V and I were at a birthday party/house warming/launch in Northcliff tonight, since the house is going to be featured in Top Billing tomorrow, I’m sure they won’t mind if I post a couple of images.

I believe the house was designed by Activate – could be mistaken though, I’ll check in the morning. Its been a long day which started off not so promisingly with a trip to the dentist. Quick tech note: these were shot at between an 1/8th and a 1/3 of a second handheld at iso 400, so they don’t have very much depth of field – VR DX lenses of course.

A couple of months ago, without much fanfare, we added a new product offering to our packages. The couples session. Basically an hour with V and I photographing you and your partner in Dror Eyal Photography style – you can use it as a session for your guest book, or save the date card, or if you just want some rocking photos of you and your partner.

Anyway, this weekend it was the turn of Carmelo and Rene, two naturals in front of the camera. We met for some coffee at Doppio, and headed out to one of my fav spots to shoot at – the drive-in. Deserted and packed with memories, its one of those icons of South African culture that’s rapidly dying out. Then it was off to our super secret spot where the sun always sets picturesquely, there are trees and windmills and veld and long empty roads. The sun set perfectly as it always does, Rene and Carmelo looked very much in love and the cameras clicked away. Too easy.

It is still raining, the cats are looking moody, the mamba is apparently being put back together (I don’t even want to know) … so no searing insights today, just an image I spotted while compiling the selection gallery for Madel and De Clercq.

Monday, and its bucketing down in Joburg. The kind of rain that last week drowned the mamba, she’s still in the shop and I’m heading towards Shepstone Gardens for Tova and Brad’s chuppah. I had been kind of mournfully looking at the rain out of the bedroom window this morning, swearing softly under my breath and muttering something about sunny South Africa, when V pointed out that at this point I probably wouldn’t know what to do if it didn’t rain on a day I had to shoot a wedding.

Shepstone Gardens is rapidly becoming the IT venue if you’re going to have a wedding on that end of the world, and they seem to be building more and more cool nooks and crannies every time we shoot there. Beautiful venue and a stunning, stunning wedding – I would have actually liked to have posted some images of the actual chuppah and bedekken, cause from a photojourn perspective there is so much emotion, but I feel that they are private moments and best left for those who were there. We did the photoshoot in twilight, I’m not even sure that the sun made it out of those clouds except for one glorious moment during the chuppah. Did I mention that Tova, Brad and guests raised the roof at Shepstone? You haven’t lived until you get stuck inside a hora at a Jewish wedding wondering whether to breath in or breath out or take photos.

Just thought I’d add that we got a lot of help from DVI who were the videographers at the wedding and are highly recommended.

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Did I ever tell you the story of the photographer whose car broke down in the rain in Potch? We were on our way to Anderland, my first wedding of the year, I’d just dropped Ben off with the groom and I was on my way to photograph Madel, when the clouds which had been gathering since we left Johannesburg burst. I think burst is the right word here, one second it was just ominous dark clouds, the next I couldn’t see the front of the car. Ok, so I probably shouldn’t have been driving the green mamba, it has never really done very well in the rain, I think the engine is just too close to the ground. Anyway, I made it to Anderland, ran through the rain to the cottage where Madel was getting ready, photographed her and De Clercq’s beautiful vintage styled wedding, and then tried to make the long drive back to Johannesburg.

No such luck, the mamba kept cutting out, overheating, we eventually managed to freewheel into the Sasol garage, you know the one just outside Potch on the N12. It was an interesting three hours waiting for our tow back to Joburg. You see some very strange people frequenting that Sasol shop between 11 and 2am. Some very strange people, the kind of people that I wouldn’t imagine spend too much time in sunlight, so we did what any two photographers in a dead mamba would do if stuck at a Sasol garage on the outskirts of Potch on a Friday night, we bought some smokes (cigars for Ben and Lucky Strikes for me) and looked through our pics of the evening on the backs of the cameras. I thought we did ok for two non-smokers, by the time we left, the spot where the mamba had been parked smelled like a big cigar had died there. At around 5am, I finally made it home, dropping off passengers, tow ropes, equipment and everyone who came to our rescue. By the time I had finished backing up everything it seemed pointless to sleep. My throat is sore from the cigarettes, I haven’t slept in the last 24 hours, I’ve driven over 400kms and I’m back on caffeine. I also have a whole bunch of killer images.

Hanri and Neil (082 490 3679 and 082 469 0070), amazing hosts as always and Anderland is just getting better and better as a venue.

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Just editing Kerry’s wedding and came across some crackers that I wanted to add to the blog before it turns into 2009. More soon.