Wieger is the youngest brother and thus our ‘little baby brother’ and Petra is also the youngest child in her family. Their son Philip is 19 months now and your typical busy-body toddler who loves to run around, play in trees and splash around in water streams, as you’ll see in the photos!

Kottie en Peets, jul is baie special vir ons en so ook julle kids, ons weet sommer sussie gaan net so oulike van der Veentjie wees soos die res van ons

André

xo

Alain & Gugu’s daughter Calista was almost 6 months old at the time of the shoot and since they had very little photos of her from birth up until 6 months, they decided to do a professional photo session with their family. Alain and I know each other from working together in the IT industry and he was dead-set on using me after seeing some of my previous work with other families, which was quite a compliment to me and an honour to be picked as their photographer.
Two of Alain’s cousins also joined us and everyone was so easy to work with and willling to do their part to get great shots…the kind of clients we all adore and wish for.

I hope you like the photos as much as Alain & Gugu!

André

Paul en ek deel ‘n liefde vir fotografie asook rekenaars en tegnologie, so toe ek hom weer sien na al die jare, was dit asof ons mekaar die vorige dag nog by die werk gesien het!

Ek het hom, sy pragtige vrou Tanjé en twee dogtertjies in ‘n park in Pretoria ontmoet waar hulle ‘n vroeg oggend piekniek gehou het – die meisies was maar bietjie kamera sku vir die eerste ruk maar het vinnig ontdooi toe ek begin grappies maak, gesigte trek en allerhande ander nar-streke uit te haal – wat ons fotograwe nie als sal doen om ‘n glimlag te kry nie!

Tanje het kort na die foto sessie die mooiste epos vir my gestuur, jy kan hier gaan lees wat sy te sê gehad het – dankie weereens Tanje vir die moeite om die epos te tik en stuur, dit beteken ongelooflike baie vir my!!

Geniet die fotos en los gerus kommentaar, dit word altyd hoog op prys gestel!

André

We went to one of my favourite locations, where I’ve done numerous other shoots over the past couple of months, simply because it looks different with every season and also because it’s a family- and child friendly and safe option. Thanks Abby and Mandie for allowing me to use the pecan nut orchard once again, you guys are the best!!

Little Michael was born on 9 February (2 days after my birthday) and he’s a happy and healthy little dude! Pity I wasn’t able do a newborn shoot with him, because we left on holiday two days after he was born but I’m hoping to do a photo session with him and his family soon.

Enjoy the photos and feel free to leave a comment!

André

Stilbaai has a certain appeal to it, an undescribable force pulling us back time and time again. I’ve spent more than 19 Decembers here from the age of 5 and even now at 35, I still love the place more than any other in South Africa…and I’ve seen quite a lot of our beautiful country!

We rented the same self-catering accommodation as we did back in September 2009 when I had to shoot a wedding near Rietbron in the Karoo. My parents were very impressed with the facilites and the fact that we had such an amazing view of the main beach and bay, which is right in front of us.

There was quite a gusty wind blowing when we arrive and after unpacking, I grabbed the camera and took some shots of the kite surfers. Lucky for us, the wind subsided by the second day and we had beautiful weather for the duration of our stay.

Wian {loved} playing in the water and with every passing wave, he would ‘karate chop’ them and squeal with delight as we played in the sea.

I hope you enjoy the photos and remember: comments are always welcome!

André

xo

My parents

The two beautiful women in my life.

My landscape attempts

We picked these up on the beach one morning after our swim.

I have competition! Whenever I’m busy taking photos, Wian also wants to show off his skills

Oh and he felt the sunlight was too harsh, therefore the sunglasses & umbrella, hahaha!

Daddy’s darling little girl

Minay & Linel

Stilbaai’s blue flag beach

After our beautiful daughter was born, I decided a break in February might just be a good idea to still have a bit of a holiday before my wife had to go back to work in March, so I got the ball rolling and started planning a 2 week holiday in the Western Cape. We decided to visit Linel’s sister Ilze and her husband Wynand in Swellendam for a week, after which we’d spend a week in Stilbaai. My parents haven’t been to Stilbaai in a while and since they’ve taken us there every December for 19 years in a row since I was 5 years old, I really wanted to treat them and take them on holiday for a change!

With the recent purchase of a Toyota Fortuner, everything fell into place perfectly and we could even drive down in one car, which was not only more economical and greener for our planet (think less CO2 emissions), it also gave us more time to spend together as a family.

I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I usually would (a 2 year old toddler and a 4 month old baby can keep one quite busy!), I’d like to share some of the images from our trip with you – this is part I of a 2 part post and all these images were taken in and around Swellendam…as you’ll see, I’m not much of a landscape photographer and even when on holiday, 90% of the time I tend to capture my favourite subject: people.

Part II will follow shortly and will cover some of the photos I took while we were in Stilbaai.

André

xo

My dad took the photo of my son Wian and myself.

“Hi daar,

Ons wil net baie baie dankie se vir ‘n wonderlike ervaring Saterdag.  Jy het ons so op ons gemak laat voel en was so rustig oor al die kinders se streke dat dit nie eers soos ‘n fotosessie gevoel het.  Ons het nog nie eers een foto gesien nie maar die herinnering aan die dag sal my en Paul nog lank bybly.

Dankie vir al jou moeite en wees verseker dat ons saam met julle opgewonde is oor jou besigheid en al die wonderlike dinge wat die Here vir jou in gedagte het.

Baie seen en weereens dankie!”

For my English readers, I’ll do my best to translate it:

“Hi there,

We would like to thank you for a wonderful experience on Saturday. You made us feel completely at ease and you were so relaxed with the kids and their antics that it didn’t even feel like a photo session. We haven’t even seen a single photo but the memory of the day will stay with Paul and myself for a long time to come.

Thank you for all your effort and rest assured that we’re excited about your business and all the wonderful things our Lord has in store for you.

Blessings and once again, thank you!”

Talk about a great start to my week!!

The full blog post with photos from our session will follow in the next couple of weeks…but first, I’m off to spend some holiday time with my own family – see you back in two weeks time!

The brief was relatively simple: I didn’t want anything relating to a camera in my logo, yet the logo needed to be clean, simply but effective, in other words: if people were to see it somewhere, I wanted them to not only remember it, but also recognise it again in future. I decided to not introduce colour into the branding as I didn’t want the logo etc to distract from the photographs, when used in combination.

So after a first- and second draft, I decided on my logo and unlike the previous attempts, this time I am happy with it! I know that not everyone out there will like it or even agree that it is effective, nice, good looking or whatever else, but I’m hoping the majority of my followers, fans, friends, family and foes will think it ROCKS! As an “ex”-designer and fellow stock photographer once told me: “YOU need to love it, it’s YOUR logo after all!” Thanks Luba Nel, wise words indeed.

Thanks again Kelly for the wonderful job you’ve done and for being such an easy-to-work-with and fun, yet professional person – I highly recommend Rude Design for all your branding needs and more!!

So without further ado…go forth and feast your eyes!

(comments are, as always, very welcome!)

Business Card:

Compliment Slip:

Letterhead (printed):

and last but not least:

Logo: