A lot of families and a lot of wedding couples ask me to shoot them on the beach – and the Blouberg beaches are a particular favourite. Which is hardly surprising I suppose since the view of Table Mountain in the distance is of course one of the most awesomely beautiful in the world. But it does pose a small technical problem in that I really don’t like shooting the same stuff over and over again. So the challenge whenever I go downBlouberg way is to try and reinvent the wheel. And believe me, it’s not that easy and I actually get a few butterflies in the car as I try and figure out what on earth I’m going to do. But on the morning of Candice and Jeremy’s engagement shoot, everything was crystal clear. Before I left the house I said to Helen and the kids: ‘Stuff it, they’re going into the water clothes and all.’ Of course, my ideas mean absolutely diddly if those on the other side of the lens don’t buy into my suggestions. If they don’t, well, I make another plan. If on the other hand they do, then the results usually speak for themselves. Luckily, Candide and Jeremy who had flown in from London to say howzit to the folks and tie up their wedding plans gave my ‘jump into the freezing water and roll around a bit while you try to look happy and in love’ suggestion the thumbs up. Thanks chaps, I hope we’ve kept your engagement pics fresh and exciting! See you in March…

So this is how it all began. A few yonks back I met Herman and Marilet and shot their engagement. Time ticked on and the next thing I shot their wedding. Now to say that their wedding was somewhat of a party is a complete understatement. But I’ll leave out the sordid details (like the dance-off for the garter) and skip straight to the tossing of the bouquet shall I? So there Marilet is on her chair and she flings the bouquet back into the masses. It’s a complete bunfight and the next thing, through sheer love, passion, guts & determination, single-mindedness – whatever you want to call it, up pops Candice, bouquet in hand – victory is hers! You had to actually be there to understand the enormity of this win – this bouquet toss was serious, gum-guard stuff. The next thing I know it’s October 2011 and I’m standing in front of a smiling Candice. But this time, the bouquet has been replaced by an oak (sorry, oke). And a bloody good oke to boot. Who goes by the handle of Christiaan. So if you ever wanted proof of what happens when you catch the bouquet, here it is in full-blown colour. And from what I’m led to believe, we’re in for one heck of a wedding. Bring it on! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves shall we – here are a few of their engagement pics…

The thing about engagement shoots is that you generally need to take your lead from the couple. If they want the beach, then off you go. The forrest, ditto, the mountain, you go. Garth and Lee wanted the city centre of Cape Town. Now I’m quite a brave chap and I (used to be able to run extremely quickly). However, I’ve slowed down a bit over the years and my Kung-Fu skills aren’t what they used to be. You see, we live in gorgeous, beautiful, amazing Suid Afrika, but still, let’s be honest, you never know quite when a bad dude with a fairly unlucky attitude is going to jump out of a dark alley and ask you very impolitely to hand over your valuables. And to my mind, the CBD at 7.00am on a Sunday morning is probably slighlty riskier than shooting on Clifton at 10.00am. Anyway, I did some early morning push-ups, zoned in on my defensive capabilities and met Garth and Lee outside the Castle. From there, we just sorted of winged it really – walking here and there, driving around a bit, chit-chatting about this and that, being very, very polite to potential baddies and taking our shots as, where and when they presented themselves. Lee had her entire wardrobe in the back of their car which made for some interesting change of clothe sessions as we went about our way. So there we are. Another Sunday morning successful survival course in the centre of town. I can’t wait to see Lee’s wedding dress, because this gal his styyyyyle…

