With their vintage theme and just the sheer elegance and exuberance of everyone there we got some great pics. I really love Clarien’s shots (the bottom two) of the boys smoking, gangster (we were thinking ‘Godfather’) style

Kurt and Monique, you’re really blessed with so many friends and family who can make you laugh. All I’m saying is . . . the safe word is pineapple.

Enjoy the pics. The final two are Clarien’s.

I think it’s a bit like preparing for a sport’s match. If you walk on to the field and you’re thinking about the fight you had with your boyfriend/girlfriend the night before then chances are you’re not going to play your best game. But if you walk onto the field and your head is clear and focussed on how many goals you want to score and how you’re going to stop your opponents from scoring, then chances are you’re going to have a great game. BMT I suppose. And wedding photography is no different.

So what do I do to make sure I’m in the zone? Well, I make sure I’ve packed my bags, all my gear is charged, my cards are formatted, I know where I’m going, how long it will take, who I’m going to see when I get there, what the order of events are – I’m prepared in other words. And I make sure my preparation follows a certain routine so that I don’t forget anything or leave anything out. And then when everything’s prepared and I’m en route to the shoot I tend not to want to talk a lot. I like just being quite. Looking at the light. Thinking about the type of shots I’m going to try for, what I’ll likely find at the venue. And as soon as I start to hone in on those things so I know I’m going to be in the zone, and you feel it as you shoot. This flow and energy. Nothing quite touches it!

And that flow and energy takes you into the ebb and flow of your clients’ day – into it’s various moods and phases – and allows you to follow and predict where you’re likely to find good shots. Like these two of the bride’s niece and nephew wanting to catch a sneak peek of her dressing. Being In The Zone means you don’t just get the couple shoot right, but you get all the little bits around the day right too. It means you find shots that you might otherwise have missed because you’re in tune with the people around you.

I love these two shots. I love them because for me they say something about what a big, unknown occassion the wedding was for these two little kids – how they couldn’t wait to see their aunty in her dress, how cute they looked in their outfits, how small they are in comparison to everything else around them. Just too sweet.

It was quite hot out in Worcester/Robertson, but a perfect day for a wedding. Clarien and I drove out and  took the scenic trip, over the mountain instead of through the pass, and I think the scenic drive just put us in the right frame of mind for finding beautiful images – not that it was hard for us, because Jan and Ronel were just awesome to shoot!

Enjoy the pics; I’ll be posting some more in a wee whiley.

Enjoy the pics.

Jeremy and Amanda are really down to earth, relaxed, funny people so this shoot was an absolute blast. We kept the pics simple and relatively un-posey – J & A are not the posey type – and the blue sky pitched in to play it’s part for some beautiful pics

After a minor upset (the page boys had a wee wardrobe malfunction) we went off to the NG Kerk for the ceremony. And Su-Anne was serenity personified. I really admired her graceful poise – nothing was going to ruffle her on her big day!

Ettienne was waiting patiently for his beautiful bride and then the ceremony kicked off, with smiles all round!

The reception was held at On The Rocks – great food btw – and then after the reception we did family pics in the shade of the restaurant – I’ll put some of them up on FB soon – and a quick couple shoot on the beach.

Hope you enjoy the pics!

It was awesome getting back in the saddle again, and great having Clarien accompany me for my first wedding AG (after Gabe – who is currently sleepily happily in his crib).

One of the great things about having Clarien with me on a shoot is that I can simply hand her one of my cameras (I tend to give her the long lens and let her play sniper – so she gets to do all the natural / unaware shots which she just rocks at) and know that she’s going to come back with great pics. So when Su-Anne’s hair and make-up artist went over time I could happily ask Clairen to go and shoot Ettienne and his bestman and brother, Johan.

I love her shots. And I really love the high key shot of Su-Anne at the bottom.

One of the students on the Get Smarter photography course that I put together recently asked me what my thoughts on high key images are – he asked specifically about post processing to create a high key effect – and while you can have more control over just how high key your image will be in post I tend to prefer the look and feel of a high key shot created in camera . . . I think because a lot of the high key effects that I’ve seen also add a glow and a bit of blur . . . call me old fashioned. But, never the less, I really like Clarien’s last shot.

