So instead of whittling down my list, I’ve added 2 things to my list today!!

1. Capture a birth.

I’ve done newborns and there’s only so much of a story to be had in a newborn shoot, and you know I’m all about the story.  Earlier today I read a blog post by an Australian photographer who captured a birth last week.  And that’s what I want to do this year… just one.  I think it would be an amazing experience.

2.  Do a photo project capturing suburbs of South Africa.

I’ve been completely inspired by another Australian photographer who is travelling the world this year taking photos of 52 suburbs around the world.  She happens to be missing Africa, which I think is a travesty… but anyhoo, now that’s something I’d love to do.  Go around the country and take photos of real South African life and textures and views.

Bwhahaha!! This is brilliant.  I’m sure my husband can relate to many of these… and I just have to share it… I got this from here:  50 Reasons not to Date a Photographer

1. They rather hold their bulky camera, than hold hands with you.
2. On a romantic date, you’ll watch the sun go down and think “Wow this is gorgeous” and they’ll go “mirror lock, tripod, and stop down f/8 at 1/125.”
3. You’ll never be able to enjoy tv, movies, or magazines because they’ll point out all the visual flaws.
4. They like to sit in obscure coffee shop and voyeuristically watch people for great lengths of time.
5. If you’re taking a walk outside and you come across some “interesting light” they will make you sit/stand/pose in public so that they can take a photo.
6. You’ll never get to enjoy freshly cooked meals because they’ll spend 15 minutes taking 20 variations of the same dish with their iPhone.
7. They get angry when your friends go up to them and say “I am interested in photography, can you recommend a good camera for me?  Nothing professional I just want to take pretty pictures.”
8. You’ll wait longer for them to finish analyzing art in a museum than you’ll wait at the dmv
9. Same goes with old used bookstores.
10. When you think they’re giving you their undivided attention, they’re really wondering how they could fix you with a little Clone Tool and Patch Tool.
11. Or they are actually using you to not look so creepy as they people watch everything going on around you.
12. They rather drop $1,000+ on new glass than a purse for you.
13. You can’t take a photo with them without taking at least five more.
14. If you ask them if you look fat, they’ll say “don’t worry I can photoshop you later.”
15. They’ll never photoshop something simple for you if the content is not up to their “standards.”
16. That photo they randomly took of you yesterday?  Good luck getting them to send it to you.
17. They spend all their time on the computer (and not for porn.)
18. They can’t have a normal conversation with throwing acronyms and random numbers.
19. They still use film cameras.
20. They spend a lot of time with people cooler than you i.e. models, actors, musicians, successful rich people.
21. They’ll be fussy over the position of a common household object, like a coffee cup.
22. They won’t return your calls or text messages, but you can bet they’re still posting pics on Instagram.
23. They like watching old films that you’ve never heard or will ever understand.
24. They like looking at weird things in general.
25. Instead of having penis-envy, they have camera-gear-envy.
26. If there’s a natural disaster in a far away land, they’re already on a plane going over there.
27. Everything is watermarked.
28. They think everyone else’s photos suck.
29. They want to color correct a lot of scenes from Twilight and Jersey Shore.
30. They hate rainbows, especially ones spinning in a circle.
31. Whenever you’re in a group talking and the conversation goes deep, they’re taking notes in some form of Moleskine.
32. They use over priced Moleskine notebooks.
33. They like trespassing into old abandoned buildings filled with health hazards.
34. They always want to show a new photo they took, but don’t really care if you like it or not.
35. They hate your n00bie friend’s new artsy profile picture.
36. Bright, sunny days make them sad, but cloudy, overcast days are apparently great!
37. They’ll take you into places that have “culture” as well a high chance of getting mugged.
38. Your birthday present will be a portrait that they’ve taken of you.
39. You can’t go anywhere new without them stopping to take a photo of everything and anything.
40. They will always bug you to be a test subject.
41. Nothing can ever be naturally pretty, everything must be fixed in Photoshop.
42. Bringing their camera means, bringing 50lbs of equipment.
43. If you break any of their things on accident, you’ll owe them thousands of dollars.
44. You can’t get them a birthday/Christmas present without spending at least $500
45. They are natural hoarders, collecting and keeping piles of old newspapers, packaging, magazines, and other things that “inspire” them.
46. They are weird and geeky.
47. They have hard drives of photos, but probably have printed 10 images.
48. They are always secretly judging your creativity.
49. If you’re ever in auto mode, they laugh at you.
50. They orgasm every time they learn a new lighting technique.

