV.

OK and before I forget some of the guys in action.

Cornel van Heerden with the Go Pro sitting in the Nyala.

Cornel van Heerden and Nickolaus Bauer.