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.
 

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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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Metamorphosis (Part 2)

I suppose I could have said everything I wanted to in one post, but I know I sometimes give up halfway through reading something if I don't find it interesting and I'm not sure how interesting my life is to other people.

So besides all the stuff that I mentioned in Part 1, here, there is even more happening and that has happened. My life is changing at a 1000 miles an hour.

As you know I have plans for world domination *insert evil laughter*. Seriously though, I am planning on going to America which you can read about here and here. That being said. Three weeks ago (Monday; March 3rd) I received a reply from Zack reading: "So sorry getting back to you late. C'mon. I don't know what we'll do with you when you get here but we'll figure it out when you do. We'll take part in your adventure"!

How f**ing exciting is that?! Man!

I have to admit though, I had some doubts for a while, because of an opportunity arising here. I have in the meantime prayed about it and I spoke to some friends and that has put things into perspective for me in a big way.

So, it looks like I might be going to America soon if I'm lucky and things work out for me.

Anyway, let me move on. Another awesome thing I did, was a shoot for local acoustic guitar duo CH2. These guys can flippen shred, but not in the sense of how metal guitarists do (well, they could probably do that too), but they play a mix of classical, flamenco and latin influenced instrumental music. We shot in studio - something I wasn't too keen on at first, coz I like doing environmental/on location type shoots, but I am really happy with the results.

They also had a make-up artist come in and man; what a difference that makes. So rad to have worked with Melissa. We met years ago and now our paths crossed again to make something rad. Go check out her work here.

Here are a few images from that shoot.

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