Take Chances

You know that thing that terrifies you? That one thing you long to do? That step over the edge you're afraid to take coz it might mean plummeting to your death? Take it! Go ahead, I promise it'll be okay.

The first person I approached for what would be the start of "Dudes with Beards" and second dude I photographed.

A little over a year and a half ago I approached a dude about a photo; - Jason above was that dude. This was to be the start of what is now "Dudes with Beards". It was a little scary & uncomfortable, but I am currently 52 portraits in - and thus far no one has said no - and I have 48 more to go to finish it. I did this primarily to get over the crippling fear of approaching people. It's still there, but it's a little more manageable. I do however still make the mistake of not approaching people and I pretty much always regret it.

Then 8 months after "DWB" I wrote a letter to Zack Arias about interning for him. You can catch up on that, here, here AND on Zack's site; Meet the Intern. Even before I knew if he'd say yes, I quit my then day job to pursue photography as a career. It's probably the scariest thing I have ever done - next to getting on a plane and flying halfway across the world to work with Zack - and you know what? It's been exhilarating!

I've stepped over the edge and miraculously I have not yet fallen. It's as if there is this fog and I couldn't see the rest of the path and I wouldn't know it was there unless I took that one step further. The rest of it is still covered in fog, but the further I move along it, the more I realize that I can still keep going. I'm sure I'm going to reach a point where there will be another leap of faith needed and I'll hesitate, but ultimately I will take that step.

A thing I did recently was; I emailed the press contact for a band I absolutely love and whom I'll get to see on Halloween in New York and now I have a pass to photograph them. It was a shot in the dark, but you know what? It worked. And for a second I wasn't going to hit send, but I did and look what happened.

My journey in America is speeding to an end, so if you haven't yet checked it out you can do so by clicking on the above image. There has been no slow crawl, except for maybe the first week when everything was still new and unfamiliar.

Even the fact that I extended my stay by 2 months has not made it feel any longer. In a couple days I'll be headed to Seattle again to help Zack with some stuff he is doing for DEDPXL. Then October is pretty much pedal to the metal. I've got projects I need to finish and people I need to photograph and I have less than a month to do so. Here's to my last few weeks.

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Droughts & Floods

Things have been quiet on the regular blog front, but for more up to date news you can check out my America adventures here. I'm currently busy with a new post about my west coast trip with the Arias family.

I am also in the "throes" of commissioned work for a local SA band, but I am keeping it close to the chest for the time being. Those who know, know what I am talking about ;)

I posted a little sneak peek on my Instagram feed or you can just look at it right here. The album will be titled; "The Reigns", more than that I won't divulge, but I will be doing some posts about each piece as it develops and try to explain my thought process without giving too much away.

Droughts & Floods: Detail

So the idea behind the photos were to do in-camera multiple/double exposures, but after playing around with it and doing tests I found it to be a little trickier than I had anticipated and decided to change direction a little bit. The picture above might not even be the final image for this particular piece. I'm not too certain how happy I am with it yet, but for now it's a good start.

I need to find a few more models and shoot more plates. The plates will be used for the overlay/texture that I am adding to the images in post. This too is tricky, coz there are so many blending options and ways to go about it and move the texture around and warp it and it's driving me nuts, coz I keep second guessing, but that's just the usual path of my "creative" process :)

Girls, girls, girls

Right before I left South African shores my friend and awesome make-up artist (which I am not saying just because we are friends), Missy van Heerden called me up and wanted to know if I'd be keen to do one last shoot before I headed to America.

Of course I was. The past three times working with her have been a blast and we've gotten some great results together and she just manages to find good looking people as if they are in an isle at the grocery store. This time she mentioned that it would be a girl I'd be photographing which I have to admit made me slightly nervous. Girls are sometimes a little tricky and fussy when it comes to being photographed :) No offense ladies, you know these words to be true.

Tayla was a breeze to photograph though and I didn't need to coach her. She pulled it off with style, which is great for me coz I dunno how the heck to pose people. Mental note: Work on this.

Besides modeling, Tayla is in her final year of studying marketing at The University of Pretoria. She used to be a DJ on Tuks FM as well and she seems to be always on the go :)

There really isn't much more to add to this post though, as the photos speak for themselves. We had about an hour's worth of good light to work with, which was a little worrisome but I am very stoked with the results we got.

As always, Missy's work was rad and I want to thank her again for including me in her schemes :) I am planning on doing a shoot with her as soon as I am back in South Africa.

Enjoy the rest of the shoot.

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Photographing Loyiso Bala

Right now I am on the other side of the world sitting in the dining room of a photographer I admire very much. I never thought this would happen. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd hop on a plane to America.

I feel incredibly blessed. In a very short amount of time my life has been flip-turned, upside down (a little reference to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air if you didn't notice :P). And it's probably going to flip over a couple more times, but this is exactly what I asked for.

I was terrified and excited. I told a friend the other day I was scared and she told me, she wants to be scared again. I thought that was quite beautiful. It's not a fear for your life kinda scared; more a fear of the unknown and it's exhilarating :)

A month ago or so I mentioned that I was doing a shoot that I wasn't allowed to share until the end of May. Well, the time has come and I can finally talk about it.

At the beginning of April I received an email from a local record company (Merchant Music) who wanted me to photograph one of their artists. I was stoked. I've been making music in some way or form since I was 15 and even though my life has taken a different turn I will always love making music.

So, right before easter weekend I shot the local artist Loyiso Bala's latest CD/DVD combo cover and the inserts.

The cover image

He wanted a "backstage" look and feel for it, so by some luck we managed to get permission to shoot at the Pretoria State Theater and man was it awesome! It was also a little tricky! That place swallows light! Everything is black backstage. The "ceilings" are like 5 stories high and swallow massive steel doors. It's cavernous!

BTS shots by the awesome Ett Venter. Thanks dude.

We had 3 hours to play around and it was glorious. Loyiso is such a kind and friendly dude, just patiently waiting while my assistant and I set up for each next shot. Very chilled out even though right after the shoot he was hopping on a plane to Cape Town for a show, then back to Johannesburg and then off to Port Elizabeth for a stint of shows over the easter weekend. It's awesome being so passionate over something.

It was such a good shoot and I came away from it very happy and also managed to get out of a tricky situation with a police officer for being on my phone while driving to another shoot. I guess he was feeling generous with easter being a day away :)

Here are some more shots.

Thanks for reading