Dinner becomes her

Altered Reality... not in my comfort zone... this one might put me in a thigh spot, but I WANT TO DO IT! Maybe a head in hat box with blood and tissue paper... but that was a bit gross, even for me! So maybe, just the head in the box.... but that doesn't have enough punch...

Finally there it was, the flick of a switch and on goes the light bulb. I need hat-netting, black. A model and a platter full of fruit, but still, the "X" factor for the photo was missing. I needed a butler or... South Africa's Mr. Bean (compliments of his children exclaiming, dad you look like Mr Bean on the photo).

First I needed to get the perfect shot of the model. It started out with knotting her hair in a bun, getting the hat just right and getting her lips black (Eyeliner and very glossy lipstick works great!). We added the earrings and finally we started with the shoot. Accompanied with a lot of laughter, light adjustments and a moms keen hands on fixing the netting on the hat, we finally got the shot... i still didn't have a model to hold the platter and less than 7 days to hand in the project.

Then we thought of the perfect model, Van der Spuy Brink. A friend of my dad, mentor to two, still wet behind the ears photographers. Family man, facilitator. But MOST important a man with a GOOD sense of humor!

The fruit platter was heavy, even if you carried it with two hands... and he had to hold it in one! This was really a team effort. My sister (thanks Anri!) helped with the platter and an additional reflector. My mom was working with a second reflector and i was doing the fun work, clicking away with my camera. 

The last photo was the apple, believe me, finding the perfect apple can be a real pain! Photographing it was even worse. 

The final results... a roar of laughter from most of the photo club.

Waiter there's a ---- in my ---- alias COFFEE BREAK

It all started out with a BIG BLUE FAT FLY, laying dead on my mom's kitchen floor, the wings perfectly intact... as well as ALL 6 of the legs (that was before the photo shoot). My mom and I started brainstorming on how I could use the fly for my storyline at the photo club, the only problem... I needed the perfect location (the studio just didn't cut it!) and I also needed a model, with personality and someone not sparing a second thought on what people might think.

After a lot of though I worked up the courage to ask "S" if we can make use of her coffee shop and beautiful (and very delicious) cupcakes.  PLEASE NOTE! No insects were harmed during the shoot. The model on the other hand might be psychologically scarred for the rest of her life (as well as the photographer, see below) and as for the coffee shop, we brought our own fly to the party!

The idea was to have a nice cup of coffee with cake. Upon the first bite the model would realize that there is a fly on the cake. After much deliberation she decided the cake is worth the eating (even though the fly had the same idea) and the end result (and here the accidental amputation of the leg occurred, you wouldn't be able to see it that clearly, you'll need a bigger photo) only the wrapper and the dead fly remains.

The day of the shoot draw nearer and the results was as follow:

 Here the staff started gathering around laughing just as loud as the model and myself!

 Here we had a small problem since the crumbs didn't want to stay put!

After the shoot we settled down for a nice cup of coffee and cupcakes...however, I first needed to clean up the area of the shoot. The last thing on my list was to wrap up the fly (since I want to use it again) and in the process of cleaning up the crumbs from the table I got icing on my fingers, which of course I didn't even think about twice before licking it of... and the I realized... it was the fingers that I used to pick up the fly just moments before....