Shanie had been messaging me for months before her dance.

We checked locations, times, styles, and who was in the photos for Shanie’s Matric Dance. And then we double checked locations, times and styles and who was in the photos. And then we did it again just to be extra sure.

It was clear from months  before that Shanie was super excited for her dance.

And I couldn’t help but catch the excitement from her too. I got to the venue super early and started missioning around to look at the light. I had done a shoot at this location a few weeks before specially to scout out the location. But it was at a different time of day. And the previous time I had gone the place was so busy I didn’t get to use many of the cute little spots. This time it was a week day. So the place was much quieter. Not only was there a ton more places to shoot, but the sun was also in such an amazing spot it was incredible.

I was lucky that Shanie arrived a few minutes early.

This way I got to start shooting right at the entrance. It had some amazing light! Although I knew there was a better spot, with this amazing row of trees, I decided to start here so she was more relaxed by the time I took her to the trees. I didn’t actually need to worry though. Although I could tell that Shanie was nervous, she was absolutely amazing in front of the camera.

As soon as we got to this row of trees other couples started arriving. If Shanie had been a few minutes late, or even just on time we probably never would have been able to use our row of trees. I did feel like a bit of a terrible human for claiming the best spot on the property. And for quite some time while taking her photos.

The school Shanie went to unfortunately didn’t allow outside people into the matric dance.

Only other students at the school were allowed. Shanie’s boyfriend never went to the school, so se was forced to go with someone else. However, she still wanted a few photos with her boyfriend. We had decided long ago that her and her boyfriend would arrive earlier and get their photos taken. The date would then arrive a bit later and have some photos taken of him. And then some of Shanie, with her date. We started off in the top spot location, but after I had everything I wanted in that spot we moved on to allow some other photographers to use that location. This unfortunately meant that the chances of me getting to shoot Shanie there with her date were rather unluckily.

Her date arrived and I started in the same spot I had started the shoot when Shanie arrived. The light there was still amazing and the trees in that spot were just beautiful.

All was going well. Until we got to this calf..

My cool spot had been claimed. And now there were actually a whole ton of photographers trying to use the row of trees all at once. There was no way I was going to get a spot there again anytime soon. Luckily there were tons of other places I could make look great too.  The shoot was at Irene Dairy Farm so we decided to get some shots that included the cows. We found this super cute little calf and turned him into one of our extras on the shoot.