Conceptual Storytelling Photography Workshop

It's finally here!
After months of talking and planning and gathering together a team of people, I am proud to announce that along with my friend (and the mastermind behind this idea) Jeanne Abrahams, I will be hosting a conceptual storytelling workshop in Pretoria on the 4th of October.

Watch the video below for all the information and then read further.

Head on over to the sign-up page: Fantasy/Fairytale Workshop

The aim of this workshop is to teach you how you can put together a small team of people with little to no budget and create beautiful conceptual images with story and narrative. You'll learn how to construct a narrative through lighting, posing and leading your subject into what your final vision is. Beautifully lit and styled and we'll be there to help you along every step of the way.

For this we've teamed up with the lovely actress and our model for the workshop Odelle de Wet, whom you may know from Isidingo, Binnelanders, 7de Laan and recently the international show, Blood Drive.

Our Make-up artist is Morné Marx from Kohl Make-up Academy in Pretoria who's a well known name in the entertainment industry and also did the make-up for the first teaser image at the top of the post.

We've got Fujifilm South Africa onboard and you'll get to see the Fujifilm GFX50 medium format camera in action.
AtPhoto will also be hosting an exhibition of the images the attendees made at the end of October and will cover the printing costs for the evening.
Outdoorphoto has also been kind enough to supply us with some lighting gear for the workshop.

Some final details in case you missed it.

1. Date: 4 October 2017
2. Venue: To be confirmed when attendees sign-up
3. Time: 9:00AM to 18:00PM
4. Cost: R6 000 (if you sign-up within the next two weeks you'll only pay R5000)
5. Food and drinks will be provided on the day.

PLEASE NOTE: Cancellation policy. We have to unfortunately be very strict, because of past issues where folks signed up and then pulled out last minute. That being said, if you cancel within two weeks of the workshop you will be refunded in full. Any time after that we will not give a refund unless you can fill your slot.

Pietà

So, here it is! The BIG reveal. The image that was a year in the making. I am super proud of this photo and very thankful to everyone that helped make it.

Right before I went to the USA last year to intern with Zack I met up with a friend of mine who was starting a small independent design company called "Brother Lawrence". We (myself, him, his partner in the company and my stylist friend Pierre) sat down and started tossing ideas around and so we eventually came up with the idea to recreate Michelangelo's Pietà sculpture as a photograph.

The thing that especially got us hooked on the idea is that he is a white Afrikaans dude and she is a black Basotho girl and with race always looming over us we set out to make the image. And what do you want to do when you make art? You want people to talk and ask questions and be confused/angry/curious/happy. Why did this person create this? What are they saying? Well, we weren't trying to "say" anything. We just wanted to make a cool image for them and perhaps stoke the fire a bit? ;)

A week before I left we were scrambling to arrange everything for the shoot, but then I decided it was too rushed. None of us were ready, hell; I wasn't ready. The image needed some finesse and a little more knowledge and expertise, so I promised to make the image when I got back and had learned from the master. (Read: yes, you Zack :D).

So, off I went to America, always keeping that image in the back of my mind, asking Zack's advice. Figuring out how I was going to light it. How would I position my subjects and on and on it went. I finally came back and felt I was ready to shoot it, but then tragedy. The company had decided to disband and both move on to other things. I still wanted to make that image, so we regrouped and planned and looked for a model to accompany Gerhard. A few months passed and after tons of admin, emails, wardrobe sourcing we got together on a Saturday and made something awesome (at least I think it's awesome).

I made this photo with friends and with the help of friends and a stranger or two and I am very proud of what I (read: we) made.

Thank you to Pierre du Plessis for the styling and wardrobe sourcing - I helped here as well :P. Thank you Gerhard van Wyk and Karabo Poppy for meeting with me and Pierre and helping us with the concept. Thank you Ett Venter for assisting me (and providing the BTS images) on the shoot and helping me setup 3 hours beforehand and testing the light so that the models didn't have to sit around and wait. Thank you Laura Jane for putting me in touch with the make-up artist Courtney Chadwick. Courtney, did make-up for a shoot in the morning, had a wedding after that and then rushed through to come and help me out. What a legend. Thank you to Bianca Koyabe the beautiful model. You are a pro and your expertise got us all home quicker than I ever could have imagined. Gerhard, your "expertise" in being the dead soldier was also great ;)

And lastly I want to thank Zack Arias for helping me wrap my head around lighting this photo. It's probably the most involved lighting setup I have ever used on a shoot and I could not have done it without your advice and guidance.

