music video stills.

Michele Krummeck is a local artist and is putting together an album and creating some music video's. I was invited to take the stills on set for the week of shooting 3 different videos. Was great fun and good to be on set again. these are a small portion of the images I took. If you want to see more you can visit my facebook spot... http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4075062&id=603950489#/album.php?aid=156546&id=603950489&ref=nf

little Emi and the 1.8 lens!

So, firstly, Emi is the lovely little daughter of good friends of ours. She is soooo chilled and very cute! We went to visit them the other morning and I took my camera and new little lens along to snap some pics. its a canon 50mm 1.8 lens, so considering the camera i was using was not a full frame camera, the lens equals about an 80mm lens. The 1.8 depth of field is fantastic and really fast and the sharpness is brilliant! Considering it only cost me R1100, its an absolute bargain lens!! I heard the pro's call it plastic fantastic!!

Anyway, below are a few pics I took. :)

Ilana & Abraham's wedding

Ilana & Abraham's wedding was one of the most memorable we have photographed, they are a stunning couple full of love and purity. Photographing them was an absolute pleasure, easy going, good looking, and they definitely didn't need to be asked to show affection!! there is a lavender field on the way to Franschoek where we photographed Ilana and her bridesmaids before the ceremony and then the bridal party after the ceremony!! Beware the beautiful allure of an expansive and lilac coloured lavender field, below the beauty lies an evil creature,...well, thorns, really irritating sore thorns that seemed to get in everywhere!!! Ilana and her bridesmaids took it in their stride and picked them all off every now and then and just enjoyed the moment!! what a pleasure!!! Anyway, below are a few images from the ones we took.

good old film!!

So digital has taken over and everyone has a digital camera and therefore everyone is a photographer. What happened to film? Of course, those knowledgeable will know film is definitely not dead but very much alive and lots of people still prefer using film because of the fantastic quality it has. So over the past year we have shot one or two rolls of film and hung on to the film canisters, undeveloped, waiting to one day take a trip to Orms in Cape Town and get them developed.

The images were shot on two different camera's. My wife uses her Holga with medium format film and I have been using a trusty old Canon SLR with a wonderful 50mm 1.8 lens. quite enjoyable having to wind the film on after every shot and not looking at the back of the camera to see how the shot has come out, really something special about that!! Film is great to work with but doesn't offer the quick instant ability of digital.

Anyway, these are a few of the images that we took, we got them scanned and then did a little post production on them in photoshop, not much tho, just a few levels etc.


In a park in New Zealand. Holga, meduium format film.

Lilly-ann in the park

me, taken by Jenna-lea, on strand beach, B/W film.

Jenna-lea, colour slide fim, 1.8 50mm lens

Graham Sayer, colour slide film, 50mm 1.8 lens. the depth
of field you get out of this lens is great!!

Jenna-lea in Satori Pizzeria in Kalk Bay, great place, great
pizza, the light wasnt great inside but the 1.8 lens enabled
this movie set like lighting.

once again, that depth of field I get from this 1.8 lens is
awesome, loving it.

We will definitely be taking more film photo's, so will post
them up the next time we get them developed!!

ciao

let the sun shine in...

I love shooting into the sun, it creates such an incredible mood and atmosphere!! It is tricky and I'm still learning. I 2nd shot at a wedding recently and we went to camps bay beach as the sun was setting to do the bride and groom photo's. Cindy and David were fantastic, she had no problems with running in the water and having fun!! they were great to photograph. while shanna was shooting the main photo's I was shooting in the background, getting creative. I got our my favourite lens, canon 70-200 L f4 lens and put my camera on manual and my lens on manual focus and starting playing, pushing and pulling focus, under and over exposing shooting directly into the setting sun. was great fun. These are 3 of the images I got out of it. 

constructive criticism...

I find myself often frustrated with the niceties afforded us photographers by the viewers of our work. I have been looking at many sites and seen many photographers work displayed for all to marvel at, some of it great, some of it poor. I dont believe anyone has a true right to say a photograph is bad!! gosh, how could they??!! We would crall into our darkroom and never emerge!! I do feel however that there is plenty of space to be filled in the area of constructive critisism on photo commentary.

"nice shot", "well captured", "well done", so those looking for the thumbs up on their photography really feel good about themselves and carry on photographing. where is the constructive criticism? we are all learning and learning from each other no matter how experienced or inexperienced we are! I would love to see more comments where people get a little obnoxious! stir the pot a little, throw in your ideas, why dont you like the shot, what would you change? any ideas on how to improve that shot? be real about it, making photograph comments should be less about buttering up the work we see before us and more about commending it and then giving the photographer some direction as to how he or she is able to do it better, or make it more interesting. Even a cliched sunset can look even better and more original and interesting after hearing a few peoples crits and comments. I have found by studying photography and doing a bit of lecturing, a student grows so much faster when people are open and are able to justify why they feel a certain way about their image.

Its tough taking a hit for something you're proud of, but thats how we learn best! if someone smacks your work down just for the sake of it then yeah, stuff them too, but if they justify their comments and after picking your ego off the floor you realise that they may have a point, then good, you have learnt, and your photography will be better off for it. If you want a positive response and the "oh thats nice" comment, then take it to your gran.

the begining of kellandetc blog...dum dum daaa

So, this is the spot where we will post interesting stuff about what we have been up to! road trips, adventures, weddings, photography shoots, etc etc etc....

So for now here are some pictures of us, it was our first anniversary, so Jenna-lea put on her stunnig wedding dress and we got in the car and road tripped and photographed wherever the road took us!!