So I’m sitting and waiting for the phone to ring (as one does as a wedding photographer in Cape Town during the winter), when all of a sudden Dylan calls. ‘Howzit Warren, Dylan here. We’re on our way down from Secunda, can we do our engagement shoot? We’d like to include a waterfall if possible.’ I look outside. It’s cold, rainy, wet, miserable and there are indeed waterfalls as I look up at the Constantiaberg Mountains. Way, way up in and amongst the mist. ‘Um, ja, okay, we can do a waterfall – if you’d like to freeze to death and come back down in a rescue helicopter.’ I thought I’d add that we may as well include a few buffalo, some rhino, a herd or two of elephants and a pride of lion into the engagement shoot as well. But I resisted the urge. It eventually took us 3 days to shift, shuffle and reschedule the shoot thanks to Cape Town’s somewhat temperamental weather patterns at this time of year. But eventually we got out into Newlands Forest (in near sub-zero conditions) and tried our very best to look as keen as possible. But as we all know, Cape Town is renowned for her four seasons in one day reputation and half an hour after later the sun came belting through and it was all actually rather pleasant. We discussed a whole heap of things as we walked along (including a gay dog that Dylan and Carla know – yes, you read it correctly – a gay dog). At one stage I could hardly walk I was laughing so much. But you probably had to be there to find it funny. I’ll be shooting their wedding at The Strandloper when things do eventually decide to thaw out. Maybe we’ll even try to find a waterfall somewhere on the West Coast in the middle of summer. Failing that there’s sure to be a rhino, or an elephant, or a giraffe…

]]> http://www.warrenwilliams.co.za/2011/08/dylan-and-carla/feed/ 0 http://www.warrenwilliams.co.za/2011/08/gerhard-and-jonelle/ http://www.warrenwilliams.co.za/2011/08/gerhard-and-jonelle/#comments Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:15:04 +0000 Warren http://www.warrenwilliams.co.za/?p=5524

So as the 2011 wedding season slowly starts to recede and everybody runs off to have babies and start families and all that sort of thing, it’s time to start looking ahead to the 2012 season and all the good stuff that it’s sure to bring. So let’s kick off with something a little different for a change. Gerhard and Jonelle decided to have their engagement shoot in the studio (which I was quite pleased about because it’s not exactly summer outside now is it?) As they arrived, Jonelle told me she was quite nervous (in fact, very nervous) to do the shoot. So I yawned, passed her a tissue, told her to dry her eyes and get changed. 5 minutes later we were into it with not a nerve in sight. The very talented, very marvellous, very smiley Jane Field also came over to do Jonelle’s make-up. Things JJ, you’re a legend! I decided to treat their photos a little differently to what I normally do so I hope you like them. Fingers crossed…

The one thing a lot of bride’s know about Izandi van Wyk is that she’s really passionate about weddings. That’s because she’s a very popular wedding planner that really does know a thing or two about putting a really good wedding day together. So I was really chuffed when she asked me to shoot her and Du Toit’s own wedding coming up in November. But first we had the small matter of an engagement shoot to get through. So we went in search of a farm, and, as luck would have it, an old mate of mine Marius has a farm on the outskirts of Riebeeck Kasteel. Now I haven’t seen Marius in some 15 years or so. But when we climbed out of the car on that dust road on his farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere, there was the same old Marius with his warm smile, big handshake and even bigger bear hug. I think it’s probably fair to say he’s the kind of good guy you read about in Wilbur Smith novels. So for the next 2 hours we walked around the farm with Marius as he introduced us to his dogs, cat, chickens, horses and sheep. I also discovered that Izandi can actually ride a horse bareback and Du Toit, well, Du Toit has some deep-seated need to be a model on the front of Men’s Health magazine. Bit of a male model is our Du Toit! When it was all over we went back into town and had a quick beer before very sadly heading back to the city lights. Marius, dankie jy – ons het dit werklik waar geniet. Here are a few of the photos then…