I photographed this wedding for Big Day Big Picture and I was so glad for the opportunity because Stefan and Robynne are one of the sweetest couples, eerrr I mean Robynne is the sweet one!( just kidding Stefan you are okay too)

I have been on maternity leave for 2 months and was super excited to shoot my first wedding of the season.  I met Stefan and Robynne at the beginning of the year and was so glad when Roberta from Big Day Big Picture phoned me to say they had booked me, because they truly are down to earth people.  I met up with them again 2 weeks before the wedding at the venue to get an idea of where everything was going to be held.

Robynne had a bit of a stressful time on the day because the electricity went off in the morning and didnt come back for most of the day.  She had to find somewhere to do her hair but when I arrived she was pretty relaxed, calm and ready!  I was really impressed because most brides are always running late and here she didnt even have electricity and managed to be ready long before the time, very impressive!(Definately some gold stars from me)  I had a lot of fun photographing the girls, they were all very sweet and helpful.

Christene and I then drove to the Backsberg Estate so I could get some pics of the guests and also the decor.  It was such a lovely outside setting and they could’nt have asked for a better day.  The ceremony was beautiful and very personal, definately alot of  love for the couple from family and friends.   Backsberg Estate is a really lovely venue for a wedding so I had plenty of spots to choose from for their photos.

Great speeches were made at the reception and I think Stefan had about 80% of the people in tears with his beautiful speech!  Thank you to the both of you for letting Christene and I be a part of you wedding day, definately a wedding we will remember:-)

www.joannemarkland.co.za/wordpress/

One of the main reasons that people struggle with aperture is the fact that the numbering system is backwards! So an f22, for example, is a hell of a lot smaller than an f5.6 or an f1.2.

It took me ages to learn why this numbering system was backwards – initially I just thought it was some strange quirk of history that had been handed down to us to make our lives difficult. This isn’t quite the case though. And while it isn’t even vaguely crucial that you remember why the numbering system is the way it is, it is quite interesting (yep, I’m a fan of QI):

The aperture value that is given on your camera expresses the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the aperture. I can hear some of you saying “Huh?” Simply put: if you have a 100mm lens with an opening that is 50mm in diameter then your aperture will be an f2 (100mm ÷ 50mm = 2). Similarly, if you have a 24mm lens with an aperture of f16 then the actual size of your aperture would be 1.5mm in diameter (24mm ÷ f16 = 1.5mm).
Understanding why it’s backwards though isn’t really going to help you remember that it is backwards – after all, we’ve been trained since we were knee high to know that a high number indicates a larger amount: four chocolate cakes is more than one chocolate cake.

With aperture of course, the opposite is true. An aperture of f11 is a lot smaller than an aperture of f1.8. An f1.8 aperture is going to let in a hell of a lot more light than an f11.

It goes without saying that the more you practice working in AV or M mode, the more you’ll find yourself just naturally remembering how the numbering system in aperture works.

Once you get the hang of this, then it’s time to start thinking about what it is that aperture does for your images – apart from just letting in extra light. Aperture controls your depth of field. Depth of field refers to the area in your image that is acceptably sharp or in focus. You get a narrow depth of field or an extensive depth of field. The easiest way to explain this is to show it.

In the top image below there is an extensive depth of field. This is caused by having a small aperture (in this instance an f14). In the bottom image there is a limited depth of field – notice how just the woman’s face is sharp? This is caused by having a large aperture (in this instance an f2.8).
So that’s aperture in a nut shell. Obviously it still interacts with shutter speed and ISO, but if you’re shooting on aperture priority mode (AV or A) now you know what your aperture is doing – it’s creating either an extensive dof (depth of field) or a limited dof, depending on whether you use a small aperture or a large aperture.
There are other things that affect depth of field – and a while back I wrote an article on that which you can read here.

