A Cape Town Wedding

A good friend Lloyd Goss got married to Candice Abrahams on the 20th. They asked me to shoot on the day & while thinking of a good location for the shoot they decided that in town & along the fan walk would suit them much better than going to a garden. At first I thought it would be a serious challenge to shoot in a busy city, but after walking around the weekend before scouting for interesting things I was seriously liking the idea more & more.

I went to Candice's house to get some shots of her getting ready & couldn't resist getting my flashes out for a few shots. Then we were off to the church, low light, high ISO, grainy, but a great atmosphere.


Then it was time for town. Lloyd, Candice & their entourage walking around town was an amazing sight, cars hooting & passers by congratulating them made such a great atmosphere. We were super lucky. I'm still not sure what was going on in town, but half of the roads were blocked, so we had the place just about to ourselves. A nice overcast day made shooting easy under earth's softbox. We went along the fan walk & stopped at anything that grabbed our attention & with some of the world cup decorations around we didn't have a shortage of interesting props & spots to work with. We finished with some group shots at Thibault Square & I couldn't resist getting my flashes out again & after shooting a few long I thought I'd try some fun shot with my fisheye just for something different. The overcast skies & dark buildings were working perfectly with the bright colours.


Then it was back for dinner, speeches & a few songs. It was tricky to shoot in the dark & didn't want to start with flash setups, but high ISO, f/2.8 & a steady hand was good enough to capture the romantic atmosphere.

Congratulations to Lloyd & Candice Goss. Thank you for letting me be part of your special day & hope married life treats you well! ♥

Up Close & Personal

This past weekend we had another great macro workshop with great people & amazing images. We had 4 shoots. The 1st was in the garden of 33 Stellenbosch & didn't shoot anything myself, just walked around helping & making sure everyone was happy & managing with this tricky form of photography.

The next morning we were off to Eagle Encounters at Spier. That's always one of my favorites. I've been there a number of times & tried to get a few shots of as many birds as possible, but this time I got stuck on the Martial (Brutus) & the Crowned Eagle. When I first tried to get close to Brutus I got some serious warnings telling me I might be lunch & with as much power as a lions jaw in it's feet I was very aware of every movement he made. 3 years later, he was calm & letting us get really close. The Crowned Eagle was still not 100% comfortable with us getting in his face, but with some patience we managed to get some great shots of him.


The next shoot was in Rose's Garden at Rustenberg that afternoon. I wondered around just looking at what our options were & enjoying the amazing garden & variety of flowers. I eventually went to get my camera to see what I could do. After a few shots I felt like I was just doing the same again & helped someone with multiple exposures, I had never gotten round to doing myself for some strange reason & after a few test shots I thought of trying to focus on the far petals of a flower & as I held the shutter in burst, I moved slightly back to bring the focus past the front petals. My idea was to get a combination of a multiple exposure & orton image. Quite happy with the result & will need to play with that more. I couldn't help myself & found some flies & by then a little breeze had picked up & made life quite tricky, but kept going & managed to get a few sharp flies.


Sunday morning was another one of my favorites, Butterfly World. They are always working hard there & the place had a few new additions again & was swarming with Glass Wing butterflies. I was keen to shoot a bit wider than I normally do with these guys & after a few shots I went into another section to find a nice group of them sitting on some palm fronds. I was super excited, coz I knew the lines of the leaves & all the butterflies would give the opportunity for some cool stuff. I spent quite a while there & just walked around looking & decided to shoot the pupae. Something else I'd never gotten around to. They were quite tricky to shoot, but were too good not to give it a go.


That wrapped up the shooting & everyone was tired & had been working hard, but very happy. The standard of work was amazing, even with quite a few people that had never done macro before. Have a look at our Dance of Light group to see some images the participants shot during the weekend.

Moe Staants

Moe & I have been busy capturing loads of staants on his new SALVO MP01. I've been keeping a lot of the better stuff we get under wraps, but with his consistency we get so much every mission that I really had to choose the best of the best & thought I'd share some of the "keepers" that didn't make the cut. He's now onto the 2nd proto & by the sounds of things all the issues he had with the MP01 have been sorted & is getting put through it's paces. Expect a little something on that in the not too distant future.

The MP01 looking sexy in the sunset

Flairs came back on the 1st shoot... the frame is obviously made for staants!

Session No.2 ... flair training well underway with lots of SALVO branding

Session No.3 ... Moe Flairs & a sunset

Session No.4 ... So the mini & flairs got done, we had to see how the MP01 & Moe could handle the streets. All I'm gonna say is; for not being a street rider at all Moe could've fooled a lot of people that day.

Session No.5 was at Moe's home in the dirt. Trick jump got killed & then some practice adding a little spice to the flairs on his soft dirt quarter.

Session No.6 ... more trick jump slaying & flair steeze! Wait till you see the topping these flairs are getting.

The 6th & latest session was a Halloween Jam warm up & just had some fun... He also treated me to a trick I had ordered a week or so before & was amped on something a little different.

We will be shooting & filming lots more. I can confidently say that Moe & his SALVO are a force to be reckoned with & is almost too good to shoot!