On 21 December 2021, Franco and Sue tied the knot at a venue in Johannesburg. It was on my birthday. The day was full of family friends and dancing, but the main photo shoot only occurred in March of the following year at Buffelsdrift Game Lodge in Oudtshoorn. Visiting this lodge should be on everybody’s bucket list. What an experience!
On the first night, we had a beautiful game drive to do some portraits where Rina and I shot the most amazing work against a beautiful sunset. Sue and Franco were game for anything to help us get some amazing shots.
The main event however happened the following day when they dressed up again in their wedding attire. Hair and makeup were done by the amazing Bradlin Heradien Wentzel.
I’ve always had the dream of shooting a couple with real elephants. I’m not talking about the smaller elephants in the bushveld, but the big ones we get in the Knysna area. Franco and Sue were very brave and there were even a few scary and cringing moments. The three elephant handlers were all over the show to control the elephants and to get them into different positions to get the shots that we had in mind. From a photographic point of view, things happened so fast and I had to pull out all the stops, (pun intended) to get the exposures right. I also used a Godox AD360 at full power from quite a distance to get a bit of fill flash and to lift the exposure in the shadows.
For the main idea that I had, Franco was walking in front, holding Sue’s hand following him, with Sue holding the elephant’s trunk, walking in a direction. One of the handlers gave her an apple to hold in her hand and the elephant was fighting her with his trunk to try and get hold of the Apple. She had to hold onto that Apple with all of her might just long enough for us to get the shot. The shoot was a resounding success and I want to thank Franco and Sue for creating this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Update May 2023
In 2022, I uploaded the main picture of this series onto the international Proweaward Platform, where it achieved a shot of the day, week, month and year accolades. With this in mind, I also entered the picture into the “World’s Top 50 Wedding Photographers” competition on the same platform. The picture achieved a gold medal!
I am very excited about this!
