Bad Karma and Good Vibes with Liezel van der Westhuizen

Words and Photography by Nick van der Leek

It wasn't easy to schedule time with Liezel. She has a crazy schedule and seems to be booked up weeks in advance. She did come through on a Saturday, but we had a deadline - we had to wrap before her gig on Jacaranda FM. What would have been a 2 hour shoot burned down into 45 minutes when, first their GPS took them on a tangent through central Johannesburg, and second, the abandoned building I'd organised for the shoot, suddenly swarmed with security guards. I think they were looking for a bribe, but there really wasn't time for that sort of tomfoolery.


Liezel joked that I had bad karma. Maybe on that day. But we did manage to get in a rushed shoot at my studio around the corner.
Liezel said she'd recently taken up cycling and had had a bad fall, so she wasn't going to expose her bruises to the camera.

It surprised me how lovely the photographs came out using a tracksuit that she happened to be wearing over a blouse that she'd brought along for what was meant to be a de-saturated, very gray, and sombre theme [in the abandoned building].

It turned out to be a strange, but enjoyable shoot. Someone in the neighborhood, carrying a few Castles, wandered into our space. He'd never heard of Liezel and commented, while I was snapping away: "So you reckon you're going to be famous one day." Liezel made some sort of self-deprecating chirp like:"Well, that depends on my photographer."

Soon after that a dog came sniffing by. I've photographed models who can remain completely unaware of other people and animals around them, and I don't mean in a good way. There were some lovely pictures of Liezel spontaneously smiling and playing with the nosy Labrador.


While the shoot was very rushed, we did slow down into the moment to get those natural shots that are my trademark. It was then that I noticed her eyes weren't blue, but a very rich, earthy green. When I commented on it Liezel said other photographers had said the same. "It must be something to do with watching you on television," I said. "And I love wearing blue," she said.


At some point near the end of one of the most chaotic and crazy - but fun - shoots I've done so far, I noticed Liezel giving off a completely different vibe. At one moment it was a sort of Cosmopolitan look, at another time a sort of peasant, and towards the end, wearing a headscarf [I've included all those photos here] she looked more and more Russian. Yes, Russian.


When I commented on this, Liezel said she had auditioned earlier in the week for a character in a movie - a Russian woman. I must find out from her whether she got it.