I am the youngest child of eight kids, and believe it or not, I'm not even the craziest!  Somehow I was able to rope two of my sisters into a 'Highly Inappropriate Places To Wear Your Wedding Dress" shoot.  Why not the A&P Show? 

This is Saskia.  She still fits her dress from 23 years ago.  Lucky I love her, or else I could be silently resenting her gorgeous little figure.

This is Annemiek.  She was visiting our fair province, and we couldn't get a dress for her in time.  So it seemed perfectly normal to build one made from only the things we had on hand, silky white material, net curtains, hideous plastic roses and crystal thingies found on a lampshade.  Thanks Rachel for your creativity, that dress was truly something else!!

Not content with the ordinary, we made the shoot even more special by getting their hair done.  Vanessa from Vogue played along, and did an awesome job!

Nina from Pink Poppie did the flowers again.  She's so creative, suited our theme perfectly!

This kind of shoot is not for the faint hearted.  But these girls did me proud! 

Thanks also to Katherine for letting us into the show and to all of the carnies for being such good sports!

It must be about time for fashion to bring back the big lacy wedding dress?

To see the whole series, join me over on facebook (make sure you are added as a fan, it makes me feel loved....)

Watch this space for scenes from yesterdays gorgeous wedding!

This morning started out just like any other.  Muslie, coffee and a shower.  9.30am brought a lovely family together who had just celebrated their parents 40th wedding anniversary.  This is Mr and Mrs Ayson.  Cute, hu?

The youngest of the tribe was wee Sam.  What a doll!

And three year old Jack, the perfect little model.

After the shoot was over, we had arranged for Diane and Vaughan to sneak away with me for a fun shoot.  What I didn't know at the time, was that these guys are rockstars.  Perhaps not the traditional type of rockstars, but they certainly look the part!

Gorgeous!

I found an orange wall.  That made me very happy!

Way awesome!  I can't believe I haven't shot this wall before!

For this shot I was actually lying on the sidewalk.  You can't even begin to imagine how my clothes looked when I stood up!  Not to worry, I got the shot.

Another fun day!  Can't wait to show you all the rest guys!

In other news - we're just waiting for permission for Friday's Inappropriate Dress shoot.  It should be great fun!  Saturday brings us another wedding, and I can't WAIT!

I have a bit of an oddball sense of humour, in case you haven't already picked that up.  I've come up with a twist on the traditional "Trash the Dress" photoshoot.  It's all well and good getting the dress dirty, but how about going out in public and finding highly inappropriate places to wear your dress?  The premise is that you got up this morning, and all of your clothes are in the washing.  Not to worry, the wedding dress is clean! 

Here is my *too cute for words* niece Anneke.  I found a dress to fit her, and off to town we went!

Thanks to Nina from Pink Poppie for the awesome flowers!

This girl is not even a model, although she certainly could be!

How about the supermarket?  So much choice in toilet cleaners!

A little bit of drama by a mural in town.

You know that she's really got what it takes when she can look beautiful at the public toilets!

Pumping gas.... 

Rollerblading!  Why not?

Didn't we have fun Anneke!  And we didn't get arrested once! 

Next weekend, all going according to plan, I've got an even more dramatic Inappropriate Place To Wear Your Wedding Dress!  This is just the beginning!

Meet Hannah and Luke.  Cute sure, but they've got such a great sense of humour as well!  They are the kind of people you instantly get on with, and they even laugh at my jokes!  Score!

Hannah is dropdead gorgeous, I can't wait till December to shoot their wedding!

You can tell they're great friends too, which is a fantastic way to start your married life together!

It's not too hard to get a great legs shot when you've got these legs to work with!

These guys loved to play, and came up with plenty of ideas of their own.

Like the playground.  I just can't help wondering how many 3 year old kids were looking at us like we were loonies.  Not to worry, I'm pretty used to that by now!  You can see by this stage of the shoot we were already getting on pretty well.

Clearly I couldn't have a fun and playful couple and NOT take them to the blue wall now, could I?

Get up against the wall, put your hands up!  Now there will be trouble....

