I actually can’t believe it – Demi-Leigh turned 1 yesterday!! Our baby girl is already one year old!! I can’t believe how time flies…. Well, of course, we had a huge party for Demi’s first birthday (we were going to have a small little party but I couldn’t help myself….)

I photographed a party in Bedfordview the other day for a 4 year old little girl and her mom had a company called Crazy Chameleon do all the decorations and it was so beautiful – I came straight home after the party and told Ryan we were getting them to do our decorations!

You must understand that I have organised so many spiderman, superman, power rangers, pirates, cars, ben 10 and all the super hero parties for my boys in the last 6 years, that I was so excited to do butterflies and flowers in pink and pink and pink!!! Yes, I will admit it – the decorations were more for me than Demi but that is the joy of having a little girl to spoil (I get to be a little girl all over again too…) I think I was more excited about Demi’s beautiful presents and gifts than she was….

So we had a butterfly theme and it was so special! We had so many friends and family come and visit and Demi just loved all the attention – she really loves children and had so much fun with all her friends and cousins!! Her brothers had even more fun -we hired a 10m slippy slide and so they were either on the slide or in the pool the entire day! It was fantastic! It was so nice to have a summer party for a change ( Mikey and Jamie are both winter babies – they have always wanted a slippy slide for their party but it’s not feasible in the middle of winter – so I got it for them now and it was great fun!) We even had Uncle Duncan and Uncle Ben and Dad go on the slide a few times!!!

Riani came to visit and so between the two of us, we took over 600 photos!! But it’s so special to have – our daughter’s first birthday party only ever happens once and we want as many photos as we have memories of this special day! It is definitely worth getting someone to take photos at your birthday party as often you are so bust you don’t get to capture all those special moments!

All in all, it was a beautidul day and everyone had a wonderful time! I will treasure the memories forever and hope that every birthday is that special for Demi-Leigh! We love you baby girl! Thank you for filling our lives with so much joy – your brothers have always filled our lives with love and laughter but you bring a different, softer energy to our family and we are so grateful to have you! Mwah! Mom, dad, Jamie and Mikey D!!

This little girl is 8 months old. Her beautiful black curly hair is quite striking.  Fatima is very friendly and smiles all the time. We started our photo shoot off with some family photos with mom, dad and baby involved, just to get her used to the studio flashes ( as we do with all small kids, it’s just to get them used to being in the spotlight with bright flashes in their eyes)  We prefer natural looking soft lighting for young kids which makes the pics look fresh and vibrant.

Fatima only has eyes for her mom’s gorgeous long black hair.  She examines it a bit, tastes it, pulls it… anything goes really   Whatever keeps them happy at the shoot hey.

Everytime I asked daddy to give little Fatima a kiss she would shy away as she doesnt like the feel of his beard.  You should have seen her expression.  She wasn’t particularly in the mood
to lie on her stomach so we took quite a lot of shots while she was lying on her back, which worked out really well. It’s always a little easier when they cant crawl yet…

All the grandparents will most certainly get some pics in a photo calendar and as a puzzle for christmas!
Riani

Every now and then, life seems to get crazy and we get so carried away with all the ‘stuff’ going on in our lives that we forget to slow down and remember what is really important to us. I for one, have been so concerned about the ‘looming recession’ over the last few weeks and wondering how we will manage to adapt to the changes that might be required, that I really forgot what life is all about.

Well, at least for me, life is all about my family! Sure, there are a lot of other things that are important to me, but at the end of the day, my family is the most important thing in my life. I work for my family & I want the best for my family, but is it worth working so hard that I am too stressed or tired to spend any time with my family when I get home at night? Absolutely not!! So what, I just stay at home with my beautiful children and give up work? Definitely not that either!! So what is the solution?

Well for me it’s about finding the balance and changing my perspective so that when I am at work, I am focused on work and knowing that I am working for my family which inspires me to do my best at work. And when I am at home, to forget about the stresses of the day and just enjoy my family. I often ask myself, if I only had a day or a week or a month to live, what would I want to do with my time left on earth? And the answer is simple: spend all my time with my family!!!

This video was really inspiring – my mom sent it to me as she knows that I have been a bit stressed lately and it brought tears to my eyes and filled my heart with gratitude – gratitude for my wonderful family and the gentle reminder I needed right now to count my blessings and forget my stressings….

May you all count your blessings and be reminded of what is truly important to you and use that as your inspiration to grow and face whatever challenges come your way…..

Christmas is around the corner – use this time to celebrate the important things in your life and fill your heart with gratitude

Beautiful inspirational video for parents and children

Rika, Kobus, Annika & Hein made a visit to our studio over the weekend.  We started our shoot with talking about what camera to buy? SLR cameras (cameras with interchangeable lenses like the Canon 350D) or point and shoot cameras.

Photography tip:
If you are not going to take the time and invest a little bit of money in attending a course on how to uses this camera, I would say rather go for a biggger point and shoot.  You have to think about what you want to do with your camera.  Can you afford to be swopping lenses when trying to photograph that burst of laughter from you little ones ?

Annika and Hein are very protective over their daddy.  When I asked one of them to lie on dad’s back the other would tolerate this only for a few minutes and then run into the shot to declare that it’s their turn now.  Kids tend to go through these phases where they only want their dad or only their mom. 

They really enjoyed throwing and catching the coloured balls.  At one stage t felt like we were staging a war with them as I had made the mistake to tell them to throw the balls at the camera in order to get them to look at me.  Can you imagine their delight when I started juggling with 3 of these balls.  They even attempted to do this themselves which was very cute

Fun family photos requires a litte bit of hard work from the parents side.  The more you play with your kids, throw them in the air, swing them upside down by their feet (yes that’s what I said) the more natural laughs we will get from them.  Taking family photos is usually great fun, it’s like a  play session for your family that lasts about an hour or so.

