Take a moment of your time...

Despite this being the sixth production of the Moments in Time project, sponsored by leading pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, the 2008 product range delivers what South Africans around the country were expecting and hoping for: another unique offering more magical than the years that have come before it. The positive response received during the nationwide launch tour promises to see sales of the 2008 calendar and supporting products reaching new heights to the benefit of South African cancer patients.

As in previous years, the calendar features a specially selected cancer patient for each month. All patients have different forms of cancers in various stages of the disease, all are from different backgrounds, with different experiences, and all have opened themselves up to the camera. While seemingly average everyday citizens, the patients in the calendar are anything but ordinary. They have all chosen to stand up and be counted, saying “yes” to life in spite of their pain and choosing to fight cancer and become crusaders for the cause.

The calendar is a visual expression of the fruits of the Human Spirit and irresistibly captures, through the lens of the camera: “hope in the face of despair”, “passion in the face of pain”, “joy in the face of sadness”, and “power in the face of vulnerability”. Although every picture tells a story, a short but profound narrative accompanies each photo, thereby enriching the page.

Project director and AstraZeneca Executive Director Professor Matt Haus says, “With the Moments in Time project now in its sixth-year of production, finding something new and adopting a fresh approach to ensure the continued appeal of the project was essential but by no means easy.”

Haus explains that the project's first dimension is clearly the patient and their story; the second dimension is the existential philosophy of Viktor Frankl and the concept of ‘Meaning in Life'. The third dimension is the styling and composition of the photography to reflect the patient's story and their interests. “The fourth dimension needed to reflect a common theme across all of the pictures, which we were hoping to find in a location that identified with the theme.”

Haus says: “We settled on the exotic and historical venue, Forum Homini, in the world-renowned Cradle of Humankind. In this setting, the “present” could easily be seen as assuming a falsely humble and almost irrelevant posture. It was here that the fourth dimension becomes evident and that it reflects instead the grand concept of the alpha and the omega of time, the beginning and the end of mankind's journey, and the fact that there is a seamless thread that ties the beginning and the end … the “now”. It is the ‘us'. It is the ‘I am'. More importantly, the overriding concept of “the circle of life” presents itself. The circle of life begins at the alpha of our current lives (the now), ending in the omega of our time on earth, only to begin again. If this circle is broken by any of us, the meaning of our lives will disappear. It is this philosophy which provides the fourth dimension to this year's Moments in Time project.”

The 2008 photographer selected for the second consecutive year is one of the country's leading fashion photographers, Merwelene van der Merwe.

All the Moments in Time products, priced from R60, are currently on sale and can be ordered online at http://www.momentsintime.co.za, by emailing , or by simply calling 0861 66 66 00.