Golden Wedding Anniversary Studio Shoot

I was recently honoured to be able to photograph Val and Sammy Sampson on the occasion of their 50th Wedding Anniversary. What a wonderful achievement for this lovely couple.

I asked the couple to share a few words of their story with me.

Val and Sammy were living in Gwelo, then Rhodesia when they met in 1966. Sam was in the Royal Rhodesian Air Force and Val was a nurse. On a social date with another air force guy at their sports club, Val saw Sammy entertaining a crowd with his jokes. He  later came across and introduced himself to Val and that was it,  fireworks! They married on 29.06.1968 in Salisbury and have been blessed with a beautiful family. They later opened a pet shop and built a fish hatchery where Sam bred tropical fish, suppling not only V & S Pets, but also other pet shops throughout the country. He became a judge at the fish club there too.   Sadly water rationing prevented them from continuing with the breeding so they then moved to Kariba with their cabin cruiser boat where they caught mainly Tiger fish and Val learnt to pickle it for the table. It was on Lake Kariba with its wild beauty that they learnt to really appreciate nature. With 2 of their children being schooled in S.A. they decided to move to Johannesburg end of 1984. 

Some wise words from the couple "Being close does not always prove that agreements are met,  but an open relationship and a good sense of humour go a long way to ones happiness and  appreciation of one another"

52 years later and they are still together. Time spent with each other right now is very precious as one cannot predict the future.

The lovely couple holding a canvas of an image from their wedding day.

King and Queen

Creative Lighting Portraiture

A photographer is traditionally taught to expose their subject and the backgound correctly so that the entire image has no over or underexposed areas. When they join their local photography club their images are generally judged according to these technical aspects and should areas be not correctly exposed, their images are marked down. Yes, these images are nice but the creativity is sometimes stifled. 

I have been recently teaching photographers to break out of this mold and to be creative with their images. This includes using only the natural available light and lo and behold, to also shoot into the light. This technique will most definitely render their images technically incorrect in club terms but oh wow, the results can be very different and creative. The subject is wrapped with light, often causing a haze and some very warm colours. 

Exposure is achieved  by exposing for the subjects and then the backgrounds would in most cases be overexposed. Wide apertures are used to cause the light to be more washy as well as by making the backgrounds out of focus causing the subject to really stand out. The trick is also not to shoot directly into the sun as this will cause lens flare and too much of a contrast. Post processing will also enhance the look and by carefully selecting white balance controls, the colours can be creatively enhanced.

The first workshop was held in KZN and we had the beautiful Roxy and Cassel modeling for us.

Some images from this workshop.

The Beautiful Roxy

The Lovely Cassel

A few weeks later I held a similar workshop in Gauteng. With the crime being more prevailent in Gauteng, I was a bit wary to hold the workshop in some open field. I subsequently obtained permission from Huddle Park Golf Course and we were allowed to shoot on an unused area of the course. The entire course is fenced and has security guards so off we went and were able to shoot in reasonable safety.

For this workshop the Beautiful red haired Tanya and the couple Ro-byn and John were happy to pose for the group. I must also make mention of the fact that John is amongst the tallest men I have ever met, measuring in at 6ft9 and Ro-byn is just about 5ft. :)

Tanya

The very much in love Ro-byn and John