Late Friday night, Saturday morning. It’s still hot, too hot to sleep, too hot to have another cup of coffee. All the cards have been downloaded to the Drobo, there’s nothing on the telly that you wouldn’t regret committing an hour to watching. I don’t want to turn on the air cooler in case it wakes V up.

I’m still cruising on adrenaline from today’s wedding at Red Ivory. Christelle and Jonathan, two of the nicest people you’re likely to meet. A gathering of friends and family who came together to see them get married after a nine year engagement. Just being themselves, having a blast, always smiling, Christelle doing little dances she was so excited. That kind of excitement is infectious. Then there was Jonathan who reduced pretty much everyone to tears with his groom’s speech.

Hours later, traveling home on that very dark highway, I’m mentally going through the images, ticking off the one’s I liked for the blog. One keeps jumping out, it’s of Christelle’s sisters helping her get ready, the look on their faces says everything.

We were joined at Red Ivory by DJ and lighting maestro – DJ Paul and saxophonist Rike Coetzer.

You can see more images from their rocking Red Ivory wedding on our facebook page. If you know the couple you’re welcome to leave them a message or tag yourself in.

You can see more images from their rocking Red Ivory wedding on our facebook page. If you know the couple you’re welcome to leave them a message or tag yourself in.

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Saturday at the new bridal suite, really cool to see Chantel so excited to be getting married, like literally bouncing up and down with excitement. It’s completely infectious. You just can’t help walking around smiling when someone is so excited about their dress, excited about the pictures of the donkeys she got as a gift, excited to be getting married.

We were at the always killer bee Red Ivory Lodge for Chantel and Rossouw’s wedding. Romanz was (were?) singing under the huge tree, the crystal tree ornaments were catching the late afternoon sun, James and the always-on-the-ball staff at Red Ivory were serving some of their out of this world cold berry drinks. In the background the sun was setting over the Magaliesberg Mountain range. It was a gorgeous day.

If you weren’t there, I could tell you that Chantel wore a seriously killer bee Gert Van Der Merwe dress, that her father officiated over the ceremony (there was suspiciously no youmaykissthebride – Rossouw went for it anyway), I could also tell you that it was a super relaxed day in the country, the view of the sunset was amazing.

I just want to thank Chantel and Rossouw’s families for just being rockstars and making us feel welcome, and making an effort to speak to us in English. Much much appreciated. Thank you.

Ok, to the vendors.
Reception: Red Ivory Lodge obviously
Band: Romanz
Dress: Gert Van Der Merwe
Coordinator: Lorraine at Papilio Designs – On the ball, organized and such a pleasure to work with. Always replied to our emails within 24 hours and was happy to work with us to make sure that the bride and groom got the best photos.

… almost put my foot in it. My second shooter for the day was the very talented Corinna Tannian who just kicks ass.

more pics from Chantel and Rossouw’s wedding on our facebook page, you’re welcome to tag yourself in or leave them a message.

more pics from Chantel and Rossouw’s wedding on our facebook page, you’re welcome to tag yourself in or leave them a message.

I get a lot of questions about the 50mm lens that I use and why I don’t switch to a newer lens, faster lens, an f/1.4 or f/1.2. I was telling someone at the Photo & Film Expo last week, I believe that lenses have personalities, two identical 50mm lenses will each have their own quirks and after almost 20 years of using mine, I feel that we know each other. I know what it can do and I know how to use it to get what I want out of it. As for the f/1.4 or f/1.2, aperture is only one of a couple of factors that determine DOF, and it’s not even the most important one. Fact.

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Spring in the highveld seems to bring with it so much pollen, and this year kind of feels worse than last year. Beautiful blue skies, great swathes of light brown veld, green trees and pollen. I’m considering having my sinuses surgically removed.
By now you know I love Red Ivory as a wedding venue, it always looks really amazing and you can’t go wrong with the view. They seem to have added some chandeliers since I was last there which make shooting the reception so much nicer and add that opulent feeling to the images. So Rianka and I headed this Friday for Cara and Clive’s wedding. Serious swagger, fun, guitar poses, fun, schmodelling, fun, and a very rock n roll dress. We got some killer bee images, so I couldn’t really wait to post them.

Before I do though, I got to shoot this weekend with the super talented Rianka, who is going to be a big name in our industry in the next year. Keep an eye out for her. We were accompanied by the rockstar videographers of DVI, Rob and Santi – who make me smile and shoot some serious video.

As always more images on our Facebook page, you’re welcome to tag yourself in or leave Cara and Clive a message.

As always more images on our Facebook page, you’re welcome to tag yourself in or leave Cara and Clive a message.