Thanks for reading

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Editors Note: I was made aware last night, that I might just get that fire started. Like I said; race is still a big issue, especially in South Africa and this might be a bit of a grey area, but I will stand by this image. I am proud of this image.

The Spanish Dancer

February was a really busy month for me. I photographed fourteen portraits for my “Dudes with Beards” project and did 18 shoots in total. 3 of those were paying gigs and only one of those was really worth my time to be honest, but hey. Bills need to be paid right?

Did I reach my goal of shooting the final four images for my portfolio that I have been waxing lyrical about? Well; no. Things didn't work out that way and that’s okay. I did however finish one of those shoots and that is what I'm sharing today.

One of the concepts I came up with was photographing a Spanish Dancer and along with my good friend and awesome stylist, Pierre du Plessis, we refined it a little and set a date to go make some photos in Pretoria’s city center. Ultimately I wanted to shoot it in Johannesburg’s CBD, but scouting would’ve taken two trips and loads of gas money, so I decided to keep it close to home. The subject was my good friend and make-up artist (that has been partnering up with me for a while now), Missy van Heerden.

Spanish Dancing has been a passion of hers for 17 years. That’s a long damn time and I am super grateful she was on board for this shoot. So she organized some traditional dresses from her dancing instructor (thank you, whomever you are) that were 50 plus years old and all from Spain and we loaded up my car and made our way into the city.

I want to thank both Pierre & Missy for their time & effort. Pierre who played assistant as well as stylist, all whilst battling a summer cold and Missy for just effing WORKING it on the day with heavy dresses and the damn hot sun.

Anyway, I have blabbered long enough. Please enjoy the photos.
 

Thanks for reading

Create. Fail. Retry.

Are you sitting down? Are you ready for what I am about to tell you? My VISA application to the United States has been approved. It's been quite a ride to get to this point, but I would not change it for anything. It has been a while since my last post and so much has happened and as you well know by now, I only post when there's something to talk about. So that is pretty damn exciting. Now to book plane tickets and then come June I'll hop on a plane and be there for a couple of months.

Moving on.

It's been a little more than a month since I quit my day job. I have since moved out of my apartment and moved in with a really good friend for the time being. Other than that I have been busy and what a blessing it is to be busy with something you love doing. I had to play catch up a little after the move, coz that threw things on its head, but I'm on top of things again; for the most part anyway :)

I've shot some cool stuff in the last week or so and I have a bunch of cool shoots lined up as well. Some for clients and some personal work. One shoot I am sharing here today and the other one I have to hold off on until the end of May, but I am damn excited to show you all. There's also a bunch of new work up on the site so go check out the portrait section here and there are two new bearded dudes as well. I'd hoped to be at 50 by now, but I've been kept busy with other things.

It's damn exciting to create new work, but with that comes failure (sometimes; a lot of the time).

I spoke to my friend a couple nights ago after he had shot a wedding and he wasn't stoked about it. He said there were moments where he doubted his own abilities, just coz of stupid little things going wrong, things that shouldn't go wrong, but for some reason just do. I've had those days and we all do. From pro's to amateurs to beginners. Days where just nothing seems to be going right. Whether it's gear failing or the light being crap or the client being difficult to work with or whatever other reason. You WILL have days like that. It happens and it's okay. You've tried to create something, you've failed, now you have to admit that failure; stare it in its stupid face and then retry.

It's not always going to be easy, in fact it hardly ever is, but when that next shoot goes amazing you are on top of the world again and it seems like nothing can kick your ass; right up to the moment where things just aren't working out and then the cycle starts all over again.

Pick yourself up and try again.

Here are some photos from my latest shoot I did. The awesome Melissa van Heerden who did the make-up for my CH2 shoot here, organized it and I am super happy with the shots and look forward to working with her more in the near future, so if you have a shoot and need make-up done get in touch with her here.

Here are the shots and as always; thanks for reading.