This wedding was the best thing that could happen to a photographer closing the doors for a month or two. Just editing this wedding made me laugh and (almost) cry all over again. The speeches could really have carried on till morning.
Anyway, things are returning back to normal at the studio. News is that Cindy has joined me full time as of the 1st of August (well, the 2nd I guess), and as some of you might know by now, she will be handling most of the e-mails and other admin around the studio.
Following are a few of my favourites from Maita and Reagan’s wedding. Since I personally love B&W (who doesn’t?), this selection reflects accordingly.
Coolest band ever at a wedding, they made the trip to Swaziland worth it on their own, and they caused a fair amount of camera shake on my part. Pity I don’t have a name that I can post, but I’m pretty sure they were local.
We are back in the land of impatient road hogs…funny how obvious the fact is if you spend a mere two days away from all the chaos. Swaziland is gorgeous, even though the most we saw of it was on the way back via Bulumbo (?) border.
I know I know, it took me irrisponsibly long, but I think I’m finally getting my head around this Lightroom thing, and it is very liberating indeed. I might actually have a life some day soon.
Warning to all non-photographers taking road trips with photographers: Better to leave the Jo-ASAP-hannesburg mentality snugly at home, the trip WILL take a substantial number of hours longer than usual, no matter how freezing cold it is.
30km off road towards the border, through a muddy forest, sometimes spinning and sliding our way up hilltops. Lots of oohs and aahs, the kind you made after a hiding in primary school.
We stopped in Kaapsche Hoop for a pancake, and the best Milo on this side of the border
Below is a slideshow of images that I personally enjoy from Mwende and Emeka’s wedding vow renewal ceremony in Mauritius. It does lack a few pics to complete the story, but it’s late and I have a ton of other work to catch up on.
BTW, as a side note for photographers, especially new ones looking at buying a suitable kit for weddings. I am simply amazed sometimes at the amount of equipment that supposedly “must be had” if you want to shoot a wedding. A typical list may look as follows…
must have 2/3/4/5 cameras
must have a 24-70mm f/2.8L lens
must have a 70-200mm f/2.8L lens
must have a flash (or 4)
must have remote triggers for the 4 flashes…with light stands of course
must have a tripod
must have a reflector
must have a gazzilion batteries
must have XXX bag
must have an assistant
All the images in this slideshow, with the exception of the first one (which Cindy took) was captured with a 5D MkII and a 50mm f/1.4 lens…nothing else. Now I’ll admit, I sometimes craved a wider angle lens, but I didn’t NEED it. My kit for the rest of this year is also exactly the same, except that I added a 28mm f/1.8 to my arsenal.
If you have difficulty viewing the slideshow, please click HERE to be redirected to the direct URL.
I got some film back from the lab yesterday. We took a cheap film camera with an underwater housing along to Mauritius, mainly to photograph fish and stuff while snorkeling…that’s until we had the cool idea of photographing the boys underwater in the swimming pool instead. I burned about three frames when I realised that the underwater housing is leaking and the mission was aborted.
Got in one or two sweet shots though, of which this one is my favourite…
I suspect it’s about time to blog something about the Edozie celebration of December.
In a nutshell, here is what happened. Boy meets girl, girl marries boy, boy and girl lives happily together for 10 years, boy and girl decides to celebrate their love and blessings with their closest friends and family in paradise on some exotic island in the Indian ocean.
Another boy and girl gets to tag along and document the whole party on camera…awesome!
Day 1: Santa came, too much food (and at times drinks) were consumed, and a swimming pool was thoroughly churned up.
Simon says, “Whitney Houston”
I’ll admit that getting into the pool with my new 5D without an underwater housing may not have been the sanest thing to do, especially with kids around…but then, I got some cool pics.
Day 1 of 3 toasted with dancing, champagne and a sunset boat cruise over the crystal clear Mauritius ocean.
Right now I’m just busy backing up the thousands of pictures, sifting through some mail and checking once in a while to see if Cindy is managing Ok with the tons of washing. I cannot wait to sit down and actually browse through the images.
Here is one of the last ones I took the evening before we left. I really thought that I would be able to do the bright blue water, saturated beachy images, like the ones you see in the travel catalogs, but apparently I just cannot see images that way. I will try again with the wedding pics. For now though, just a rather dramatic portrait of a boat .
We stayed on the other side of those cliffs (le Morne), in the town of la Gaulette. Ropsen provided some excellent accommodation for us. I would highly recommend him if you want to go self catering on a budget.
Simon says, “Whitney Houston”
This moment sums up the weekend for me
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