7h30 photo call, its early, way too early, but in an hour or so the soft light will turn into harsh contrast and way too much African sun, and in four hours Claudio and Ivana will be on a plane to Mauritius and we’ll be trying to catch up on sleep. Got to work quickly, we have an hour and a bit to create some killer bee pics.

So sunglasses on, take out coffee clutched in my hand, a couple of memory cards shoved into my jeans pocket. We’re outside the Market Theatre, caffeinated to the gills, its been a long weekend of very little sleep and V and I are feeling it. I’d torn my rotator cuff two weeks ago and my physio had recommended I rest my arm. Yeah, right, rest the arm that holds up the camera during our busiest season. That’s likely. I’m slightly gratified when Claudio rolls down the car window and him and Ivana both look slightly shattered.

We take it slowly, a couple of images under the highway, super chilled, swapping tips about Mauritius, Claudio and Ivana are the most calm relaxed couple, just unfussed about anything,letting us do our thing. Catching some killer bee images before the sun turns the day into a washed out mess. Its not a trash the dress session, there’s no water anywhere, but Newtown is pretty dirty, and some of the images I’m wanting to make require a bit of bravery. Ivana’s answer is … its a dress.

Three quarters of an hour later and its a quick trip to the center of town, historical buildings, authentic backgrounds, just around the corner from the ANC building. A bit more of a Joburg scene. A million miles away from yesterday’s shoot at Summerplace, I silently wish I’d brought a couch.

Hang on to your bellbottoms I’m going to post the previous couple of shoots in random order.

Hey, a preview for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland just came on the telly. I can hardly wait, and its in 3D. I may have to break my no-cinemas-not-ever-again rule and head out into popcorn land.

Just finished editing Deborah and Michele’s couples session. For me this image is made by the guy on the bicycle, he gives the image a sense of place and second focal point.

Its hard to strike a balance with blog posts. On the one hand I want to showcase a lot of our photojourn documentary style photography, because that’s what we specialise in – capturing real moments as they happen. On the other hand I feel that we shoot killer bee portraits and I want to show a lot of those. Then there is the issue that I don’t want to post 50 images from a wedding. I want to show our best four or five from the day so that the client gets a nice representation and can send the link to friends who weren’t able to make it, but I also want to give prospective clients a glimpse of the kind of images we shoot week after week. Its hard looking at over 4000 images and trying to pick four that I feel represent the wedding for me.

Last Wednesday Deborah and Michele got married at the Johannesburg Country Club. Besides being total rockstars, totally themselves, laughing, having a good time and just making it super easy for us to get killer bee documentary images they were also very very photogenic. Too easy. Deborah also realised that we weren’t going to have enough time for her portrait shoot so she booked a day after shoot, which meant that we got to do another portrait shoot at a different location. I’d originally thought maybe something grungy downtown to offset the JCC image, but after seeing that dress and Michele’s suit, I knew that it had to be something classic and elegant.

The highveld thunderstorm season has started in full force, one of the few reasons to still be living in Jozi.

When I first started out with my own studio, I knew that as well as photographing I’d be doing some bookkeeping, admin, probably some writing … but I never figured I’d end up as tech support. After today I now know more about ATI drivers, and installing them using only an INF file than any person would need to know to function as a self-actualized individual in the world. Its been that kind of week.

Monday kind of started with a cool photo session out in Emmarentia. Not the cultivated, rose garden, tea and jolly hockey sticks side of it, but the wilder, tangled, less formal side, where the trees are often hit by lightning and their trunks show tangled knots next to burnt bark. It ended up with me trying to translate a Swedish forum post about our work using Google Translate and finished with me rethinking our approach to the blog. It was that kind of Monday.

So yeah, back to the shoot. Chenelle and Omri got married at the Sandton Shul on Sunday and booked us for their day after shoot (or bridal session if you’re American). I’ve spoken about the couple sessions before and they’re some of the coolest shoots we do, basically a one hour session which you can use for an engagement session, day after shoot or whatever. It gives us a chance to try some new ideas, look at some off the beaten path locations and generally have some fun and take some cool pics. We got to do some cool white suit and white dress in a veld shots, burnt trees, and I even got to shoot a lying down image. Chenelle and Omri were that kind of cool.

Ben and Cindy are both wedding photographers who got married a couple of months ago and approached us to do an urban couple’s session. We’re always game for anything urban, and I had a few ideas I wanted to try out. Saturday afternoon they arrived all kitted out in their wedding gear, we got into the big black car and headed into Joburg. First stop, the train yards, I’ve always wanted to do a big shoot there, big bonus points if we could get a couple of trains moving in the background. Alas, us and security could not agree so we headed towards old faithful, the war memorial behind the zoo. We were just settling down to do some portraits of Cindy when security showed up and demanded that we pay “the photography fee”. I snapped a couple of pics while speaking to the guard and we headed back to the car. Seems you can’t just go anywhere and take a pic these days.

Our last stop was an amazing wall I’d spotted while driving through Randburg on my way back from a lunch. The light was perfect, the cars driving by hooted, people stopped and congratulated the couple, and we got some killer bee pics.

If you’re interested in a couple’s session, they’re available on any day when we aren’t already booked. You’re welcome to use them as an engagement session, bridal session, or day after shoot.

We often shoot a day after shoot for our Jewish clients. Day time weddings tend not to leave time for a portrait shoot for the couple, so we offer a shoot a day or two after the actual wedding. We shot this one of Mark and Shelley at Shepstone Gardens, killer venue and nice hosts.

Maybe a couple more from this one next week …