So this week is Week 2 of the Brooke Snow Advanced Pro photography course that I’m busy doing, and this week’s assignment was about posing.

Because my family shoot that I had booked for Sunday afternoon was cancelled, I asked my sister to meet me in the veld (same location as last week) for a quick shoot after work today.  I’m thrilled with the results.

For my preparation, I compiled a rough pose list as per the instructions… rough because I have a list of inspirational images anyway on Pinterest, so I just looked for a few more to supplement it.  That wasn’t new to me, I tend to prepare like that with all my shoots, especially when I’m shooting in an environment that I’m unfamiliar with.  No, I don’t look at images from that particular location, but I have a rough idea from my pose list what I’m going to be aiming for.

What also wasn’t new to me, was “working the pose”.  I could be better at it though, so this weekend I really worked on that… and it showed in the results of the boudoir shoot I did on Sunday (that you can’t see yet), and with today’s shoot.  It made such a difference.

One thing that I LOVED in this week’s tutorials were the posing guides, and Brookes “rules” for posing.  I know them instinctively, and I’ve read them… but the videos just hit home, and there were some small adjustments that I made this weekend as a result that’s made a huge difference.  I like the images more… and because of that, I really really struggled to only choose 3 for today’s assignment.

So, for today’s assignment results, I kept Elaine in the same spot.  She really didn’t move much at all, I just changed where she looked and what she did with her arms and legs.  One thing that did change during the shoot was the sun… I was ecstatic when the clouds moved while I was busy and I got the beautiful golden summer light (it was about 5:30pm)

The rest of my favourites from the session can be found in an album on Facebook

If you follow my blog, you’d know that my aim this year is to stretch myself with my photography.  So, with that in mind, I’ve signed up for an online advanced Lifestyle photography class for the next month.  It’s being run by Brooke Snow in the US, and a week into the course I’m loving the content.  Not only is her content about the topic for the week, but she’s added a whole host of things to help run a photography business.  It’s always fantastic to learn from other successful photographers.

Anyhoo, the assignments have to be posted on our blogs, and this post is my first submission .  The aim of this week was to do a photoshoot in a location that you’d never used before, and to create a shot list and really work the location.

Because I didn’t have a portrait shoot booked for the weekend, I used my boys as this week’s subjects (Nicole, your shoot on Sunday afternoon will be including my topic for the next week’s assignment ).

As for the location, I chose a narrow strip of veld (greenbelt) that’s a few blocks away from our house.  We walk the dogs along the pathways, and I’ve been dying to have a photoshoot there in the late afternoon with the sun in the long grasses.  Thankfully the boys were keen (I’ve given them a bit of a posing break in the last few weeks), and we stopped there on the way home this evening.

We’ve had a LOT of rain lately, and I didn’t realise how marshy the land was.  The municipality had cut the grass along the river so that residents can walk their dogs easily, but thankfully they haven’t cut the rest of the long grass yet.  My plan was to get the kids into the long grass and take photos of them with the sun glinting off the tips of the grasses.  That didn’t work all that well because it was quite cloudy.  And I was going to get them to lie in the grass… which they refused to do because the ground was actually very wet.  So instead I had to make other plans. With the grass under the trees being so short for a change, I discovered how gorgeous the line of willow trees was, and used that.  Then Connor got bored and sat on a log… and I snapped away.  Then they found some dandelions and those are always fun

I’m only allowed to choose 3 images though… so here are my favourites…

* My Every Day project is my 2012 year-long project reflecting my life and things around me

Suren and Pooja got married yesterday.  It was an epic occasion, that started with their wedding ceremony at the Hindu temple in Lenasia South and ended with a reception at the Sandton Sun.

Suren and Pooja contacted me a few months ago at work, after someone in the office had told them that I do photography. I’ve been really looking forward to the wedding since then. It was the first time I’d taken photos in a temple… and then as the plans started unfolding I got more and more excited about it.
You see, Pooja was in the dark about part of the day. She thought we were going to do their creative shoot in Newtown… after she’d got her hair and make-up redone and she was in her evening outfit. Well, that was not to be. Suren’s friend had contacted him a few weeks ago, and offered the use of a helicopter to transport them from Lenasia to Sandton. So, between Suren, Shaun, the MC Carla and myself, the plans were changed.

As a surprise for Pooja, the helicopter arrived in the veld close to the lunch venue, and Shaun and his co-pilot Wessel, flew them and me to the top of a mountain in the Magaliesburg for their creative shoot. And then it zooted us to Sandton, where we were met by a driver from the hotel who took us to Sandton Sun for a quick change before the evening reception.

My second shooter for the day was Alana Meyer, who had the important job of capturing the heli leaving Lenasia with us on board.

But first, I need to show you the photos from the 2 hour ceremony at the most incredible temple.

I love the look that I caught Suren and Pooja sharing as they waited outside the temple.

Considering Joburg is experiencing a heatwave at the moment, the fire made the temple unbearably hot, and Suren must’ve been baking in his velvet jacket.

I took this photo while Suren and Pooja were circling the fire

Suren had to put toe rings on her feet

and then they exchanged their garlands…

And they played some kind of cute fishing game with the guru’s ruby ring…

… before exchanging rings

And then after a stunningly delicious lunch, it was time for the helicopter to arrive, and Pooja was still none the wiser.  She did however start asking a few questions when Suren was waiting outside with his friends… but he still didn’t say a word.  And it was only after the helicopter really came close that she realised something was happening.  But it took quite some time before she realised what was going to happen… and in fact, how many people kept it a secret from her.

LOVED that we even got flight tickets!

As soon as we were up in the air, Pooja started taking photos and BBM’ing her friends

and after about 20 minutes, we landed on top of the mountain…

It was such an incredible experience and so special for me too… a helicopter ride to take photos of a city was on my Bucket List… so I got to tick something off in the process

We landed at Inanda on the edge of the polo field, and the driver came up in his big black Merc with tinted windows to take us to the hotel.  It was so funny to watch the other people at Inanda trying to peer in the windows to see who had arrived in such style!!

As soon as we got back to Sandton Sun, Carla whisked Pooja off to the hair salon to have her hair done for the evening

There are a few more images from the wedding and the reception on Facebook, and if you were a guest at the wedding, you can tag yourselves in the images there when you “like” the page

You have to get out of your comfort zone to experience magnificence. And that’s exactly what happened yesterday morning.

A few weeks ago on Twitter, a local photographer asked where he could get a good view of the sun rising over Johannesburg.  I’d been to the top of the Melville Koppies on a photowalk a few months ago, and guessed that would be a good spot. Well, to cut a long story short, 4 of us met yesterday morning before dawn to climb up the hill and watch the sun rise.  It didn’t rise in exactly the right spot, but it was magnificent anyway!

And yes, I voluntarily woke up at 4:15am to get to Henti’s house by 5am in order to get to the meeting place by 5:40am.

It was a good outing for my soul

I think I’m going to sell these as prints and canvases actually, that’s how much I like them.  There are also a few more photos in a Facebook album

Remember those photos of Bradley that I posted a few days ago?  Well, here are the other images I took that afternoon… this time of the Huskies and the plants… all with the 50mm f1.4 at Walkhaven (the dog park in Honeydew where we take the huskies for long walks).

And yes, this image of Kitara looking rather dark grey instead of white and black is actually what she looked like… between the burnt veld and the black mud in the swamp the dogs were FILTHY by the end of the trip.