What an absolute delight it was photographing two more mature ladies for the 2024 SARIE VOORBLAD competition.  Edna and Irma, not known by the other, contacted me within a day of each other last week.  The portrait photography shoots were arranged for the Friday and Saturday morning respectively.  Both these ladies were entering the category for mature women.

Friday morning saw Lorraine and I meeting Edna at 06h45 at the beach.  Unfortunately, the mist took far longer to lift than was anticipated and I made the call to postpone the shoot until 11h00.

On returning to the beach later that morning we were relieved to see beautiful sunlight and quickly started shooting.  With Profoto lighting filling in the shadows and my Leica doing its magic as usual, I was able to capture exquisite images.  The client’s delighted reaction to the photographs, along with the joy of immortalising a moment in time remain a heady mix.

As is my wont I downloaded the images soon after returning home.  A photograph that is technically correct, but fails to connect with the viewer is, to my mind, not suitable to be viewed by anyone other than the photographer himself.  The essence of a successful photograph; one that inspires and moves the viewer is the one that is technically correct, but also emotive.  Being able to capture the person behind (or would it be within?) the photograph remains my constant quest.

On Saturday morning an obviously nervous Irma arrived for her studio shoot.  She soon realised, however, that the atmosphere during the shoot was relaxed, the photographer inspired confidence and the first photograph or two showing a slightly stressed Irma were soon replaced by a beautiful and confident woman.  Irma is a very attractive woman, was dressed immaculately and, I daresay, her photographs faithfully portrayed her this way.  It was a lovely shoot and I captured stunningly beautiful images of her.