A five-minute walk from my home, and you enter Melville. It’s a beautiful suburb, many streets are lined with trees, there’s artsy decoration in the streets even, you find small charity shops as well as up-market boutiques, galleries, restaurants and clubs. Especially around 7th street and 27 Boxes, nightlife is hot as it is a major attraction for students from the numerous nearby residences and for Jo’burg’s gay community.
Mark, of Jo’burg Photowalkers, had arranged 
for a meeting at Victoria Yards – a place that is currently being developed into an attractive area for artists and artisans, in the middle of town. Which can be a tricky thing in Jo’burg, not least because of crime … when Chimz and I went to this area to go drumming with some people the night before, the taxi driver wouldn’t stop at any red light out of fear of being mugged or even shot, like one of his colleagues the previous week. So, in the company of a bunch of photo nerds, we went and explored this emerging “new Maboneng” – and loved it. And since it was a Sunday, we would later move on to the “old” Maboneng and its gorgeous market on Fox Street.
