I hate being photographed, by anyone. Not even on holidays. Not even at Christmas, which thankfully I attend with V’s family who are notorious camera dodgers, so no-one makes us line-up for a family photo. When I have to get an ID or passport photo taken I pretend I’m not there and kind of stare at a point just past the person taking the photo, willing them to get the ordeal over with. I never really look like how imagine myself, getting the photos back, there’s always a stranger gawking at me from my ID photo, looking like a cross between my father and a dorkier version of myself, staring vacantly into space against a white background.

I’d rather be at the dentist, at least I don’t recognize myself in X-rays of my teeth. If it wasn’t for V we’d have no photos of the two of us in all the odd places we’ve been to, or photos of our friends at picnics and social gatherings. This week I had to go through a whole bunch of images of us from the last 12 years that we have been together, sorting them into folders, arranging them neatly to go into an album. My conclusion after four days of this is that I’d rather not know I was being photographed and I can understand why our grooms are so nervous about the photos. I’m with you, we do try make it painless. V on the other hand looks good in all her photos.

So with this in mind, we travelled out to The Cradle Restaurant for Linda and Sean’s rocking wedding which was filled with emotion, beauty and just happiness. I do love The Cradle and it’s amazing views, my favorite part of the day had to be the groom’s prayer which took place just before Linda walked down the aisle. It was a nice moment. Oh, and we had a bunch of the kids tracking us through the bush while we went for our photoshoot as the sun was setting. You really can’t beat the soft Highveld winter sunset.

Right, more images from Linda and Sean’s Cradle wedding can be found on our Facebook page.

More images from Linda and Sean’s Cradle wedding can be found on our Facebook page.

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Back at The Cradle. I’m going to embarrass Adam a bit, because he gave one of the most rockstar groom’s speeches we’ve heard. Standing at the podium, speaking of a love that comes every thousand years, looking forward to loving Mignon till the day he died and looking forward to loving her for eternity after that. There were tears everywhere. I have it on good authority that the women were swooning about it in the ladies cloakroom afterwards. I hope all the guys took notes. Of course it didn’t hurt that he had just gotten her name inked into his skin.

I could tell you more, how The Cradle had outdone itself that day with the light of the setting sun, or how amazing Mignon looked (I did ask about the dress, but my mind seems to just not hold that info), or that they were complete rockstars, but I think the fact that they walked in to I Walk The Line by Johnny Cash pretty much sums it up for me.

More images from Mignon and Adam’s amazing wedding at The Cradle can be found on our facebook page.

More images from Mignon and Adam’s amazing wedding at The Cradle can be found on our facebook page.

dror cradle, 

Let me start by saying that The Cradle is one of my favourite places in Joburg to shoot at. Any time we’ve shot there the light has been perfect, we even done a midday photoshoot with some seriously beautiful light. Agnita and Heins’ wedding was no exception; huge storm clouds that threatened the mother of all rainstorms, lightning out of the corner of my eye, and the smell of African air just before it rains. Pretty much my favourite weather to photograph in.

Agnita and Heins were cool, calm and took the day in their stride. No-one blinked when I pointed out the area I wanted to photograph in, a bit of a walk up an incline of slippery rocks, Agnita just slipped off her high heels and walked up barefoot. Rockstars.

More images from Agnita and Heins’s beautiful wedding at The Cradle can be found on our facebook page.

More images from Agnita and Heins’s beautiful wedding at The Cradle can be found on our facebook page.

the cradle, www facebook de angela agnita, 

You can’t beat the light at The Cradle, its one of those places that just always seems to produce amazing light no matter what time of day or year you happen to be there. OK, midday is a bit of a challenge, but the light at the bottom by the old trees, gets this amazing quality as its filtered through the branches no matter what time of day it is and …

… and it didn’t rain for once. I couldn’t believe it either. Everyone was relaxed, the kids went ballistic, and there seemed to be kids everywhere one turned. Things can’t be too serious when there are so many kids around. Plus the couple specifically asked for photos that weren’t cheesy, which naturally really tempted me to try something cheesy (*), but I can’t do cheesy on my finest day – I’ve had clients and I’ve tried, it just isn’t me.

So a great time was had by Andrea and I, as we had a relaxed shoot in the knee deep veld. The Cradle always seems to be such a relaxed venue, I don’t think I’ve ever been there with a stressed wedding party. Admiral & Appleseed rocked some tunes, the weather cooled down and we watched as infants did the Jahstep to some funky reggae. I also had some caffeine – welcome back old friend.

(*)

“The game only has one rule, and it’s a simple one: Don’t think about white bears. You can think about anything else, but you can’t think about that. Ready? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and banish the animals from your head. You just lost the game. Everyone loses the game.” – Ironic Thoughts by Jonah Lehrer

The mamba has apparently blown its head gasket and as a result the radiator has cracked. Hopefully we will be mobile again early next week.

… but until I’m back from CT they’re going to have to do. A couple of people have asked me about the amount of pics we take and the sequences that we I always talk about shooting at weddings, so I thought I’d share two pages from Steve and Melissa’s gallery. They’re a bit small but they should give you an idea.

Well, the website seems to have vanished today due to some issues at our hosting provider, so I’m setting this up via an automated update tool, which should post it as soon as the website is back up. The studio will be closed until the 15th, I’m off to write my exams and spend a couple of days in Cape Town recovering from the last six months of wedding photography – I’m not as fit as I used to be.

A quick sneak peek of Melissa and Steve’s album which I’ve just finished, hopefully once I’m actually online I can upload all these albums fairly quickly. I’ve already posted so many images from this wedding that I’m only going to post a couple of pages from the pre-wedding section of the day. It’s my favorite part of the day, everyone is excited and nervous and there is so much energy and emotion.

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This is almost a Dror rant, so if you’re a prospective bride feel free to skip over this one.

For the last year or two, especially over the period when I was posting on the Digital Wedding Pro, I’ve had emails saying that various people are copying my images. So this is my official stand on the matter. I don’t mind, I don’t believe that photographers can plagiarize someone else’s work, you can shoot in the style of someone or give it a similar treatment. There is no actual way of shooting the very same image. So basically, if you’re going to copy my images, I’m flattered.

Now, this last week, I’ve gotten two emails saying that another SA photographer is pretty much giving answers from my blog to interview questions. Wow, doubly flattered, all those rants and brainwashing about breaking out of this SA wedding ghetto and shooting real images of real moments, who knew that you guys actually read that! Hopefully we’ll start seeing some real shifting of what counts as photography in this industry. Anyway, if you’re a photographer have a look around, you’re welcome to borrow any image you feel like recreating.

Expect to see many copies of this image soon. It’s an artwork at The Cradle called Fallen Angel. Beautiful. If you have a version of it and want a free link, leave a link to the image in the comments. You know you want to.

btw that’s from Melissa and Steve’s wedding at The Cradle.

UPDATE: Was just informed that Fallen Angel is by Beezy Bailey.