Taking photographs in a 50 knot South Easter is quite an interesting exercise. Firstly, trying to hold the camera still for long enough to simply take one photo is a bit of a challenge. Secondly, hair tends not really to stay in any one place for longer than a nanosecond. And thirdly, it’s quite tricky trying to balance on the edge of cliffs that have a very long drop to the distant ocean below. Craig, Simone and myself had originally planned to do their engagement shoot in Kalk Bay, but as I scouted things out a half hour or so before the shoot was due to start, it became very clear that Kalk Bay hadn’t put on it’s best face for the occasion. So off we went to Cape Point. With the wind simply ripping across the Peninsula, I was absolutely convinced that we’d be pretty much alone in the reserve. Wrooooong. The tourist buses were streaming in and it wasn’t long before we were surrounded by pretty much every nationality on earth all chattering away in many different languages. So we smiled very courteously as tourist after tourist managed to sneak into what certainly felt like shot after shot. Oh and of course we also had to content with a snake who wasn’t all that happy to see us. But hey, it was all good. And if you haven’t been to Cape Point recently, do yourself a favour and take a quiet Sunday morning drive through – it’s soul-inspiring.

Way back in the day (and I’m talking 1 June 1795 here), a squadron of British warships anchored in Simon’s Bay (today known as False Bay) and the commander of the Dutch East India Company’s forces at the Cape, Col R.J. Gordon, ordered that a new battery, named “Kyk in de pot” Battery, should be built on a hill overlooking what is now Granger Bay. Had you had the audacity to inform Colonel Gordon back then that the V&A Waterfront would one day be built on his doorstep he’d probably have had you keel-hauled for an hour or two. But things have changed somewhat since then and when I called to ask permission to um, shoot Herman and Jonel at Fort Wynyard, which is the Cape Garrison Artillery HQ in Cape Town, I was met with nothing but open arms, friendliness and pure professionalism. What a breath of fresh air. So off Herman, Jonel and myself went (oh, and Jane Field, whom I HIGHLY suggest you consider when looking for a make-up artist) and shoot we did. Fort Wynyard is awesome – very well kept (immaculate in fact) and the sense of history we experienced as we sauntered between the old guns and down the corridors and passages was quite unbelievable. I was expecting Herman to completely lose control and start going ‘rat-a-tat-tat-tat’ at one stage (but he managed to resist the urge) thank goodness. Here are a few of their photos…

What on earth must Jan van Riebeeck have thought back on 6 April 1652 as he first caught site of that great, grand old lady called Table Mountain. Let’s not beat around the bush here – Jan V was quite a hard bugger. Keel-hauling the odd sailor across Table Bay was quite the norm for our Jan you know. But surely he must have dropped his sniffing tobacco overboard as the Table Cloth just kept on rolling down and down and down. Of course, the problem Jan would have had was the distinct lack of a cable car. Which Jon and Joanne and myself did have. So we used it to our benefit and last Thursday, summited in just over 5 minutes flat (revolving cable car floor and all). Most of us Capetonians have been up and down the mountain quite a few times in our lives. But I kid you not, last Thursday offered us the absolute finest and most spectacular views I have ever witnessed from above the city. It was almost as if God had said: ‘Tell you what chaps, it’s you’re engagement shoot so I’ll give you an early Valentine’s Day present and make sure everything is laid on just perfectly.’ In fact, I’m convinced that’s what happened. So Jon and Jo, Happy Valentine’s Day and see you in two weeks time for that there them wedding in Stellenbosch.

If you’ve never heard of Gympie Street in Woodstock, Google it and I’m sure a certain picture will begin to emerge. It has a very interesting history behind it. Mainly of guns, gangs, murders – you know, just normal everyday blood and guts sort of stuff. I reckon some of the fellows who hang out there would probably scare the living wits out of any other gang in the world. So Ash and Gren (whose wedding I’m shooting next month) and myself decided we may as well take a quiet Sunday afternoon stroll (unarmed) into one of Cape Town’s most notorious places for scaring yourself silly and probably leaving zipped up in a body bag in the back of an ambulance. To be quite honest, some of it was a bit disturbing because we saw one or two things that made you realise that it was relatively to extremely important to keep looking over your shoulder. But hey, sometimes you do have to live on the edge and test yourself. I’m really glad we went for it because I think we got one heck of a result as far as engagement shoots go. I hope you agree.

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