So, this blog post is a little belated, and if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook and my other photography blog you would know that I’ve ticked off another item on my bucket list… to take photos of the city from a helicopter.

It was luck more than anything else… I was planning doing an elephant ride for this month, but Suren phoned me a few weeks ago telling me that he’d organised a surprise helicopter ride on his wedding day, and that because the aim was to fly somewhere to do the creative shoot, I was going to go with them. It was a surprise for the bride, and because they both follow me on Twitter and Facebook I couldn’t exactly blog about it

Of course I said yes so the helicopter picked us up (much to the surprise of the bride), and we flew to a mountain top in the Magaliesburg (just on the other side of Harties).  I took photos of the couple for 20 minutes before it was time to zoot off again… this time to Sandton.  And that’s when I got to quickly take some city shots… I wasn’t able to ask the pilots to circle or anything because we running late for the bride’s next hair appointment.

You’re probably wondering if I enjoyed it… I loved it!! I also loved when the pilots decided to boast a little and swoop down over Gerotek where we spotted a few people on the skid pans. I did get a little queasy by the end… but that’s because it was so very hot on Saturday.  But all in all it was an amazing experience,and is most worthwhile doing.

I have to add what happened when we landed. The only place close to Sandton that allows helicopters, is Inanda club, and we duly landed next to the polo fields.
Nedbank was having their year end function at Inanda that day, so the place was jam packed. So our driver from the hotel pulls up to the helicopter in a big black Merc with tinted windows and off we go.
As we pass the crowds it was so funny seeing everyone trying to see through the windows to see who these celebs were that arrived in such style. LOL!

I can’t concentrate on my editing tonight, and didn’t take a photo so can’t blog on my photoblog… so what’s a girl to do, other than find a few random thoughts to blog about here…

- I’m so looking forward to my Cape Town trip.  I’m going down to take photos of my aunt (who VERY excitingly has been given the ALL CLEAR by the oncologist this week).  I’m so thrilled!! And I’m going to visit my other aunt and uncle in Hermanus too.  And then, because my weekend isn’t full enough yet, and you know how much I like relaxing… I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to meet up with some Cape Town peeps… so the plan is to meet up with a whole pile of you on Sunday morning at 10am somewhere in Cape Town.  Please please please say you want to meet me and I’ll set up up a tweetup or something.

- I was proud of myself last night ‘cos I set up Mailchimp for a friend last night, and I designed a cool voucher for her using my images from her shoot… oh and by the way, my friend Mandy (of So Divine! fame) is having another pop-up shop next week in Bryanston, details are on her Facebook page.

- I’m chomping at the bit waiting to see the boudoir photos!!  Oooh and excitingly, I’ve booked a boudoir shoot today, so my plans for next year seem to be starting to take shape… with 3 boudoir shoots booked for the next few months already.

- I feel so guilty about leaving the kids alone with Lance for the whole weekend, so I’m taking Friday and Monday off to be with them.

- Cameratek will be seeing me on Friday… I still haven’t got my 50mm f1.4 fixed… I tweeted about that drama… it stopped working even though it’s only 14 months old

- I’ve been invited to attend the African Fashion shindig tomorrow night as a guest of Intel!! How cool!! So I’m doing a spot of shopping in the morning at So Divine’s shop to find a little funky something to wear… Mandy was wearing the most awesome LBD today from SLICK and I think I really need it!

- I turned down 2 shoots in the last week because I decided that type of photography wasn’t my strong suit very proud of myself for saying no.

- Canon announced their new flagship camera, the 1D X … OMW I would LOVE it.  However, not sure where I’ll get the $6800 by March 2012 You should see the video of the shutter speed! OMG!  Ooh and the ISO!! Wow!

- On our next date night, I’m definitely booking at La Cucina di Ciro in Parktown North, their food at this weekend’s wedding was sublime!

- I’ve been watching so many videos lately explaining why photogs need to increase their pricing… so I’m really tempted to hike mine again.

- I read a very eye opening blog post on one of my usual financial blogging haunts this morning about an estimate of 150000 jobs that will be lost in the financial sector in London in the next while.  Really sobering.  And yes, I not only have about 200 photography and lifestyle and mommy blogs on my blog reader, I have work related ones too

Told ya it was random

Anyhoo, hope you read to the end… PLEASE don’t forget to let me know if you want to meet me in Cape Town this weekend!!

