Sitting under the stars...

I’m not sure if there is anything more peaceful to do as a photographer than to sit under a million African stars in complete silence, with only the occasional clatter of your camera’s shutter disturbing the peace. Whenever I get the opportunity to do it I always wonder why it has been so long silence I last did it, and resolve to do it again soon!

Thankfully that is often easier than it sounds, especially in Africa where, even near a large city like Harare, the light pollution is not too bad. These photographs where taken at a popular tourism destination, Domboshawa, just a 15 minute drive from the edge of Harare. In a matter of a few hours and with 2 camera’s set up I manage to capture a variety of different angles of the iconic boulders, in amongst my musings at the stars!

If you would like to learn how to photograph the stars I will be leading workshops out to Domboshawa soon, please feel free to contact me if you would like to learn more, or check out our available courses here.

Bustling around Banff Lodge...

Earlier this year I was asked by the team at Banff Lodge to create some new marketing images of their BnB. Situated in the Bulawayo suburbs this family owned BnB was a real pleasure to shoot!

I was asked to cover all the public areas of the BnB in different lighting conditions and including some of the staff at work in the restaurant and their popular pool deck, I particularly like the images of the pool and external images of the BnB in the blue evening light, check them out below and see for yourself.

In addition to the general public areas some of the rooms had been newly refurbished and so some great images of these were also needed, what would a hospitality shoot be without pictures of the sumptuous rooms on offer?

Another highlight of the day for me was shooting their new food menu, the main challenge here was keeping my grumbling tummy at bay during the duration of the food shoot! Check out some of the delicious results below!

Its always a pleasure for me to do hotel photography and on this occasion with Banff lodge it was no different, I would like to say a huge thanks to the team on the ground who made everything happen to effortlessly!

Bakers Inn...

When Zimbabwe’s biggest baker Bakers Inn asked me to come in and help them with imagery of their bread bakery for their website I was naturally thrilled! Bakers Inn have bakeries in both Harare and Bulawayo and I was tasked with capturing images from the Harare bakery that showcased both the equipment, process, premises and people involved in the process. With the bakery churning out over half a million loaves of bread a day you can image that is is quite a bustling place to be!

I started with some exterior architectural shots of the office block and then moved inside the bakery to capture all the machinery and staff at work. Needless to say the delicious smell of baking bread that assaulted the senses was both fantastic and distracting as my tummy didn’t stop grumbling!

Helping Bakers Inn with their corporate photography was a pleasure and I look forward to working with the giant bread maker again soon!

Relishing time with Rocco...

I was thrilled when we where approached by Rocco to photograph their awesome range of teak platters and chopping boards. Sustainably harvested from Zimbabwean teak, the products from Rocco ooze woody warmth and the natural grains in the wood lent themselves well to the camera in the studio.

To give the client an idea of how their product would look on different backgrounds we photographed the same serving board on all of our different surfaces in the studio. Rocco liked one surface in particular and we then photographed all of their product on that one surface, check out all the different shots below? Which one is your favourite? Please leave us a comment at the end of the newsletter wit your preferences.

IN addition to the different surfaces we also photographed the products on a clear white background and deep-etched the images so that Rocco had the option of having a uniform clean look on their website gallery as well as being able to place the deep-etched images onto adverts and marketing materials. You cans see the clean, white images below.

And finally we photographed all the products on the dark, charcoal surface that was the client’s preferred choice. As you can see the warm, richness of the wood contrasts well with the darker surface, allowing you to really appreciate the unique grain of the wood.

We thoroughly enjoyed working with the team at Rocco to showcase their amazing product, if you have a product that you would like photographed please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Deloitte

When the worldwide accounting giant Deloitte asked me to photograph their new offices in Harare recently I was more than thrilled by the opportunity. Housed in one of the more recently completed office parks in Zimbabwe's capital Harare the space leant itself well to being photographed. I was asked to capture a variety of angles of the externals of the building at sunset as well as in the evening, placing emphasis on their brand name as far as possible.

Which image do you like the best? Feel free to email me and let me know your thoughts! A big thank you to the team at Deloitte Zimbabwe for the continued support.

Capturing Prime Seeds...

