When I told Karen and Bruce that I was dying to do a wedding shoot in a township, they thought it was a brilliant idea. Since they arrived in Cape Town a few days before their wedding, they decided to swap an engagement session for a 'Trash the Dress' Shoot, which is a fairly recent trend where you have a shoot in your wedding gear after your actual wedding.

I don't really like this phrase - it conjures up visions of a bride rolling in the mud with a 'sexy look' or savagely shredding silk or jumping through a ring of flames (too much caffiene or not enough sleep?). I think it sounds tacky - perhaps it should be called something much cooler such as a 'Post-Wedding-Couple-Shoot'.....not. I did think of a few alternatives but nothing really stuck... Relive the robe, Dress Deja vu or F*** the Frock? I know a lot of photographers read this blog... perhaps some of you guys have a better idea? We can start our own South African trend :-)

In any case, I regress. So I don't like the term but I do love the idea. Basically you do a shoot in your dress where we have time to be creative and get cool shots at a different location, but without the pressure of a wedding day and without you worrying about your dress getting dirty. I know my wedding dress is still sitting in my best friend's cupboard in Joburg waiting to be dry cleaned, 5 years later. It probably doesn't fit anymore and if I have a daughter one day I'm pretty sure she won't wear it to her wedding. So you may as well get the most use out of it now!

Back to Karen and Bruce's session though. Karen completely got the ball rolling and hired a guide and guard to accompany us to Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay as I wasn't too keen to head with my gear unaccompanied to a township. We had a great morning cruising around the streets and shebeens much to the locals amusement and got some awesome images! I also snuck in a few other images on the way which you can view on my portrait site.

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