I use both Asuka Books and Designer Album to build the albums which I hand over to my clients, simply because people have differences in tastes. The Asuka Books are more in line with traditional coffee table style books and could be likened to the books you would find in the photography section in your favourite Exclusive Books shop, but the pages are of higher quality and are printed on true photographic paper. The quality is simply superb and therefore Asuka would be my preferred bookmaker and I always recommend them first. The albums come in a stylish frosted slip in cover for additional protection and aesthetic appeal.
Designer Albums kind of crept their way into our lineup of products as many brides wanted the thick carton based story book albums. I refer to them as Story Book Albums (as opposed to coffee table books) as they remind me of the books I used to read as a kid, thick carton based with fewer pages and lots of pictures 
If you were at a Wedding Expo recently, chances are that 90% of all the books you looked at were Designer Albums, such is their popularity.
Here are some of my favourite page spreads from Liezl and Francois’ wedding.
lots of monochrome images, it just tastes better
the album is 10×10 inches, 50 pages, hard cover with a matte finish
More Free State weddings
If you are visiting South Africa for the first time, or if you have never travelled our neighbouring countries and you would like to experience what driving through rural Africa is like, then take your GPS, set it to “shortest distance” and then shoot over to Hoedspruit on the edge of the Kruger National Park at 16:30 in the afternoon.
Cindy and I did just that on Friday for another bushveld wedding, and what should have been a peaceful 4 hour trip into the bushveld turned out to be some of the most stressful 8 hours of my life. Never-ending village after village and we experienced the whole deal, goats jumping the road, unavoidable crater sized potholes and gigantic unmarked speed-bumbs in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the road just vanished. There were head on collisions involving taxis and cows, and of course we had to dodge the odd midnight-dancer dressed in blue overall and Black Label in hand…
Alternative route to…hell
We eventually arrived prayerfully at Hoedspruit and had one blast of a weekend. Bronwyn and Paul were a super cool couple and just looked like they were made for each other. The Dumb Waiter (quite a name for a restaurant) was one radical hang out with some very cool wedding photo opportunities.
Hey, here’s a recipe for a wild party, take one bushveld grown Afrikaans family and merge that with a very passionate Portuguese family, now add good food, music and something to drink and then stand well clear…We retired the evening dead tired but smiling with the knowledge that we witnessed something fabulous and to top it all…we got some red hot images.
I’ve always wanted to do black and white detail shots, and since the theme was exactly that…why not?
Bronwyn and Paul must have thought we lost it when we pulled out camping head lights, we just needed something to light up her stunning green eyes
More Limpopo weddings
Either there were some last minute business to take care of, we didn’t feel like it on the day, or it just happened to rain (in winter) and we had to cancel the shoot, but this last Saturday everything went well and Cindy and I finally met up with Dror and V to go and cruise the streets of Johannesburg for a couple shoot.
The rest of the story can be read on the Dror Eyal blog, and of course there are some really REALLY cool images.
I must say it was a bit intimidating being shot by Dror and V, I mean their couples all look super cool and hot, and I don’t exactly fall into that category, but they managed to make even me look cool …well done guys.
More Johannesburg weddings
Cindy and I were spoiled rotten this weekend at the luxurious Thandeka Lodge near Bela Bela (Warmbaths). Not exactly camping, but I couldn’t really complain about the corner bath, blanket thick towels, fluffy goose feather duvets and electric blankets, awesome hospitality, hours baking in the sun next to a bushveld pool, and no sound except for the wind and the gentle rustling of winter leaves and possibly a bushbuck next to our tent. Add an early morning game drive and ridiculously good food and soon we were throwing around terms like “early retirement” and “month long holidays”…
Oh…almost forgot, we also got to shoot one fabulous bushveld wedding. Jan and Janine, thank you so much for asking us to join you and making us feel like part of the family, we had a blast. We also ended up with some seriously radical photographs.
