18 January 2015

Girls just wanna have fun (and play dress-up while at it)

As 2014 was nearing its end, Geraldene (Gerrie), contacted me with a unique request: She and her girl friends wanted to do a fun, crazy photoshoot since it was an item on their bucket-list that they wanted to check off while they all still studied together. Remembering the crazy times we had as students ourselves, I was excited to hear what they were planning! And boy did they have ideas!

After our initial conceptualization meeting, we decided on a set number of themes and set a date. So we gathered one morning VERY early in the local parkie, because we needed the beautiful rays of a rising sun. Which means we were all dressed and ready to start shooting in the parkie at about 5:20am. With it being summer, the sun rose much earlier than is comfortable. On this particular Saturday it also decided that it should snow somewhere in the Drakensberge one last time, just because, and thus it was really unusually cold for a summers morning. The girls were dressed in their tiny little summer dresses and me in a sleeveless vest and were it not for the blankets I brought with (they were to serve as colorful backdrops mind you, not for warmth), I don't think I would've made it. My hands were frozen, as were my joints - I remember having to make every move and every press of the shutter very deliberately. Right before the sun would peek over the trees, we practiced our pose covered in blankets and then, at that perfect moment we quickly dropped the blankets and shot some amazing photos with that beautiful sunrise light. Definitely one of the most memorable scenes from the day for me!

Throughout the rest of the day there were multiple makeup, hair and outfit changes to accommodate the multiple themes. We drove between different locations and I remember at one point during our scheduled lunch we all sat in Steers - me with my "weird" printed t-shirt, and the ladies in their poker theme outfits. We got some stares but the Steers was worth it!

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted, having had so much fun! With Gerrie practically being my sister, I of course made a huge exception by doing four different shoots in one day. They were also very kind in understanding that editing the 600 odd pictures I chose from the day will take me a long time to process. I don't usually give anyone this much images for anything except weddings, so count yourself lucky girls! I can honestly say that I will probably never attempt it again. Two outfit changes and two locations at most next time, but it was a good experience :)























































All pictures were taken by myself - please do not reproduce, copy or use any of the images in any way without my written permission. Copyright © 2015 Anneli Strecker.

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