I swear, with the excitement I’m feeling about the iPhoneography exhibition tomorrow night, you’d swear it was a big thing.  LOL, to me it is huge!

I’ve always been extremely critical of my work.  And my views about my photography are no different.  This view of my work wasn’t enhanced at all by the camera club in Sandton that I used to go to, because they destroyed my ego every month.  And apart from my blog, I don’t really show my own personal work… and that’s not the same as the photography I do for clients.

I get a huge thrill when I see people using my images.

I love it when someone is using my photos as profile photos on Facebook and Twitter and other social sites. And there’s nothing better than walking through someone’s house and seeing some portraits that I’ve done blown up on huge canvases.  I will never forget the staircases in my one client’s house, which are lined with images from her maternity shoot (the only one I’ve never been able to show you and the one that was my best ever)… and mixed in with my images are the ones she did in New York with a photographer that I recommended for her newborn photos (and the most incredible photographer to boot).  I love that the quality of my images on the wall equal the quality of the ones done overseas. And that she’s hopefully got more of them now that her daughter is older and we’ve done another shoot (and yet again I can’t show you, but they were the best photos of a 1 year old that I’ve ever taken).

So, when this iPhoneography exhibition came around, I decided to enter some images.  And I was hoping that I got to display at least one of them, so I entered about 7.  And none of them had people in them… apart from passersby… and I’m not really known for non-portrait photography. And I’m absolutely thrilled that 5 of them were chosen… and was very disappointed when one of them was an instagram image that I couldn’t blow up onto canvas.

So, I’ve had 4 of them printed onto canvas for the exhibition.  Two of them in A2 (one of them is the image in the blog post), one as an A4 and the last was a 30X30.  I think they look good.

And tomorrow I get to see them next to the other iPhone photogs images.  Part of me is praying that mine will stand up against the others.  But I can honestly say that I’m so very curious to see what everyone else’s turned out like, and how they framed them, and how big they managed to blow them up.  Because in fact, that’s why the one image is only an A4… I didn’t think that it would be able to be enlarged, but after seeing the A4, I know that it would have looked magnificent as a larger canvas.

Because it’s an iPhone exhibition I feel that it’s a more even playing field, because everyone used the same equipment… the only difference is really the editing app that they used… and their eyes and composition etc.  And because of that fact, I think this is a more interesting exhibition than a normal photographers showcasing.

So anyway after this long ramble, I’ve also decided that I’m going to sell the canvases.   And all the profits from the sale will be going to Team JP (You know the guy with cancer whose photos I took a few weeks ago) to help pay for his cancer treatment.

My next dream though, is to get a few of my DSLR images displayed somewhere in a gallery.  So, even though this exhibition effectively ticks off the item from my bucket list, I need more now.  I really want to be able to sell my images as art now… and not just as commissioned photoshoots.

PS.  If you want to find out more about the iPhoneography exhibition, the information is on the FB event page

So… all you iPhone addicts like me… have you entered your iPhone images into the iPhoneography exhibition that will be taking place on 1 September in the iStore in Sandton?

Details are here… http://marcforrest.com/iPhoneography/home/

I have  it took me forever to choose, but once I got started, I had trouble cutting the list down!! LOL!! I’m hoping that one or two of my images will be chosen… then I would have another item done on my bucket list (have a photographic exhibition)!!

Thankfully, I’ve been keeping all my images, and I’ve been editing them in non-Instagram software even though they’re only posted on the web via Instagram. So it was quite easy for me to submit them.  It’ll be interesting to see whether the judges like what I really like.

PS. hurry cos your entries have to be in my Friday

I went to Wolves tonight to meet up with a bunch of bloggers.  It was awesome, and I’ve put some more photos on my photoblog, but I have to add something here.

Firstly, I have to say that I LOVED that there were so many bloggers there that I didn’t know.  I LOVE that there’s a resurgence in blogging locally, and that people want to tell their stories.

But it was also quite an eye-opener for me, and I love that after all these years of blogging and going to tweet-ups etc that I had to explain who I was again.

Let me explain.

The focus of my blogging in the last few years has been my photography, and not my personal blog. My personal blog has been for me mostly, and for my friends to follow what I do.  It’s less about ego than what my photography blog has become. This blog is about my story.

Normally, when I get to meetups, I’m introduced as Jeanette or Jenty the photographer, and everyone knows my photography blog, or has heard about it, or wants to hear about it.

Tonight was different.  When I got there, my name tag had this blog on it… and I quite like that!

