"37 Weeks..."

Meet Meghan,

First introduced to me by friends of mine Grant and Michelle, who assured me that Meghan was just the type of pregnant mom that I would love to photograph. Previously lead singer and guitarist for the band "Caffeine Substitute", it soon became obvious that Meghan was looking for a pregnancy shoot with a difference..

We met up a few days later to discuss the finer details and overall look that Meghan was after. We eventually decided Newtown would be perfect, not only steeped in South African history and culture, it's also home to some great works of Graffiti Art.

A couple of weeks later on a crisp Sunday morning, we met up at Mary Fitzgerald square to begin photographing Meghan. Hats off to this girl! At 37 weeks pregnant she dressed up and posed for me as we ran from one location to the next to make the most of the early morning light. High heels and stockings, Jeans and boots, jacket on, jacket off she never complained for a minute, she was an absolute dream to work with.

Eventually we finished up and headed off for a well deserved breakfast at Arts on Main. I had an enormous amount of fun doing this shoot, hope you enjoy the pics as much as I did taking them...

Tracey...

Having acquired a lot more tattoos over the last few months , my friend Tracey asked me if I would do a photo-shoot for her as she wanted to surprise her Husband and have one of the images framed as a gift for him. Naturally I was thrilled, and over the next few weeks we began planning the shoot, organising make up and hair, discussing wardrobe and generally making sure our ideas and expectations were aligned...

Eventually in early March Tracey flew up from Cape Town for a conference, stayed an extra day and we got busy with the shoot. As with all shoots, it takes some time for the nerves to settle, but eventually the rapport develops, the magic begins, and the images start revealing themselves...

Below are some of the images, hope you enjoy them...

Credits:

Tattoos by Milo "Mr Lucky" Marcer / milo@mrluckytattoos.com

Make Up and Hair by Natasha Kruger / natasha.mua@gmail.com

All images are protected by copyright

Southern Ink Xposure Tattoo Convention Cape Town...

So Michelle and I flew down to Cape Town (in a plane that could not get its flaps down to land, which resulted in a high speed landing, well done Mr. Pilot), to visit with our good mate Milo.

Our trip purposefully coincided with the Southern Ink Xposure (S.I.X) tattoo convention held at the BMW pavilion at the V&A Waterfront. Milo was one of the many local and international artists tattooing there and it provided the perfect opportunity for Michelle and I to get some inking done, while helping Milo man his booth at the convention.

To say we were blown away would be an understatement as neither of us have experienced this kind of thing before, never in my life have I seen so many artists and tattoo collectors gathered in one place.

We had agreed upfront that although this was not going to be Michelle's first tattoo, the placement and size of the tattoo necessitated a more private venue, as such Milo tattooed Michelle at his house on Thursday morning and by Thursday afternoon she was adorned with a truly magnificent heart locket and key tattoo.

Not content with the pain of a four and a half hour tattoo session, the three of us set off on Friday morning to get Michelle pierced by Lliezel Ellick of The Body Architects, Milo had assured us that Lliezel is the only person you want piercing you, especially when it comes to the more delicate areas of ones anatomy. Needless to say Michelle and Lliezel did their thing while Milo Bruce and I grabbed a cup of coffee, upon our return there was Michelle grinning from ear to ear, granted she was a little tender, but I could not believe that she looked so calm. Hats off to Lliezel for an awesome experience!

Friday afternoon rolled on, the convention opened and Milo kicked off with a magnificent tattoo on his long standing friend and client Pippa. Milo had also introduced us to Mandy who is the owner of"Miss Happ" a "rock-a-billy, pin-up" clothing and accessory store, if you're looking for some wicked clothing look her up. Friday night was the after party, Saturday we were back at the show and it was my turn to go under the needle, 6 or 7 hours later and Milo had finished putting a new custom "sailors grave" piece on my left inner bicep and packed in some serious blue sea and waves in to my ongoing sleeve tattoo.

Sunday rolled on with us, going back to the convention for the final day which saw Milo tattoo a "sailors grave" tattoo for Bill DeMichele, who is the photographer for the international magazine "Skin and Ink". Then it was time for a couple of photo-shoots and a couple of well deserved beers. Finally we packed up and finished off later that evening at Mandy's house for Sushi.

Monday saw us all bombed out and chilling at Milo's house before Michelle and I set off back to Jo'burg. We managed shoot some cool pic's while we were at the convention, hope you enjoy them...

Christmas Day...

A very happy new year to all of you, my new year has kicked off at a leisurely pace and while I had every intention of making it into the office yesterday, that never quite materialised. But fear not, I will give it another try today.

My family and I spent Christmas day at my brothers house, which amongst other things afforded me the opportunity to take some family pictures. It's a great break from the typical studio shoot, but it has it's own challenges in that you are limited to the available light, limited flash capability and there are no chances for a re-take. It's funny how people generally find it OK for you to snap away on a little "point and shoot" camera, but the minute you reach for your full-body camera, slap on a serious piece of glass to the front of it, and they run for the hills. Its as if they believe you are going to do them some bodily harm. The beauty of those big cameras is that besides looking uber-cool, they allow you to pull of some wicked stuff that you wouldn't normally be able to do on the smaller cameras.

My family are constantly complaining that I take photo's of them and they never get to see the final images. I am very happy to say that I have finished processing all of the photos I took on Christmas day, converted them into a slide presentation format, complete with music and will be giving them each a DVD of the final edit.

Below are some of the final images, enjoy...

Party Time...

So as the silly season officially kicks off for most people today, I thought I would share a song with you that should hopefully get you into the swing off things! It certainly makes me want to live in this street and party on down.

For all of you going on leave and holidaying in some exotic location, I trust you'll have a blast, for those of you remaining in Johannesburg, enjoy the peace and quiet.

Snowflake Shoot...

A couple of months ago I was invited to a studio shoot at the old Snowflake Mill in Potchefstroom that was hosted by Emil Wessels and sponsored by Graham Robertson Photographic. Of all the models that we had the opportunity to photograph there was one couple that for me really stood out from the rest. They were not your typical beautiful models, in actual fact they were anything but! No perfect features, no flawless skin, no toned bodies, just real people...

I think for many photographers present at the shoot, they were more fascinated by the couple because of the "freak value" they represented rather than anything else, this was an opportunity to get up close and personal with a couple that on any other day they would give a wide berth frantically dragging their horrified children behind them. This was  evident by the fact that hardly anybody spoke to them or paid any attention to them off set.

I had the opportunity to get to know the two of them a little better, they are a fantastic couple, real salt of the earth, good, kind people who have simply chosen a different path to that of the mainstream, a little hardened by life and its many lessons, they are no different to any one of us.

On set we were fortunate to have a glimpse into the passion they have for each other, they forgot about the cameras, paid no attention to the burst of flash and just got on with the business of giving us some great shots, the energy between them was electric, and I have got to say they remain some of the most beautiful people I have had the opportunity to photograph, there is an honesty between them that many so called "normal" people can only dream about.

I have seen some of the images of the other photographers that were present that day and have noticed that hardly any recognition is given to this couple. I personally would love the opportunity to work with them again.

This is my little tribute to them...

Cover up that damn tattoo!

So as you all know, I went down to Milo to have my new tattoo done. The only problem is that when I get back home from being tattooed my little minature dachshund Zsa-Zsa tries desperately to cover it up, we fist noticed this earlier this year on another tattoo and when she began trying to cover it up again this time we decided to record it. She only does it while the tattoo is healing, after that she is comfortable with it. Check it out on this clip we posted on Youtube...

http://youtu.be/q3AUnGOsxAU