Contermanskloof Downhill

The 12 Dec saw another DH race, this time in Durbanville Hills on the Contermanskloof track. It was a new one for me & was eager to check it out & see what I could do. It was a scorcher of a day & the 1st thing I noticed was that the shuttle pick up & end of the track were pretty far apart, this meant my usual technique of catching the shuttle up wasn't going to work. I decided to park at the bottom of the trail & walk up to save a long walk back to my car after the race. It's really open & can see just about the entire trail from the finish line, so some long shots were definitely in order.

The track is really steep & was getting dusty, so I was amped! The heat was killing me on the walk up & decided to start shooting at a rock garden just after the road gap. I'd seen enough spots on the way up to keep me busy on the way down & was going to need to get to some shade in the lunch break, so didn't want to be too far from the end.

After shooting the rock garden I moved down to a little drop after some tight switchbacks for the faster guys & some quick lens changing & running into place I managed to catch Pottie from nice & close with my fisheye.
After that I missioned back down & got something cold to drink & chilled in the shade. The 2nd runs started & I shot a corner close to the finish for a bit & then moved up to a little gap for a few more & then down to the last long tabletop. By then it was seriously cooking & could feel myself frying in the sun. I don't know how the riders were handling it with all their kit on, must have been the red bull.Pottie crashed in his 1st run & Stefan was 1st, that put the pressure on Pottie to push it on his 2nd run & he did just that taking it by a few splits.

So in the end it was:
1st Johann "Pottie" Potgieter
2nd Stefan Garlicky
3rd Darryn Stow

That's it for this years DH in the Western Cape, I just want to thank all the sponsors for making it all possible & to Chris Nixon for asking me to shoot for them. It's been a great season & will be starting off early next year again, so see you on the slopes on the 22nd & 23rd January 2011!

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.