So bring some of their favourite toys, roll up your jeans, kick off your shoes and come and have some fun with us

Riani 

PS – a family photoshoot is a wonderful idea for christmas gifts – buy a gift voucher for your family for christmas or alternativley bring your family for a shoot and use the photos as gifts in frames, canvas prints, box mounts, storybook albums, puzzles, calendars etc. Give a special gift this Christmas – photos that last a lifetime….

Louise Diesel Photography sponsored a photoshoot for a children’s home in the north called Miracle Mission.  We had another blog article up about them a few weeks ago.  The work that the ladies do there is absolutely fantastic and it is a place filled with joy, love and laughter….

We paid a visit to the wonderful family who purchased this shoot (making a contribution towards the home which will be put to good use)  Sandra preferred to have the shoot done at her house as her garden is absolutely gorgeous this time of the year.  It had been cloudy the whole day and started to drizzle as we were driving there (murphy’s law I tell you)  But by the time we got there the rain had stopped and we had overcast weather which mad for even, soft lighting with no harsh shadows.

Upon entering Sandra’s house, you can’t help but see her awesomely restored wooden staircase.  We joked with her that we would definitely bring other families and even wedding couples around to photograph in her beautiful house and garden.  Sandra, the wonderful person that she is replied she would love it if we did that as it would be bringing her good luck.  We had everything from crumpets with jam to delicious watermelon (which we then incorporated into the shoot)

Sandra and Jack has a total of five grandchildren and decided they were to be the main focus of the fun family photoshoot. Frisbees, sunglasses and umbrellas are just a few of the props we used to get the kids to relax and enjoy the shoot.  Louise and I photographed them while having a few races among themselves, jumping on each other and just basically doing what kids do best.. PLAY of course!

I would recommend photographing kids at home any day rather than in a studio.  Being at home means they know their surroundings, they’re comfortable and feel safe to run around and interact with us as professonal photographers. Kids like to be free and that is what we intend to portray in our photos.

There is nothing like the innocence on the face of a child who is giggling so much that they almost can’t breathe, it makes the world stop doesn’t it…

Riani

Love – a simple four letter word and yet it is used to describe hundreds of emotions and feelings.  It is such a universal term and is used all around the world and yet it means something different to every person in the world.  It doesn’t matter what you believe in, what language you speak or even what the colour of your skin is, everybody has encountered some form of love throughout their lives.

This is one of the reasons why a couple photo shoot is such an awesome thing to photograph.  With incorporating funky poses and things like arm wrestling we aim to bring out the dynamics of the special love that you share.  Joanne and Jamie are newlyweds and have only been married for six months.

Their relationship style is comfortable and very relaxed.  We had tons of fun  with their couple photos we took in studio. Joanne & Jamie did everything from arm wrestling on the floor to Karate kicks which made for a few good laughs…    I tried out quite a few new ideas and came out with some stunning results which I was really pleased with! (It’s very easy to fall into a groove with your photography and to just kind of stick to the same poses and lighting because they’ve been tried and tested. Which is why we try to incorporate a few new poses into every one of our professional photoshoots.

Because we’re professional photographers we know how to portray the very essence of you and your fiance, boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, spouse, dog (whatever you choose) with our clever and fun photoshoots

Well it’s been almost a month since we went away to Ballito KZN and it has just been so busy since I’ve been back that I haven’t had a chance to post any pics on the blog about it! We had such a wonderful time and we came back relaxed, refreshed and rejuvenated! It was really good quality time with the family and the kids loved it! Of course I took tons of photographs (yip photography is my passion not just my job)

We stayed at a new RCI affiliated resort called San Hill Estate (it is a bunch of really modern apartments in another estate called Seward Estate) in Ballito, right next to the Alberlito hospital. Fortunately, this time we didn’t need to pay the hospital any visits (at least not for our family anyway – we were at the hospital to tale little Adam and his mom for a checkup and they ended up spending 2 nights there as he had bad jaundice!)

I was a little disappointed with the place we stayed at – it really is not great for an RCI resort and was not great for families, but we had a wonderful time nevertheless and spent very little time at the resort anyway.

On the very first day we bought the boys some boogie boards and even though it was overcast and drizzling slightly, we hit the beach and Ryan taught the boys to boogie board – man did they love it!! They were sooooo brave and spent all their time swimming and building castles. Of course, Jamie’s creativity came out and we couldn’t just build the standard castles with a bucket, we needed to build the most intricate castles with their own waterways and tunnels – he really is genius when it comes to visulaising and building things – he says he wants to be an architect and a builder one day (oh and a rock star too!) He is already planning how he is going to build me a rocket car so that we can just take off and fly when we get stuck in traffic.

And Mikey just loved the water – we couldn’t get him out. He got hit by some really big waves but that didn’t stop him, he just ran straight back in and rode the next big wave on his board. Demi-Leigh is just like her brother and absolutely loved the beach and the sea. She also went straight for the sea and screamed every time I picked her up and moved back a little. Eventually I let a wave hit her thinking it would get her to back off a little…. not a chance – she was stunned for a few seconds, then screamed with delight and crawled straight back into the sea!! It was precious to see and her brothers were so proud of her!! She also loved the sand though she found it quite tasty (I tried to get her to stop eating it and eventually gave up and let her just have fun – even if that meant eating the sand)

We also visited lots of frineds while we were there and it was so good to see old friends (and some new ones too) All in all, it was a wonderful holiday – different to our holidays in Umhlanga but wonderful nevertheless! That’s what life is about - fun in the sun on some of the most beautiful beaches in the world with your family and loved ones – it doesn;t get any better than that!!!! I really am grateful for all the blessings in my life – thank you!