This is actually yesterday’s photo of the day, myself and Sarah my assistant did Nick and Janine’s wedding at the beautiful Bartholomeus Klip Farm Guesthouse in Hermon (Western Cape)

We ended up returning home much later than I had originally anticipated (it was a great wedding!) so I put potd on the back burner.

I often say sunsets are a dime a dozen, not because they are not stunning but precisely the opposite, because they are ordinarily stunning.

Every now and again you get the exception, the Oscar winning sunset!

No wonder Cape Town is such a popular tourist destination, I live here but there are times that seeing views like this feel like the first time!

Any landscape photographer will tell you that you get perfect days for photos, where everything seems brighter, clearer, better!

I had just done a couple shoot with Dion and Bianca and was on my way back to the Radisson Hotel for the reception, we had chosen to go over the neck rather than beachside because of the traffic.

I noticed just how crisp and clear camps bay and the 12 apostles were…. I slammed on breaks and I’m sure my assistant (Sarah) must have wondered what the heck was wrong…

If there is one piece of advice I can give any aspiring photographer, – “Shoot it now! The chances of you getting the same shot another time is remote”

Here are a few more aerial photos taken from different angles of the Greenpoint Soccer 2010 stadium here in Cape Town, the post I did recently is the perfect angle including Table Mountain in the background but it’s nice to see it from different angles as well, it is impressive!!

There is a great sunset photo of the Soccer Stadium near completion and another of the beginning construction here

On Friday I was scheduled by one of my clients to get a few aerial photos of the 2010 Greenpoint soccer stadium, it ended up getting aborted only 5 or so K’m’s into the flight because of high winds! I was actually very grateful, becase it was hazy and the mountain was covered in cloud, something my client did not want!

We rescheduled for Sunday 7am! Yeah I know it’s not that early but one thing I’m not is good at mornings, especially after doing an 8 hour wedding the night before (yeah yeah I do want some cheese with that wine if you are offering )

Well after the shock of an early morning shower it turned out to be the best possible weather, windless and clear clear clear! Yes!!!!

For another great image of our stadium have a look here…

Can’t wait for the holidays! I was working on a Katamaran for MTN when I took this postcard shot of Cape Town’s famous Clifton 4th Beach, don’t be fooled by that inviting water it’s freeeezing even on the hottest of days!!

For the past few weeks I’ve wanted to get a shot of the Greenpoint Stadium before it looked “too” completed. I’d been told that apart from a helicopter, Signal Hill was the perfect spot but on Sunday I was driving down High Level road when I looked right and saw this magnificent view!

I liked the fact that the surrounding buildings were beginning to dwarf in the presence of this sure to be magnificent stadium, so I parked up a side road and scrambled for the shot before it got too dark!

I like many others were sceptical as to whether we would be prepared for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, seeing this beast emerge has all but obliterated any doubt to oblivion!

The shot below was taken when work first began the stadium, it was taken from the Clock Tower at the waterfront in March 2008, that’s a lot of progress in just over a year!! Well done South Africa!!

Over the weekend I shot Sam and Siobhan’s wedding at Tala Game Reserve in Durban. Actually Tala is like a big open zoo more than a game reserve, I’ve been up to the Kruger Park a number of times, on game drives there is always a tracker (those guys are amazing) and you don’t bump into anything unless you are lucky! At Tala the animals are literally on your doorstep, I mean literally! There I was brushing my teeth looking out the window to rhino (3 of them), wildebeest, impala (of course!) and a couple of other antelope.

Even better Siobhan and Sam invited me to come a day early as their guest (I love my job!!) It was a small wedding with only 35 invited guests which meant I got to know everyone by name at the end of the stay

One of Tala’s signature wedding photos at the moment is of a bride and groom kissing with a giraffe in the background (great shot!), I really wanted to do a variation on that with a giraffe as well, actually I wanted to do one with rhino but the the last thing I needed was to turn the photo shoot into a reality shoot! Although the bride and groom with a 2 tonne rhino close on their heels would make for quite a good shot… hmmmmm next time perhaps

Did I say the animals were on the doorstep?!?! I’m convinced Giraffe secretly live in underground den’s scurrying away at the site of a wedding couple with a photographer, well at least that’s what happened to us on the day, go figure because the night before we saw 7 of them!! I was told there is no such thing as a giraffe den.. I beg to differ! They are 3 meters tall… how well can that camouflage actually work!! (There is a reason I failed game ranger school!)

In the end we made the call to simply shoot as we went, if the giraffe’s came out of their dens then so be it

When we got back there were Zulu dancers waiting for the Sam and Siobhan, the guests were also surprised by them… well not surprised as in “look over your shoulder and there is a Zulu warrior with a massive spear behind me eeeeep!!!” more like oh look Zulu dancers … goody!!

I love watching these guys, and it often goes through my head as to just how scary it must have been living your life as a British soldier with a few thousand of these guys bearing down on you, all of them in very bad moods!

[View with PicLens]

A few weeks ago I went out with friends in Camps bay, it was dusk and the light was great, since I had my camera in the car the obvious thing to do was take a few photos

The amazing splash of colour below is a shot of the super trendy Café Caprice.

A few days ago I did a job at the Sabi Sabi Bush Lodge, a private game reserve in the Kruger National park. While out on a game drive we came across this massive male leopard, he had taken an impala down and dragged it up a tree, they do this so other animals such as Hyena and Lion don’t steal their kills.

The strength of these animals is astounding and the opinion seems to be shared that pound for pound they are the strongest of the big cats. In the shot below he had come down for a rest but there were two hyena skulking around hoping to get something for themselves. Although there was no way they could get to the food they were still making the leopard a bit twitchy!

Technical info:
Canon 5D MII, 70-200 (Non IS) – 200mm, f2.8, 1/40th, ISO6400 (Yes a massive 6400!!)

I’m not a landscape photographer at all but it does amaze me how every now and again a landscape photo I’ve shot just seems to “pop” in spite of me

I got this shot at Jeff and Amanda’s wedding recently, it was totally dark at the time so I pushed the ISO up to 1000 and exposed for 30 seconds at f4. The trick about a shot like this is to ensure that you shoot from a tripod and mess around with your manual settings. Another important factor is to shoot when the sky and the land are about the same “brightness” as far as exposure goes, usually quite a while after the sun has dropped. (Quite a while??? I told you I’m not a landscape photographer!)

Since the shot was done when it was dark I needed to do a bit of HDR editing to get it to look good, 5 minutes in Lightroom and viola!!