I have been lucky enough to work with some of Zimbabwe's biggest agro-businesses and for the last three years have been having a lot of fun shooting a wide variety of images for Prime SeedCo. Initially Prime Seeds and now part of the SeedCo group Prime SeedCo provides high quality vegetable seed for sale in the Zimbabwean and African markets. I was engaged several years ago to help build up Prime Seeds' image database for use across all of their marketing databases and have photographed their products in the field and studio and from the air. You can see a selection of the images I have created for them in some of Prime SeedCo's marketing materials below.

Being a sales based company its essential to have a good selection of well shot product images and we have photographed all of Prime SeedCo's brands in our studio over the years, some of which you can see in the above posters.

Prime SeedCo also operates a substantial demo plot that farmers who are interested in their products can visit to see the veggies in the field as well as ask any of the knowledgeable staff any technical questions. Due to the seasonality of the different veggies I spend a few days in the field throughout the seasons in order to capture all the varieties on offer.

Prime SeedCo also hosts farmer field days throughout the year where both large scale and small scale farmers from around the country are invited to the demo plot to learn all about the varieties of veggies on offer and to learn best farming practices and the development in current agricultural trends. These field days are a great way of educating the local farming industry as well as showcase all the seasonal veggies at the demo plot.

Prime SeedCo also have a variety of commercial outlets around Zimbabwe and before the rebrand from Prime Seeds to SeedCo was completed I photographed one of their larger stores in Harare.

I thoroughly enjoy all the shoots I have done for Prime SeedCo over the years and look forward to the assignments I will be commissioned to carry out in 2018!

Luxury in the heart of Harare...

I am very fortunate to be able to travel all over Zimbabwe and southern Africa photographing luxury lodges, hotels and BnB's but luckily for me I only had to head around the corner to photograph the luxurious no 18 Guest Lodge in Harare.

Situated in the heart of Harare's northern suburbs is offers the perfect blend of luxurious comfort and homeliness. Its spacious interiors and open plan living areas made it a joy for me to photograph as space was never an issue and I could move around quite easily to ensure that I got the perfect angle every time.

As is the norm with any shoot of a tourism product the aim was to showcase all aspects of the lodge, from the public areas through to the rooms and the amenities on offer. As you can see from the images below the public areas are invitingly comfortable and well appointed.

The rooms where equally well appointed and offered a comfortable environment in which any traveller could unwind and relax.

The exterior of the guest lodge offers a warm, inviting facade as you drive through the gates.

The lodge also offers amazing facilities to its clients including a very healthy menu to choose from.

If you have a tourism product that you would like photographed, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Droning on about how wonderful it is...

For those of you who follow us regularly on our various social media platforms the fact that I now have a drone is not new, and if you are reading this for the first time, whoop whoop Scottyphotography now has a drone!

I have had the opportunity to use it a fair bit in the past month or so in various different situations shooting both corporate and personal work and have been loving every minute of it! I have always been a fan of aerial photography and have always tried to do as much as possible when time and budget allowed. Now this is where the drone comes into its own, aside from the cost of purchasing it it doesn't cost me anything extra to fly it, with the added advantage of being able to do so whenever I want and where ever I happen to be.

Yes it may be a bit bulky to have with me all the time but who cares when you can zip it up and grab a few shots from a completely different perspective? As a professional photographer being able to offer my clients a huge variety of images from different perspectives, including some aerial ones, is a big deal that will outweigh any minor inconveniences.

I was in the vicinity of the spectacular Great Zimbabwe National Monument a few weeks ago and couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend a few days there. I have been lucky enough to photograph the monument many times in the past but have never seen or photographed it from the air. Needless to say I had a fantastic time and managed to get some stunning results!

So what have I learnt about the drone and its capabilities over the past month or so? Firstly that planning is key, the battery life on my particular drone only gives me around 15 minutes of flight time, which doesn't give me a lot of time to faf around once its up. This makes me think critically about what I want to achieve before I send it up and this can only be a good thing.

Secondly, the mobility is fantastic! I can hover directly over a subject and shoot straight down in order to get detail or abstract shots and the next minute I can zip off up to 500 metres away to get that distant, all encompassing shot.

This mobility allows me to capture a variety of pics of the same scene, essential for building up a good story board around a particular subject. I can showcase the fine detail and shape of the Great Enclosure above as well as place it in its context in relation to its environment and the valley (below).

