It has always been a dream of mine to do a wedding shoot in a Township. But, no bride to date wanted to risk it on her wedding day – so we cheated a bit. We arranged a model shoot in a township in Ceres (Nduli). Why Ceres you would ask?….. Well, the more rural townships tends to be safer and we also knew some of the township residents that could help us on the day. This shoot was fun and inspiring – see more by clicking on the heading.
Our good friend Didi de Wit of Didi Couture sponsored the dresses. The Didi Couture Bridal sale is on in Worcester at the moment where you can pick up dresses from the likes of Paul van Zyl, Cindy Bam, Robyn Roberts and Susan Ellis Steinhauser for next to nothing.
The residents of Nduli was really curious and by the end of the shoot, we had close to 200 people watching us and it was impossible to keep them from being in the background.
The brief for this shoot was one word CONTRAST.
1. The contrast between the beautiful wedding dresses and the well worn clothes of the township residents.
2. The contrast in hair, make-up and styling
3. The contr ast in mor als – leaning towards a bride with a darker side.
Rouxmia was just great – she took the brief and played it out perfectly! With every snap, she changed her pose and almost no direction was needed. She is such a experienced and professional model!
Our crew for the day was super. Lynette (my sister) and Gastao Cardoso of Mamarosa’ s Bakery in Cere s gave their house as a base.
Photographer: Stefan Steenkamp & Andre van Niekerk
Assistants: Stoffel & Paulus (residents of Nduli)
Make-up: Karla Oettler of Absolute Wedding and Event Coordination
Hair Stylist: Wian van der Westhuizen of Perfect Profile
Models: Rouxmia Bougas & Janine Beaufort
Shooting in the full african sun like we did here, is quite tricky. It throws harsh shadows that is difficult to fill in with flash. We should have shaded her with a scrim in the above shot, but the crowd was just too mad. Her left hand side was filled with a Canon 580EX II speedlite with a Gary Fong diffuser.
Most of the shoot was done with 3 x 580EX II flashes. We used the fl ash sync facility and also set the ratios of the fl ashes as needed.
If you are a photographer and have a tip on outdoor fashion photography please post a comment below – We can all learn from eachother!
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