Is it my imagination or has winter come back with a vengeance this year? Even the cats who normally prefer to sleep on separate couches have started lying nose to tail, cuddling up for warmth. Last night’s eclipse didn’t help much with the feeling that we’re heading into a long hard winter. The moon a smear of red against a seriously beautiful clear night’s sky out here in Johannesburg. I kind of looked at it through the window, between ad breaks, there was no way I was venturing out there into the cold. Not without serious motivation and an endless supply of coffee.

It’s been a while since we’d been at Oakfield Farm for a wedding, and we were glad to be back for Alisa and Ewan’s wedding. Alisa and Ewan, well, sheesh, what a story, too long to tell in a blog post, but talk about your one in a million shot internet romance. My favorite moment of the day was when Alisa asked if we make all our brides stand on things or was it because she is a dancer. Well, on the one hand we do do a fair amount of interesting locations, but on the other most of our brides can’t touch their toes while bending backwards! Just saying … some of my favorite people to photograph are dancers. When I was studying at Rhodes, the journalism department and the drama department were housed in the same building, so I spent a lot of time hanging outside smoking and generally talking rubbish with the drama kids. The cool drama kids were the ones doing Physical Theatre, I photographed a lot of them over the years.

We have even more pics from Alisa and Evan’s wedding on our facebook page.

We have even more pics from Alisa and Evan’s wedding on our facebook page.

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I’m busy working on Joanne and Adrian’s wedding at Oakfield Farm, and spotted this one, which reminded once again that not all things are what they seem but the moments between the kisses sure make for some pretty cool wedding photos.

Simultaneously while editing, I am also really enjoying Damon Winter’s double exposures series.

I’m pretty sure that Sunday was the hottest day of the year, maybe even the decade. The BBC weather report had promised thunder showers and had a very nice icon of dark clouds on their site, the kind of clouds that have photographers drooling about textures and moody skies. All a lie. It was hot, Africa hot, the kind of hot that would have made Tarzan want to go back home, sunny with the kind of contrasty light that makes wedding photographers want to call their mom. I was trying to manage over 200 people into a large group photo, not my forte, they wanted out of the sun. I tended to agree with them.

Since I was last here, Oakfield Farm had installed those misting systems that spray a fog and cool down the air, I wanted to stand under one of those for an hour or two. Of course the artificial fog plus the sun setting through the trees made for some killer bee images, got to love irony – and artificial fog. Lets see, Joanne and Adrian, fun, a blast to be around, and just a cool couple, add a seriously elegant dress (I was introduced to the designer, but promptly forgot the name, sorry), twin flower girls, skinny ties on the guys, a couple (and a coordinator) who are used to my often bizarre sense of aesthetic and trust you to pull off very very different images. It was a pretty rockstar end to the year. Thank you both.

Ok, one thing before I show you some pics from the day. I was recently at Letamo, and I was chatting to a woman who turned out to be a hair dresser and when she found out I shot weddings, she said that the number one regret of her clients after their wedding day was that they didn’t have photos of the people partying at their wedding. Well, something along those lines, she said it more eloquently. So I know I show a lot of photos of people partying on this blog, but since its on my mind at the moment, a couple more.

If you think Joanne and Adrian look familiar, I shot their couple session a while back, some of which they had used in their guest book – I felt cool.

Our merry band of suppliers on the day were:
The incomparable Cathy Heaton on make-up,
Michelle from Hair Innovations on hair, and,
Jazzanova(?) on upright bass, drums and keyboards.

A really fantastic wedding this weekend at Oakfield Farm. Pretty cool to work with people who say, “Dror, we want you to do what you do.” and then don’t blink when we go to some of the more interesting parts of Oakfield that usually don’t get photographed at weddings. To give you an idea, there was another wedding on at the same time and we didn’t see anyone else during our entire photo shoot. Nice! Add in some raucous kids, a fun loving couple who didn’t take the day too seriously and we ended up with a great mixture of the more traditional Oakfield Farm wedding photos and some unique Dror originals.

This week we were teamed up with Cathy Heaton, makeup guru, and one of our fav makeup artists, not just because she is always calm and always genuinely fun to have around but her makeup always looks great in photos.

We were also teamed with rockstar videographers, the inimitable Dave and Santi from DVI.

On Thursday my new Franka Solida IIL arrived, I’ll be spending the day repairing the bellows and maybe take her for a test drive later this week.

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Almost 2am, just finished backing up all of the memory cards, enough caffeine running through my veins to jump start a small pony. Amazing wedding, rocking couple, I got to shoot my tractor photo, I even saw Elvis. I’m excited. Now to try and sleep, like that’s likely to happen.

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.