Obviously more people read this blog than I realise.  A few months ago I contemplated shutting it down because I couldn’t think of more to write.  But I’m glad I didn’t… mostly because this is where my story is.  I don’t really punt this blog, I don’t get half as much traffic on it as I do on the other blog… and I’m OK with that.

But my ego was stoked tonight when I realised that people do actually read this, and not just my friends who’ve followed me online for years.

So… anyhoo… I can’t wait to visit some of the blogs of the bloggers I didn’t know about before tonight and adding them to my ever expanding reader

You know that photo workshop I ran yesterday… well the guys that attended were not the only people that learnt something.

I learnt something too.

That I have learnt a lot about photography over the last few years, and I do actually have a skill I can teach someone.

You may think that’s a funny statement to make… but after reading and participating in so many online forums and camera clubs over the years… you do doubt some days whether you actually do know what you’re talking about.

I don’t think people realise how much their glib statements affect you… but eventually you doubt whether you know stuff.

And it turns out I do.

The only problem I had yesterday really, was navigating around Kerry’s Nikon… I need to play a bit with one because the menus are so vastly different to the Canon… but seriously, that’s all.

I can actually do this.  And I think I’ve found a niche… I keep getting more requests for more workshops.

Onwards and upwards…

Yes, I have been running my photography business without proper equipment insurance until now.  Yes, I know that’s stupid.  But it takes time and effort which I just haven’t had!

I actually got insurance on my camera and lenses on my household insurance ages ago, but realised a while ago (not that the insurance company told me) that the household insurance wouldn’t pay out if something happened because I use to generate part of my income.  So I’ve had to get business insurance instead.

Anyhoo, it’s done, but the experience did make me smile and I had to blog about it.

I contacted Outsurance for a quote, after reading a lot on photography forums etc about the pitfalls of the various local insurance companies, and I felt happy that they would understand what I needed.

I contacted them through their website.  I completed the short form with my details and submitted the query.  Seriously, literally 2 minutes later, I had a consultant phone me to get the quote sorted out!! I was seriously impressed!

I did laugh at the guy however, it was clear that it was the first photography quote he’d done.  He exclaimed after hearing the price of the first camera body that he thought that was a lot of money.

And then when I was rattling off the lenses (which I had to ensure him that it would be best to list seperately and not together), he whistled! LOL!! He said that he’d had no idea how much photography cost!

LOL!!

And to think that I need more lenses anyway!! My next new toy NEEDS to be a 16-35mm lens and then I want a 100mm f2.8 Macro lens… etc etc )

I’m just glad that I’m properly covered now!

It may be because I’m not feeling all that well… have a cold/flu at the moment… my head is all fuzzy.  It may be because it’s just too much.

I had the day off today because my shoot that was planned, got postponed cos the mom-to-be is not well.

I want my weekends back.

I want to be able to garden.

I want to be able to shop without a time limit.

I want to be able to go on a photo expedition into Braamfontein today because there’s an interesting sounding market.

I want to find a venue for the photo workshop I want to organise for next month.

I want to fix up my house.

I want to get curtain rods and new curtains

I want to look for a new door for the guest bathroom

I want to look for new lights for the house because I hate the ones we have

I want to find a builder to sort out our upstairs area and staircase and patio area (it’s a desperate issue)

I want to buy paint so Lance can start painting inside.

Except I can’t.  The kids drive me INSANE if they come shopping with me for more than half an hour, and today is the first day that I’ve had off since Christmas.

I just don’t have the time.

Today, I went to the nursery really early this morning without the kids so I could get a few plants to rescue my garden.  Lance then went to work.  I took the kids with me to meet a bride at a venue… they went ballistic after 30 minutes and ignored all my threats .  Then  took them to lunch at a kiddy friendly place just to have some peace.  Then brought them home to have a swim.  I now have to coax them to get them to come grocery shopping with me (and I know I’m going be a screaming banshee through most of the trip because they’re a disaster together), and then I want to take the dogs for a walk, before starting supper because Madelein is coming over.

And I’m tired.

I should really be organising stuff for Connor’s birthday next week… but there’s no time for that either.

And tomorrow I have to meet friends for breakfast.  Try fit in curtain rod buying.  Organise food.  Try fit in organising canvases to get printed, and follow up on the books I’m waiting for.  And I really really want to go to the new market at Arts on Main!!

All with the kids.

And then I have a photoshoot.

PS.  Promise my next few posts will be a bit more positive