It’s the Easter weekend and having quite bit of time to myself, I was able to reflect on my photography and started looking through my old photos. I discovered some gems and I was able to see my photo work growing. This is not necessarily by the quality of the photos but the growth of the photographic eye. This was a time when the name, Vimage Media, wasn’t even in my head. I remember buying my Canon 400D (sometime 2007), my first and still my trusty current one I use today. I chose the Canon over the Nikon not because it was better (they are basically the same and yes, I said it!) but because I had an older point and shoot Canon. It was just a transition, a knee-jerk purchase, if you will. I wasn’t really clued up about the camera or the lenses so I asked around for advice. The first lens that I purchased was the Canon 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM. This lens turned out to be quite good at a great price. An excellent starters lens even though it wasn’t quite wide enough on the cropped bodies. I still remember the first photo I took with this SLR, a picture of my mom taken at home in the dining area. The lighting is provided through the windows behind me.

Our friend Sylvia wanted some photos of herself to use for an invitation. They were for her upcoming birthday invite to be hosted at Hartebeespoort Dam in May. I’m excited to do this portrait knowing we’ll be doing the birthday shoot at the Dam as well. So in order to get this going, we remembered from the previous party shoot,  where the lighting was necessary to make this work. Luckily for us, there were videographers who brought video lights and it helped us a lot too. So we thought, why use expensive photography lights, when we can use video lights which are a lot cheaper. Granted, it’s not as good, but for the price of R400.00 it was worth it. It came with a stand, what more do you need? Since these are “always-on” lights, it makes people hot and thus we can’t do it for too long. Our models, Sylvia and Marjoie, wondered how the professional models pose for photos day after day. Tough job they reckon. I agree.