The topic for the third week on the Brooke Snow Advance Pro course has been “Interaction/building relationships” and although I’ve already posted these images on the Ekstrom photoshoot blog post, I’m posting my favourite 3 images from that shoot that depicts this week’s topic.

This was my favourite week of the course so far, and although I’ve been pretty good in the past with getting my clients to relax in front of the camera, I feel that the way Brooke does it was just awesome, and will get my photos to the “next level”.  I really think the family enjoyed what I did too, and the parents learnt a bit about their kids in the process

I didn’t do the “interview” with my clients very long in advance, I actually did it on the day.  On the hour long drive from the George airport to Mossel Bay I got to know them a bit… and that helped immensely.  I’m busy building my forms to use for future shoots, so that every client will get to fill out a questionaire so that their shoot is more meaningful.

In this shoot, the biggest thing it changed was the location.  The idea when they emailed me to book the shoot, was for the location to be on the beach at the Point.  It’s rocky.  It was a bit smelly because of the red bait, and there’s a restaurant close by with loads of people walking past all the time. It would have been a challenge, and I could see that Anita (the mom) wasn’t all that keen on the place when we chatted in the car.  So after a long conversation over lunch, and a few more suggestions, we decided on Little Brak River beach because they have a holiday home there and have spent many long summer days on the beach… perfect!! And the photos ended up being so more meaningful because we chose a location that meant something to the family.

We did the shoot at 5pm, and the sun was still a little too high for my liking, but it meant that I could spend longer on the shoot… so it worked out in the end.

As for the train station photos, that was not planned at all.  After the shoot we stopped there for a few drinks.  I took one look at the tracks and the old buildings and asked the girls if they were up for a few more photos I’m glad they agreed!!

After this, I’m determined not to use the same “old” locations for every shoot like I tend to do… my shoots are now going to be much more personalised.

Sean contacted me a few months ago to organise his family photoshoot.  He’d seen the photos that I’d taken of his friend JP, and decided that I needed to take his family photos too… what an honour!  It was the first time that I’d been flown to another part of the country for a lifestyle photoshoot!!

And oh my, what an amazing weekend it’s been.  I flew to George yesterday morning, and was met at the airport by Sean and his family, who drove me to Mossel Bay where they live.  I stayed in a gorgeous self catering place in Point Village, and was completely spoilt all weekend… but more about that in tomorrow’s blog post.

I met up with the family in the late afternoon yesterday to take advantage of the end of day light, and we drove to Little Brak beach for their photoshoot.  We chose that beach because of the expanse of sand, and because they have had very many special family days on that beach so it means a lot to them.  It was very very windy, but other than that the weather was absolutely perfect for the shoot! After the beach, they took me to the Vaaljapie restaurant in Little Brak which is in a disused railway station… and I couldn’t resist taking more photos there.

It was such an amazing weekend, and I cannot thank them enough for asking me to take these special photos.  I think they did enjoy the shoot, because on the way back to Mossel Bay after dinner, the kids, Lara and Haley were both quite sad that they weren’t going to see me on the Sunday… that’s a good sign

Oh I do love it when clients are fun and adventurous!! And this family has it in spades!!

Desere booked this photoshoot a few months ago and she was very specific about going to Newtown.  She wanted the urban vibe and mentioned using the graffiti walls… I was thrilled.

I had an absolute ball with this shoot… partly because I got to take photos where I’d been dreaming of going for ages… in the old Park station next to the Mandela bridge! Travis mentioned while we were at the graffiti walls that he’s always wanted to go into the station and he’d really love to have there photos done there, and I warned them that I didn’t think we’d be able to get in.  Every time I’d tried before, it was barricaded or swarming with security who’d turned me away.  Not this time though… the gate were open and even though we were being watched by police on the bridge (who were at a film set that was set up on the bridge), we had free reign

And it was SO SO SO worth the effort

He was stretching his dragon wings…  because he had a dragon hair style

LOL he was so cute here… trying to copy the expression of this “sad” man.  He couldn’t quite get the winking, so used his hand.  The reason his hand is on the floor is because he thought that’s where the claw would go

We had a big family Christmas like we usually do, but this year was slightly different because we spent Christmas Eve at my parent’s house with my brother’s family and then Christmas Day at my parent’s house without my brother’s family. LOL! Hope that makes some sense.

On Christmas Eve, Erin came to play for a bit at our house, and I used the opportunity to take a few photos of her for the family calendar for 2012…

And then it was time to go to my parent’s house…

And then it was Christmas morning, and surprisingly the kids only woke up at 6:30!! We had morning tea while opening Santa gifts…

And then it was breakfast time before heading for my parent’s again, for round 3 of opening gifts… where the clone suit from Elaine was the hit of the day…

And soon it was time to crack open the special champers…

And swim…

… and laze around…

And if you’re wondering what lenses I used… just my 50mm f1.4

I was so very lucky on Sunday afternoon for this photoshoot with the extended Spence family… the weather had been completely miserable all day, and it was actually drizzling when I arrived at the park, but thankfully the weather cleared and we had an awesome shoot!

It was quite critical that we got this shoot to happen this weekend, as the photos are going to be used as Christmas presents, so I’m quite grateful for the change in weather … and how cute are the 3 girls? And because these are for gifts, this is a BUMPER blog post so they can choose images for printing now… they won’t be able to wait until I deliver all the images.