After my presentation yesterday at The Photo & Film Expo, a couple of people came by and asked why I didn’t talk about marketing, getting clients, word of mouth, social marketing, SEO, branding, logos, all that kind of stuff that people think is essential to being a successful photographer. I talked about mastering our craft because I think at the end of the day successful photographers are those that take great photos (I could be wrong, but I suspect that I’m not). If you take the three tactics that I gave and practiced them, you will be successful regardless of what your logo or advert looks like.

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V and I missioned down to Red Ivory on Sat. James and his crew throw quite a mean open day – kind of an end of winter start of the wedding season event. Rough estimate about 300 odd couples came through, with bridesmaids, parents etc, so it was a pretty busy day for us. I smiled a lot, I smiled at the people photographing my photos at our stand, I even smiled at the woman who went to fetch her mom to look at the bowl we had brought to hold our business cards, I was still smiling when she photographed the bowl (the bowl? really?).

It was actually really nice to meet all the preferred vendors at Red Ivory, and to see the new Red Ivory display book – the first page of which is my face staring at you almost larger than life size, and kind of made me very self-conscious as a barely rehabilitated photo-dodger. Let’s see, we got to meet Patrick who is a rockstar in person, and Dylan who lives a block away from us (You live where? In Radiokop?) and a shoutout to the saxophonist (whose name I didn’t get, but was really cool).

Thanks to James and his crew for a great day, to all our clients who showed up and came and chatted, and to the waiter who kept on coming up and offering me food and coffee, you’re a life saver.

Almost a month and no RE.INVENT post! it’s coming I promise.

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We ended last year’s season with a wedding at Red Ivory Lodge, so it was kind of a nice symmetry to start the year with another exquisite wedding at Red Ivory. I like symmetry, it means that someone has taken effort with the composition and balance, that someone has arranged the elements into visual order. So yes, we are back, the new season has started and it’s good to be shooting again.

Saturday’s weather doesn’t seem to have been able to make up its mind, boiling sunshine, the forecasted rain managed a good two minutes of drizzle before giving up, and the cloudy skies gave way to the most beautiful sunset over the mountain. Henry and Sally-Ann were the nicest people, actually, and I’m probably putting my foot in it here, but the nicest people seem to come from Namibia. Thanks to everyone who made us feel so welcome – I also learned a great name for guinea fowl, administrasie hoenders. Some killer bee pics to start the year.

If you’re a facebook person, there are more images from Sally-Ann and Henry’s Red Ivory wedding on our facebook page.

If you’re a facebook person, there are more images from Sally-Ann and Henry’s Red Ivory wedding on our facebook page.

I still occasionally get a client asking whether we shoot some of the more conventional wedding images, like the bride and groom facing the camera – the more traditional images that parents expect. The short answer is that we do, I just don’t often post them on the blog. This week we have a rocking one courtesy of Sally-Ann and Henry.

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If you aren’t in the loop or aren’t in South Africa, it’s been one wet summer out here. The Northern Cape is in flood, the Orange River has burst its banks and wedding season in Johannesburg has pretty much been all about wedding photographers complaining about the rain. I like the rain. I love the spontaneity that it brings to the day, the atmosphere it adds to the ceremony, and just the fact that it forces us as photographers to create something different. Working with softer light, moody skies and that smell of highveld air after it has just rained. Nice.

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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New Year’s Eve and we were at Red Ivory Lodge for our last wedding of the year – it being New Year’s Eve and all. My lasting memory of the day is definitely Candice trying to keep a straight face during the portrait session, or maybe Candice and Justin trying to keep a straight face during the ceremony as Justin tried to fit the wrong ring on Candice’s finger, had a momentary look of concern on his face and burst out laughing a split second after Candice did. The priest scrolling on his kindle? Candice with oversized fake ears and a blow-up guitar? Justin with a tiara dancing with a woman wearing a fake mustache? All candidates, and in between, plenty of laughter.

What a killer bee wedding, and probably the nicest new year we’ve spent in a long time.

Midnight and James’ crew were passing around springbokkies (a green creme de menthe and Amarula cream shooter that always reminds of touring with the Springbok Nude Girls, and Hestrie Cloete – spring bokkie!). V and I hardly ever drink, maybe one or two beers a year – but we decided to toast the end of 2010 anyway, the springbokkie smoothly unknotting the kinks in my neck and marking the beginning of what we hope to be a new chapter in our lives. We wish you and yours the best for the coming year, thank you for your support throughout 2010.

Makeup: super talented Cathy Heaton
DJ: Jerome and Chantel from Fast Forward Entertainment

if you’re a facebook person, there are even more pics from Candice and Justin’s killer bee Red Ivory wedding on our facebook page

if you’re a facebook person, there are even more pics from Candice and Justin’s killer bee Red Ivory wedding on our facebook page

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