It was the long weekend in South Africa on the 10th of August which happens to be Women’s Day. What’s better than taking pictures with beautiful women on a nice long weekend away to Machadodorp in the always-magnificent province of Mpumalanga. The trip also included visiting Dullstroom, another lovely town. We were quite lucky to to enjoy some great sunny weather. It is quite certain summer is upon as as it is hotter than the last few weeks that we’ve had. All in all a great relaxing weekend of good laughs and a good braai. Having a quite dinner around the table was also quite different. So quite, it seems I chew lettuce quite loudly.
Went to a gathering of geeks (Netweb event hosted by Mongezi) in Capello’s in Ghandi Square. This is way into Marshalltown in Johannesburg and is quite a drive from Pretoria especially with the usual highway traffic. I loved the red lighting in this location and took some shots in the cafe. Not the best of cafe’s, I must admit, for they closed the kitchen by 7pm. Who eats supper before 7?! Anyway, the positive light of all this was the photo of Telana (the first photo). She owns an idea called “matchstick for an office”. An interest concept of giving one gift for another and then to hopefully arrive at an office (more here on http://onematchstick.blogspot.com/).
Photography isn’t just a way to snap a picture that composes well. Its meant to ingest emotion because one gets to see what the photographer feels at the moment of taking it. Even more amazing is being at the right time in history and go to places normal people would simply not endeavour to go. I was going through a list of photos that really changed the world and way we perceived it. Here’s a list of amazing history making photos through out history:
Since my acquisition of the 5D Mark II camera, I’ve been experimenting with it to see how much it can help me with my photography. Besides the usual bells and whistles, I was quite intrigued by its video capabilities. The problem with video on an SLR, as of now, cannot auto-focus like a video camera. It uses a painful process called contrast detect (here’s an article on auto-focus) which tends to be quite slow. There’s no way of doing action or live video with this one. One must use manual focus to get it right and that can be painful as well. Interestingly, the manual focus method works wonders on slow moving laid back video, where one would expect from a wedding, for example. This process would be great even for a Stanley Kubrick style film (a series of slow panning, painstaking movements for carefully planned shots). Therefore, if the work is slow moving where the shots can be planned ahead, the 5D Mark II shines supremely. A wedding video done professionally by Bruce Dorn:
A shoot that I personally loved about a singer who also studies foreign relations. A singer named Sihle. His demeanour was of a person who is laid back and articulate. Thus a proper setting would be one of class and glamour. In this one, the shoot was done in in a nifty cafe called Tribeca in Brooklyn Square. The setting inside was brilliant and made for a shoot with great ambience. The lighting was key to this one and tried a little variety with colour and black and white. It was pretty dark but the 5D Mark II camera with a wide aperture lens certainly helped me here and allowed me to be creative with low light glamour work. Two fantastic models joined us in this shoot, Portia and Sukena. The people were natural in their posing and certainly made my job easy. One only hopes his music is politically correct!
While Vimage Media runs in its own pace, I envision that it will start to grow in new areas and interests. In order to propel this, I’ve been speaking to a photographer named Disa (Dee Photography) who I met when she brought us Sylvia. You may notice a few posts of photos with Sylvia in the previous posts. Disa works through a fantastic network of people and has worked with some prominent people in South Africa. I loved her work and just meeting her, I could see how she likes her photos. Over the next few weeks I drew up an idea to work alongside Dee and she has agreed to work with Vimage. This collaboration will be huge for both of us. As it happens, it was her birthday recently on the 14th June. By accident, I called her on that day to find out she was having a party! She asked me to come and in the excitement, I bought a fine bottle of wine by Nederburg, a sauvignon blanc merlot, 2007 (yes, its a good year). I arrived at the party and we had a great time discussing how we could work together and for the first time I felt a synergy between us to get things going. I even brought my 5D Mark II camera and showed how I did my work. In that process I snapped a few photos of the birthday and it was joyous for everyone. The children were wonderful models to say the least. They were especially chuffed to see photos done in black and white.
A Wedding Anniversary shoot that took place Saturday night in St George Hotel and Conference Centre in Irene. Rudi and Sylvia were celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary in style. They were eagerly waiting in the car for all the guests to arrive before they showed themselves. I then saw Sylvia for the first time walking up to the hall in a red dress and it was quite stunning. Always wanted to take photos of beautiful gowns and here’s the chance to take good ones. The wedding anniversary was a reaffirmation of their wedding vows and their lasting love. As it turn outs, the pastor was late for the event and in his own words, “I had to drive here at an ungodly speed”. That was funny indeed and it set the mood for a laid back celebration. As a surprise to me, Yvonne Chaka Chaka was a guest there too.
This is quite a late entry but I’ve finally managed to put up the post for the birthday we did on the 1st of May. This was a good shoot but getting there turned out to be the problem. The party was in a plot on the Hartebeespoort Dam road. We mistook this party being held at the dam but in fact, 15 minutes from Midrand. As it turns out, this plot was on the road to the dam but that’s pretty vague I guess. Luckily, we only drove 30 min extra, so no time was lost.
The Party was a fancy affair and it celebrated another 40th birthday, this time it was Slyvia. It was hosted at a conference centre which she owned and it had a Roman them all around. A formal party with a touch of pink was the order of the night. While snapping I couldn’t believe that Sylvia had achieved so much and Marjorie mentioned that’s the age when a woman get’s so sexually active! Many people offered to help with the problem to say the least Here are some snaps from the birthday.
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.
