We also hatched some marketing plans, dissected a few pricelists, cast an SEO eye on some websites, our favorite wedding coordinator was on hand to give some tips on how to work with the venue on a marketing level, and V, Andrea and I shared advice and tricks on how to create a brand.

More info on future workshops and mentoring.

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We’d found a bit of veld with a view that seemed to stretch forever, the sky had those badass clouds that we love so much, V had made sure that I was well caffeinated and we had two of the coolest people to photograph. My fav moment of the day was when we had set up Neil with his back to the bridal suite for the first look and Yvette tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and his face was just classic, I think he mumbled something like, I can’t believe you’re mine, but he didn’t have to say anything, the look on his face was enough.

A small bit of business before I show you the pics. I’m a firm believer that you can’t plagiarize an image, but this weekend this belief was kind of stretched to it’s limits. You see I’d walked into the Moon and Sixpence office and right there was an image that was almost an exact duplicate of an image on my blog. Taken at the same spot, same bridal party positions, same post production, different couple, for a second I thought I’d slipped into a parallel dimension – it really did look like someone had stood with the photo in front of them and posed the seven people in the bridal party in exactly the same positions. I’ve been thinking about it since then, and well, my first thought was that I guess I’m flattered and my second thought was, time for something new. Anyway, more pics from Yvette and Neil’s Moon & Sixpence Wedding can be seen on our facebook page.

More pics from Yvette and Neil’s Moon & Sixpence Wedding can be seen on our facebook page.

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So we weren’t phased at all when it started pouring down during Isadore and Riaan’s ceremony at Red Ivory, come to think of it neither were they. I had a couple of tricks up my sleeve – James had just finished building a killer bee office and I had some ideas for a couple of shots I wanted there, there was that bit of green veld I had spotted on the drive in which had an amazing view of the mountain and would look really cool with an umbrella, and have you ever seen backlit rain. Beautiful.

So very relaxed and happy bride and groom – I do really like accountants, they have the best sense of humor – the two cutest flowergirls, and a seriously moody day. Check.

More photography from Isadore and Riaan’s rockstar wedding at Red Ivory Lodge on our facebook page.

The most difficult part of putting together a wedding post is deciding what images to put up on the blog. You want to show your best images, something different from the last blog post, but also something that shows off your skills as a photographer – the blog is a marketing vehicle for the studio. I also don’t want to be one of those studios that shows 100+ images from a wedding where you don’t know anyone, and takes hours to load a full page.

Our compromise this year has been to put a couple on the blog and a bunch more on facebook which loads much faster, has thumbnails and has become the web for a lot of people. Where was I going with this, oh yes, we show images on the blog and on facebook which we feel make us different, we do still shoot some of the standard images that have become associated with wedding photography, like portraits of the bride looking directly at the camera, and your more standard bride and bridesmaids, bride and family kind of images. I’m just not sure that you would be interested in seeing those images on the blog, maybe I’m wrong.

Anyway, more photos from Isadore and Riaan’s rockstar wedding at Red Ivory Lodge on our facebook page.

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Cindy and Daniel’s wedding day was no exception, the rain did come down, the rain did not stop. They were complete rockstars though, completely unphased by the rain, very much in love, surrounded by their friends, just natural, happy, relaxed. I confess I did shoot a couple of images in the rain, we had an umbrella, the big black camera is weatherproof and I wanted to get some of that backlit drama that comes with rain.

It was too much rain for a full shoot though, the light just wasn’t right and I wanted them to have some spectacular sunset veld images, so we scheduled a portrait session for the day after they came back from honeymoon. Killer bee skies and an amazing sunset right on cue. Nice.

Dress: Patricia Nascimento.
Make-up: The incomparable Cathy Heaton

More images from Cindy and Daniel’s rockstar wedding at Makiti can be found on our facebook page.

Just wanted to add for those that are worried about rain on their wedding day that we always have a plan, and in a worst case scenario we will organize and schedule a day after shoot for your portrait session at your venue.

More images from Cindy and Daniel’s rockstar wedding at Makiti can be found on our facebook page.

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.

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processed with the teaset presets, shot at Kuthaba.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Hanri and Neil (082 490 3679 and 082 469 0070) were, as always, amazing hosts. Anderland is one of those super rare venues where nothing is too much trouble and they always go out of their way to make sure that everything is perfect. Check out their site here.

Emille, good to see you again

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Huh? I’m the king of the rain photos, you can’t help but be prepared for rain in Joburg – brooms in trees or no brooms in trees. I think its been raining in Joburg since October last year, besides Tamsin was rocking a pair of pink Jimmy Choos and Gideon had his own pair of pink socks on underneath his tux. They looked like they’d just walked out of one of those recolored films from the 50s, we just needed a jazzy soundtrack, romantic as beans. So umbrellas were sourced, lights were dragged out of the boot of the car, and we scrapped our planned photoshoot in the woods and headed straight for the pool (ok, we made a quick stop at the lodge where it was dry and there was pretty killer staircase to work with). More pics as soon as I get rid of this cold.

tamsin and gideon, 

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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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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Ingrid and Frank booked one of our new no reception packages, more about those at some point and Ingrid look stunning in her dress, and the whole thing felt natural and relaxed. Of course it bucketed down as soon as I tried to set up the formal group photos, which turned the bit of veld I had planned to use for the couples photos into a muddy patch of land – welcome to sunny SA – I love rain though, the quality of the light is amazing, you get incredibly colored skies and it usually either stops or just drizzles which leaves you with with a chance to create some unique images.