Toooo awesome for words.....

Thanks for the shoot today Hannah and Luke!  Can't wait to show you the rest!

In other news: I was recently asked to do an interview for Digital Wedding Forum as the Featured Photographer.  What an amazing buzz that was!  I totally didn't see that coming!  So shoot on over there and read it today! 

Have you joined me on facebook yet?  Hu? Have you?  If not, get your bootie over here and press 'Become a Fan'.

Tomorrow I'm starting a brand new series titled 'Highly Inappropriate Places To Wear Your Wedding Dress'.  I can't WAIT to do some crazy stuff.  Watch this space!

I first met Sonya when I was taking her photo for a staff portrait at her work a few months back.  Yesterday I got to meet her beautiful family and spend some time getting some portraits of them too! 

This is them:

Sonya and Darryl have been married for 20 years, and they're so great together!  I love photographing couples so many years after the wedding, and the chemistry is still there.

Check out their gorgeous kids!

I offered to take Kate home with me.  She'd fit into my little brood quite nicely, but apparently she's quite happy where she is, even after I offered to swap her for a 2 year old, Sonya wouldn't budge.  Ahh, never mind!

Even Aimee seems quite attached to her.

Aimee, I would have taken you home too - but you would have even less chance of getting a horse in our family!

Teenage boys generally don't like to pose for the camera, and although Adam was no exception, he was such a great sport!

Aren't they cute together?!

When I first turned up, Darryl was just deciding on what to put on his feet.  He asked if I would be taking any pictures that included their feet.  Too right I was!  Clearly he hadn't discovered my crazy fascination with getting a feet shot at every session.  I do tend to draw blank looks from people when I try to explain how the head part of the body is so over rated! 

Thanks so much guys for inviting me onto your beautiful property, and letting me photograph you all!  You were an absolute joy!

This weekend I had a family shoot lined up at the malthouse, which has been postponed.  I was still pretty keen to do a session at the Malthouse, so I put a call out on my facebook page for a half price last minute booking.  (See, it does pay to join me on facebook!)  Before long Katherine called me up and booked her boys in.  I always try to capture the personality of everyone I photograph, and so all my 'romantic' malthouse ideas took a backseat!

I love this shot!  (and yes, we did have permission to be there!)

These boys certainly don't lack any personality, that's for sure!  And how can you NOT use a perfectly good outhouse in a photo or two?

I was shooting something else entirely, turned around only to see a much better photo happening behind me.  Sometimes you've got to have eyes in the back of your head!  As tough as these boys are, you can see they really do love their Mum!

They actually did exceptionally well, especially considering they had missed lunch completely!  I only have one boy, but I know that boys do like their food, and would rather not miss any meals if possible! 

I love the drama in this shot. 

Inside the Malthouse, and the light is just gorgeous!

Such a nice shot!!

Thanks for playing along boys, you really were great!  And well done Katherine for spotting my facebook announcement.  We had a lot of laughs, didn't we? 

Often I get so caught up with the fun of posting weddings and portraits on the blog, that I completely neglect showing off the other stuff we do too!  Here is part of a series we shot for Highfield Estate recently.  What I particularly like about this series, is how each photo illustrates the job that the person does.  They're not just the usual "This is Joe" photos. Sure they take more time and forethought, but I think it's totally worth it!

Setting the scene with one of Paul's gorgeous winter shots.  This was just before bud burst, we were super lucky to get a good frost!  Taken just as the sun was rising, this was not a shoot I was too upset about missing! 

But give me people to photograph, and then I'm all in!

This is one of the winemakers, Al.  I particularly love what Paul has done with the lighting here.  See the light pattern behind him?  That was Paul up on the catwalk with the external strobe through the grid.  Cool ey?  Another strobe camera right, lighting up Al and the doggie.

What I love about this shot, is the perfect spider's web on the tree, also the look of responsibility on the doggie's face.  It's a big job being the winemakers dog you know!

In other news:  We have released our Wedding price list and information for next summer (2010/2011), so if you've been waiting for us to open the calender for bookings, now's the time!  Drop us an email, and I'll send you all the info.