So here’s Helen during her and Jon’s couple shoot. This was shot at Langverwacht - in their only partially tamed garden. When I took the shot I remember being absolutely in love with the shadow that Helen was casting. And at the time I was also interested in creating a dynamic range that was closer to the kind of dynamic range you can capture with black and white film (about three or four stops greater than digital). Obviously you can’t capture the same dynamic range – it’s just the way the camera sensor and the chemicals on film differ – but you can go for a really punchy image with strong contrast to get the same kind of feeling. The way to do this is to expose for your highlights in a scene with a large degree of contrast between light and dark. So put your camera on spot metering and base your exposure on how your light meter evaluates the brightest parts of your image.

If you look at my shot below, I’ve exposed for my highlights and then made the image brighter in post. So when I checked my original image there was no overexposure on the arm, but for some reason I pushed it in post. Who knows why. They say pregnancy and motherhood make you forgetful!!

In terms of making the shot look like a fairy tale – it’s the overgrown garden and those beautiful sprays of little flowers, together with the dirt road leading off into the background (wouldn’t it be awesome if those were wagon tracks and not tyre tracks) and Helen’s gorgeous long wedding dress.

Here are my shot settings:

Shooting Mode    Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed )    1/400
Av( Aperture Value )    3.5
Metering Mode    Spot Metering
ISO Speed    50
Lens    EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Focal Length    28.0mm

It took me a while to realise this: but I went to school with Lauren’s brother, Roy. And, for a period of time, lived in the same area as them – Woodbridge Island. So doing Lauren’s bridal shoot at her mom’s house on the island was a little nostalgic for me

When Sanet and I got there I couldn’t believe how calm Lauren was – especially given that the water had been turned off half way through the morning and she and her bridesmaids were all running late because they hadn’t had a chance to wash hair etc. I must admit though, that they were really luck to have Alan of Syzygy Hair Design as their hairdresser as he, in very professional style, worked his butt of to get everyone ready on time! It is a sad truism in the wedding industry that it is often hair and make-up that make a bride late but when you find someone who not only works to time, but can make up lost time as well . . . that’s pretty awesome.

By the time we were ready to leave Lauren looked gorgeous – actually she looked gorgeous even before they had finished – and we even had a little bit of time for some posed shots before we headed off to the wedding venue.

These pics come from a shoot I did for good friends of mine: Hannes and Clarien. Hannes, amongst a myriad of other things, is a sculptor and the pieces I shot for him are all the most incredible totems made from collected animal bones and wood. When I do the full post I’ll be sure and add some contact details for Hannes.

We decided to head down to the beach to do the shoot – the particular part of the beach that I suggested was Lagoon Beach in Milnerton, which has fantastic light, almost irrespective of what time of day it is. We went in the lateish afternoon, about an hour or two before golden hour. As I was shooting a press photographer (who’d just come back from assignment in Afghanistan) came by to watch what we were doing. Actually, a lot of people came by to watch what we were doing – Hannes’s work has that kind of effect on people. Anywho. The press photographer stood watching for a while and then asked me why I wasn’t waiting till golden hour to shoot because surely that’s always going to give you the best light? Well, interestingly, it’s only going to give you the best light if the light you’re after is soft and evenly spread. For Hannes’s work – which has a lot of fine, craggy detail, the soft light woudl’ve hidden all of that. Harder, more directional light will bring up all the dents and crags in the subject – great for a piece of sculpture, but not great for a portrait of someone who wants to look their best!

So, I guess this post is a bit of a reminder (to myself as well) that the best light is the light that best suits your purposes. Golden hour will provide soft, golden wrap around light that is fantastic for photographing people or certain landscapes, but it isn’t going to be ideal for every single thing that you shoot. In this instance having a harder, more directional light source helped to show the textured surface of the totems, as well as creating some drama with the more dramatic differences that this light creates between light and dark.

Here are my shoot settings. The first shot was at 1/400s, the second at 1/320s.

Shooting Mode    Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed )    1/ 400 and 1/320
Av( Aperture Value )    4.0
Metering Mode    Spot Metering
ISO Speed    50
Lens    EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Focal Length    24.0mm
Image Size    4368×2912
Image Quality    RAW
Flash    Off
White Balance Mode    Auto
AF Mode    AI Focus AF
Picture Style    Standard
Sharpness    5
Contrast    1
Saturation    1
Color tone    0
Color Space    sRGB

http://www.itch.co.za/?article=514

Thanks again to Sanet for assisting!