Niki & I met Karla Oettler at an industry party 3 years ago and since then she’s become a very close friend of ours.

Karla is one of the top wedding coordinators in South Africa, so when it came to hosting her own birthday party this year, all the stops was pulled out!

The quaint fisherman’s town of Paternoster on the West Coast, was the setting for a gettaway weekend with an awesome crowd, good food and celebrations.  Even though this small town is now quite well known, it has not lost any of its appeal.  All the houses are painted white with hints of blue on the frames, doors and fences.

Being a photographer, how can you not want to capture something that took so much thought to plan and lay out!

Karla, we admire your creative flair, your strong drive as a business woman and your caring, open heart that goes out to those around you.  We loooove you!

Decor, Styling and coordination done by Absolute Weddings (Karla’s company).

Photography by Stefan Steenkamp

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Forget the rules – forget composition, rule of thirds and all the other bogwash….  The only rules for me are:

• To tell a story and;
• To provoke thought in my imagery!

I captured this image while doing a wedding shoot in London.  This boy was not at all fussed by the big shiny red Ferrari he just passed.   In contrast, almost all the grown men in the photo turn around to investigate.

No, its not my Ferrari….  But this picture is worth much more to me!

Photography by Stefan Steenkamp

The IPL T20 has hit SA…  Indian Premier League cricket if you have not heard about it…

The IPL is big business – with an enormous following in cricket mad countries like India.  The games are short and exciting with and electric atmosphere around it -  only 20 overs per side (T20).  While sixes and fours are being hit, the crowd is entertained by music rockstars and cheerleader dancers with sexy moves!  This is not the boring cricket of old!!

ZaraZoo covered the behind-the-scenes of a recent game at Newlands Cricket Ground.

Photography by Stefan Steenkamp.

The IPL started only 2 years ago and is a massive success story.  It has promoted T20 cricket to Sportainment status (Sport & Entertainment together) and cricketers are benefitted hugely!  The Indian teams buy up successful International players like Kevin Pietersen ($1.5mil), Jacques Kallis, Herchelle Gibbs and many more.  Other South Africans that play in the IPL:  Graeme Smith, Albie Morkel, Dale Steyn, Mkaya Ntini, Mark Boucher, Roelof van der Merwe and more.

In total there are 59 games played here in South Africa over the next month. Each game has a carnival atmosphere created by artists, bands, DJ’s and beautiful cheerleader dancers.  Yesterday, the acid jazz band Goldfish, was on the stage at Newlands.   They’re one of my favourite South African acts and it was part of my job to shoot their gig – how cool!!

With all the entertainment around the ground and fireworks going off with each 6 and wicket that falls, the crowd also gets hyped up.  People dress up in all kinds of outfits and wigs!  This guy below started a Mexican Wave on his own – check the next photo – the wave made a full 360!

To get the same atmosphere as at a rock concert, IPL contracted Maverick & Big Concerts to do the event management – Why not?  It’s sportainment!

The sexy guy below is Mark Chipps from Goosebump Productions.  Mark filmed the behind the scenes with me – it’s for a documentary on one of the teams, the Royal Challengers of Bangalore!  Mark is a great guy and often works with us on weddings as well.

Apparently the guy at the top is very famous in India – I heard people chanting Chang…. Chang…. Chang… and then quite a few posed with him for a pic – He looks Chinese, but when he speaks, he sounds Indian!  If you know this guy, please leave a comment and tell us who he is!! hahaha

If you like cricket and have not been down to watch a IPL T20 game, get a few friends together and go for a big jol – Its loads of fun, a great party!

I’ve recently started on Twitter – the coolest thing since sliced bread.  So if you’re not on yet, go read my post about Twitter – it’s got instructions on how to get set up quickly.

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ZaraZoo – http://twitter/zarazoo

GoldFish – http://twitter/GoldFishLive

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]]> http://www.zara-zoo.com/blog/ipl-goldfish-newlands-cricket/feed/ 2 http://www.zara-zoo.com/blog/cape-town-taxi-rummy/ http://www.zara-zoo.com/blog/cape-town-taxi-rummy/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:39:42 +0000 Stefan http://www.zara-zoo.com/blog/?p=1642

Last night I met up with Marieke & Louis in Cape Town CBD to do a post wedding shoot.  It was intended to be a TTD (Trash The Dress) session, but we just ended up having a bit of fun – dress in tact and still wearable at the end.  I will be posting some of these shots next week, so keep an eye on the blog with our RSS Feed.

This is one of the first times that I shoot in the heart of Cape Town – man its awesome!  There is so much to work with – I love it!!!  The city is really alive and very safe.  There are loads of little coffee shops and restaurants, street performers and a buzz that reminds me of the South Bank in London on a summers night – Makes me want to go live there for a year or two, just to soak it up!

On the way back to the car, I spotted these Taxi drivers having a game of Rummy on the boot of an old Mercedes Taxi… Now that’s a bit of Cape Town culture – It makes my heart glow.  It was very dark, so I pumped the ISO up to 3200 and shot at F2.8 and 1/25 shutter – So sorry for the somewhat grainy outcome – I think it adds to the whole feel!