Elite Interiors

Elite Interiors recently brought in a selection of their boutique handcrafted furniture into my studio to photograph for their website and current catalogue, which piece would you have in your home?

New store for Nandos...

I have been lucky enough to have photographed all the stores for Nandos Zimbabwe in the past, so when they opened a new branch in Gweru, Zimbabwe I was asked to pack my bags and head out to do my thing. The brief was to capture all the different design elements in the brand new store at night as well as during the day. The images had to showcase the every angle of the store, without any people in the images so I had to work around the stores trading hours. This meant late nights and early mornings, but as I am sure you will agree the effort certainly yielded the results!

A tasty calendar...

I am lucky enough to do a lot of food photography, so I was more than pleased when I was approached by Freddy Hirsch Zimbabwe to help them create images for their 2019 calendar. The meals where prepared by the awesome chefs at The Bistro Restaurant and my good friend Giani DiTano was in charge of the art direction. The brief was to photograph scrumptious dishes of food that showcased the range of Freddy Hirsch spices. I also photographed each spice pack in the studio along with a heaped pile of the spices to showcase the vibrant colours of each spice. I am sure you will agree that the combination of delicious food and vibrant colours complement each other well in the calendar.

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.

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!

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.

Happy Harare...

I am lucky enough to do quite a lot of photojournalism around Zimbabwe and Southern Africa, mostly tourism and wildlife related stories, but recently I was happy to receive a brief from Travel Africa magazine to do something a little different. For their April/June edition they wanted to feature an article on the highlights and attractions of Zimbabwe's capital Harare. The article was coined 48 hours in Harare I was asked to showcase a variety of activities that a tourist could enjoy in and around Harare in a few days. 

This involved quite a lot of interaction with some of Harare's residents, from the amazingly talented sculpture artists at the Chitungwisa arts centre to arts and crafts purveyors at the various flea markets I visited. Several strangers were also accosted in the streets and everyone was always happy to have their picture taken, affirming the often attributed characteristic that Zimbabweans are some of the friendliest people in Africa.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time meeting new people around Harare and would encourage anyone to get onto the streets and mingle, make new friends and most importantly smile alot!

You can check out the edition of Travel Africa magazine that features my article here (flip to page 80) and see some of the amazing smiles that I captured around Harare below.

Into the storm...

As most of you know I am a big fan of drone photography and never hesitate to let you all know about it whenever I can! However this time I would like to extoll the virtues of my long suffering family and friends! It was drummed into me when I studied photography that a great picture often needs some from of human element to either give it a feel of place, size or perspective. This was considered even more prevalent with sunset pictures, and that without some form of subject matter to tie it all together they where considered 'wallpaper' pictures. I have never had an issue with creating wallpaper but did take into consideration the teachings and have always tried to add a subject matter to my sunsets.

In most cases this has been my previously mentioned long suffering family and friends. They are quite used to being ordered into place in front of a variety of backgrounds, some more life threatening than others, with a resigned but compliant attitude. In the case of the 'wallpaper' above I felt I needed some form of human element to both contrast the power of the storm as well as showcase the sheer size of it. So to the rescue came my wife and father in our small boat and I must say they took my request to go roaring off into quite a lightning charged storm with as much enthusiasm for my dangerous request as they could muster.

However I assume that you are as impressed with the results as I and my models are, however unsure they still are that is was almost worth their lives to capture! So what are my ramblings building up to, basically be kind to your friends and family as you never know when you will need them to out their lives at risk for you to get that amazing picture!

I was extremely lucky, and my models where quite frightened, by the lighting thrown around by the storm, the above capture was by pure luck and I didn't even know I had it until I reviewed the images in Lightroom after the shoot. The only thing that ruins the shot somewhat for me is the boat angling to the right of the frame leads the eye away from the storm and the lightning bolt.

Holiday happy Snaps...

I have written often in the past about the conflict that I have when I go on holiday with the family.  To recap briefly its the internal conflict I have in finding the right balance between being on holiday with my family and getting out and doing what I love, taking pictures. Given that we often visit wild and exciting destinations this is a constant issue for me!

Our recent trip to Nyanga, Zimbabwe in mid December this year was a bit different thankfully! The cottage we stayed in was situated perfectly on the middle Connemara Lake with easy walking access to the rest of the dams and surrounds. So instead of having to stalk off on my own I could join my family on the walks and sneakily fly my drone whenever the occasion presented itself.

Quite honestly this was one of the most balanced family holidays I have managed so far, and I hope this is reflected in the awesome aerial pictures of the Connemarra area!

Lomagundi College...

Earlier this year I was commissioned by my colleagues at The Marketing Chefs to create engaging content for one of Zimbabwe's boarding schools; Lomagundi. The school is split into a junior school as well as a college and the brief entailed getting as many appealing shots of the school, staff, grounds and activities as possible which would be used on the schools' new website being developed by the Marketing Chefs, which you can see here.

As usual the shots had to be of the highest quality and had to showcase as many different aspects of the school as possible. Needless to say it was a frantic 24 hours of shooting on site! The biggest challenge on a shoot like this is always time, its never on your side! We were shooting on the last day of the school term and so even though we had been given complete carte blanche and several awesome helpers we still had to work round class times and teachers' schedules.

Despite this the shoot went without a hitch and myself and the team from The Marketing Chefs managed to get all the content we needed. As we arrived in the afternoon of day 1 we got straight into shooting some sports practices. Like all good boarding schools in Zimbabwe sports is at the heart of the school and its students, so we were able to get a good variety of shots on the basketball court, the rugby pitch and even some equestrian images.

Early the following morning we set about shooting some sunrise and early morning shots of the school grounds. The school isn't very large which made it easier for me to find the best angles in the beautifully soft early morning light.

Boarding school starts early so there wasn't even time for a coffee break before I was shooting some setup shots of the students around the school grounds. Lomagundi College is co-ed so part of the brief was to showcase the integration on the school premises from the Junior School through to the college. The boarding houses however are same sex so I also did some shots showcasing a small portion of life for the students in the boarding houses.

A school shoot wouldn't be complete without having a good selection of classroom pictures, the trick here was to get the students looking happy and engaged, and if you remember school like I do not everyone loves the classroom! The Lomagundi children must be commended on loving their school and classroom time and so this did not prove to be an issue at all! I also shot some setup pics in the library as well as the computer lab to showcase the digital innovation that is essential the modern day school environment.

I was thrilled with the pics that we managed to get at Lomagundi, and most importantly so was the school! I would like to say a big thank you to Lomagundi for having us and to the team at The Marketing Chefs for their continuing support and creative direction! See some screen grabs from the website below or check out it out here. Please don't hesitate to be in touch if you would like any marketing shots done of your won school, business or product!