Lastly I have to talk about the performance of the camera's sensor, yes its quite small and so suffers from a bit of noise at high ISO but the drone is such a stable platform that I can shoot at 100 or 200 ISO quite happily down to 1/15th of a second and get sharp images. The sharpness of the resulting images is fantastic and the resolution has withstood the stringent attention of the quality control departments at the various stock libraries I supply with flying colours.

Another huge advantage is to be able to shoot in manual mode as well as create 5 stop bracket sets. This allows me to shoot into the sun and use clever HDR post processing techniques to create images full of detail and colour, like the ones below.

So in summary; the drone is an awesome tool that allows me to capture that unique aerial angle without too much fuss, but often with spectacular results!

Do you need some aerial images done? Don't hesitate to contact us with your ideas!

The Dissection of a Dhow...

I am blessed to have had excellent training in my field of profession and we strive to pass on some of that knowledge as often as possible through our Introduction to Photography Courses. However, despite the power of knowledge it can be almost useless if it is not applied in the right manner. There is no exception to this in the field of photography and thats why getting out and using your camera so you gain as much field experience as possible is invaluable.

As a working professional I have the opportunity to do this every day, and with a wide scope of clients, locations and personal interests the experience that I gain everyday is invaluable. You can also never stop learning, something I am always happy to admit to.

Despite all this wonderful experience and the often complex way in which we have to shoot some of our corporate work, its always fantastic to be able to get back to the real basics, and often the results are stunning.

This happened recently while I was on a short holiday in Mozambique, we had rented a dhow for the day and were heading off to the tropical beauty that is Paradise Island in the Bazaruto Archipelago. I was on holiday and thus very chilled, had no brief from a client and just one lens on my camera, almost bliss! So back to basics it was, to photograph the boat from as many angles as possible to showcase the Dhows' different functions and character.

When I talk about composition in our Intro courses I always try to emphasis that you need to move around your subject as much as possible to get as many different angles of your subject as you can, this is very basic stuff but I am left wondering if a little bit of experience doesn't help you decide that basics are often better!

Zimbabwe's Verdant Tea Eastate

Zimbabwe is blessed with a wide range of stunning landscapes, from the majestic World Wonder of Victoria Falls to the stone wall brilliance of Great Zimbabwe to the game rich floodplains of Mana Pools. However an oft overlooked but no less stunning part of our beautiful country is its Eastern Highlands. Forming a rugged boundary with neighboring Mozambique the eastern Highlands are comprised of 3 main mountain ranges; Nyanga in the North, Bvumba in the middle and Chimanimani in the South. All 3 mountain ranges are part of the East African Rift system that runs down the continent from East Africa.

Nestled under the Nyanga plateau, which peaks to form Zimbabwe's highest point Mt Nyangani, is Eastern Highlands Plantations Limited, (also commonly referred to as Aberfoyle Tea Estates). Spread over the lower slopes of the Nyanga plateau are vividly verdant fields of tea.

A view in any direction from one of the many high points on the estate reveal rolling, lush and methodically trimmed fields, a testament to mans' innovative and persistent tenacity. Carved out of the wilderness in the 1950's there is no doubt that a lot of indigenous flora would have been mowed down to make way for the plantations, and as a lover of all things natural and indigenous this will always be in the back of my mind. However, the inherent man made beauty has the effect of subduing those negative thoughts.

The estate also ceeded a large portion of its land on the lower slopes of the Inyangani plateau to nature and subsequently to National Parks. The Gleneagles Reserve is a haven of indigenous forest best explored on foot and with a sense of awe. At 2000 hectares the reserve is the largest and best preserved block of Afro-Montain forest in the country.

Babbling streams hemmed in by tall Forest Newtonians create a backdrop that wouldn't go amiss in a Lord of the Rings movie also create a habitat for a plethora of rare birds and so are a mecca for avid birders from all over the world.

The area also offers a variety of adrenaline inducing activities such as gravity defying zip lines through the forest canopy and white water rafting down the Pungwe River, these can be organised through Far and Wide Zimbabwe with Aberfoyle Lodge providing the perfect base to explore the area's many exciting offerings.