We were up at Nylstroom this weekend, or Modimolle if you prefer, for Elizette and Shaun’s wedding. It rained. I know a lot of people talk about it raining on their wedding day, but we’re were talking serious rain, the kind of rain that comes down in buckets and buckets for hours, the kind of rain that requires large umbrellas, boots and a GPS. It had been looking ominous as we started approaching Modimolle, barreling up on the N1 from Joburg, and it was kind of gently drizzling when we arrived at the chalet Elizette was getting ready in, but it started seriously coming down on the way to the ceremony spot. We were in the groom’s jeep, headed up the mountain on a 4×4 track to the big fig tree that they were get married under. I was kind of half day dreaming, thinking that if it didn’t stop soon we may need an ark or some kind of boat to get back home.

So I loaned my umbrella to the father of the bride, wrapped up in my almost warm gray jacket and started shooting. One minute to shoot, one minute to wipe the water off the lens, thankfully the D700 is weather proof, but not the ideal weather for photography unless you happen to be really really into cumulonimbus clouds. The fig tree, the people under umbrellas and the bride and groom kissing under an umbrella made for some killer bee pics though.

I know what you’re thinking, especially if you also happen to be a wedding photographer, and I was also pretty curious about how we would go about doing some portraits, the light was fading fast because of the serious clouds, there was no indoors, and the rain didn’t look like it planned on stopping any time soon. I had a vague plan involving umbrellas, a video light and a safety pin, so we hopped into the jeep and headed down to a spot I had seen on the way up the mountain. Elizette was game, Shaun looked he had seen a few serious storms in his life and the veld didn’t look that muddy…

… twenty two minutes, that’s how long the rain stopped for, twenty two minutes to get in some killer bee pics with those amazing skies, and that perfect shade of yellowish blue that only seems to occur after a serious rainstorm, but Elizette and Shaun brought the rockstar swagger with genuine moments and happiness at being married. Then the rain was back, so we jumped in the jeep, dried the cameras again and headed towards the reception, the windscreen wipers fighting a losing battle with the rain, and a vague thought in the back of my head that we may need some help getting out of the venue if the dirt road we drove in on turned into mud.

By the time the reception started, I had mentally prepared my blueprints for an ark – it wasn’t a huge ark, but it had killer wi-fi facilities and a serious cappuccino machine. By then the fire had been lit, there was a coffee station set up, the DJ was spinning tunes, the news arrived that the Bulls had won, and I probably should have been thinking about how far the nearest petrol station was (about 6km less than the amount of petrol I had left in the tank) instead of happily looking through my pics on the back of the camera.

ok, probably more images than you wanted to see from their portrait shoot but I was pretty chuffed that we managed to nail such killer bee images under those circumstances. Ah, yes, almost forget, I was joined by the super talented Stella Sassen (RE.INVENT I) for the day.

I recently read a review of my work where the writer called my photographs, colorful and playful – I think she may have confused me with someone else.
If you’re a true stalker, you would have noticed that I haven’t posted anything from around the beginning of May, we had some unfortunate news which kept our full attention from the studio. We are rapidly catching up on the work, and I’ll be posting updates more regularly.

I’m still dreaming about that perfect black and white wedding album. Until then a monochrome post will have to do.

processed with the teaset presets, shot at Kuthaba.

Very very very relaxed, yeah, I think that would just about cover Saturday with Claudio and Ivana. You know those weddings you attend where no one stressed about things, everyone is having a good time, just enjoying getting married to each other. Its a rare kind of wedding, its also my favorite kind of wedding, and we tend to get killer bee images. So yeah, it looked like it was about to start raining as the outdoor wedding ceremony started, if you’re a photographer that just means beautiful soft light and skies that don’t blow out. No-one stressed, the rain started coming down five minutes after the guests had gone inside for cocktails. Then of course there’s the family photos which we did in the rain, under a balcony, beautiful light, framed in a doorway. Damn that was some beautiful light.

Lets see, some of the suppliers:
DJ: The man, the myth, the legend, DJ Louis Almeida
Video: Anthony Friedman productions.
Dress: Somewhere in Spain where they obviously make killer bee dresses.
Catering: Taste Explosion
Venue: Summerplace

… see I remembered to ask.

Now for some pics.

Eagle eyed readers of the blog may spot how late I am with this one. This month’s theme seems to be a sorry-we’re-behind, I did post an entry of their day after shoot earlier in the month.

Its not something that I put on my CV, but I’m very good at getting lost. Not always, in fact hardly ever, but when I get lost, I get so lost that garage attendents look at me like I just stepped out of my spaceship when I ask for directions.

It was that kind of friday night. Just finished photographing a wedding, lost in what I can only describe as the industrial section of somewhere, I’d been following Ursula but lost her at a red light. I was now following a truck, hoping to hit a main road, or actually any road that had a visible street sign. The batteries on my cellphone were dead (mental note to self to get a car charger) and the orange empty fueltank sign had been flashing for the last ten minutes. I also had some killer bee images on a flash card in the big black camera. All was ok.

A couple of hours earlier, at the wedding, well Charine and Jannie – if you’re reading this, too much fun was being had by everyone. Genuine fun, genuine laughs, genuine people. I love how tense grooms (in general, not just you Jannie) are when they are being photographed, by the end of the session they’ve always had so much fun that they tend to forget that they are being ‘photographed’ and must ‘pose’ and we end up with some killer images. I’m pretty sure you guys are enjoying Mauritius.

The next post will be from Cape Town – looking forward to meeting everyone who signed up for the workshop, and pretty excited about the live photoshop session on images I haven’t seen before.

I was assisted on this one by the uber talented Ursula Tocik who is witty and charming and highly recommended.

These guys went all out on the details. Liesel’s dress was made from her grandmother’s wedding dress, part family history, part couture, part childhood autobiography. The wedding cake was cut with a sword that Liesel’s parents used to cut their wedding cake. I loved all the little touches that made everything so personal, from growing their own wheatgrass and lillies to the personal messages on the placecards – mine read “Dror if you’re reading this you’re not taking killer bee images, go go go.”

To go a bit off topic, I was sitting at a wedding recently and someone turned to me and said, are you the guy with the killer bee catch phrase? I hadn’t realise I used killer bee so often that it has become a catch phrase, its actually a Kinkyism. If you get a chance to read any of his books, he is funny as beans and actually exists in real life, as do the Texas Jewboys.

Anyway, Liesel and Darren, definite rockstars, and yes the twirl during your entrance worked, and if you’re reading this in Zanzibar, you aren’t enjoying your honeymoon, go go go. I hope you’re having a killer bee one.

We’d been having a quite a few Uncle Bobs recently (guests with cameras who insist on posing the b&g, jump in front of us during the first kiss, ring exchange etc), so I was quite grateful when Rev. Chunky, noticing how many cameras were flashing during the bride’s entrance asked that only the official photographers photograph during the service.