The beach photoshoot

Let me start off by saying I always realise when I'm back in my home town how fast and urgent and driven a place Joburg is. And how people are so relaxed (deep down I envy them) at the coast.

We'd tentatively arranged for a 5 pm photo shoot on Monday since the light would be best that time.

Well, you know my babies go to bed at 6pm and become really cranky in the half hour before.

I emailed him to tell him this and heard nothing so I was texting on the Sunday, phoning on the Monday (twice, all before 12) and the poor man was out of town (out of cell phone reception) all this time.

He eventually phones me, apologising. I was apologising too for "hounding him" as I called it.

Anyway, again, so relaxed and it was no problem to reschedule the shoot for Tuesday morning.

I like to think I'm led of God and this is a perfect example because Tuesday was the BEST weather for the 7 days we've been here.

We had no problems on Tuesday morning, were all dressed in jeans and grey t-shirts and this time I was very relaxed.

Let's attribute it to being at the beach and with all that wind, you're hanging onto babies and your cap so there's no time to stress about him getting the "perfect shot", etc.

D even commented afterwards that I didn't even try to control things. LOL

Yes, I was the epitome of Zen!

See the pic? My jeans were drenched, full of sand, my top was wet, my hair was a crazy mess because of the wind, I did nothing but run around after them, no relaxing with a book like in the past... but I didn't care.

Zen!

I still haven't seen any proofs but I assume they're alright as he told me he'd have a look when he got home and if the light was too harsh (because it got very bright very quickly - lovely for playing at the beach but not for gorgeous photos), he'd call to do another 30 minutes at another location of my choice.

I still haven't paid him! He wanted no deposit even though I insisted! I realised then that I was insisting to make myself feel better. He was not in the least bit concerned.

This is very unlike anybody in Jhb - nothing wrong with Jhb, it's just VERY different at the coast. I remember years ago we travelled to PE by car, took the car for a service as there was a special on, and there was something wrong with the credit card when we tried to pay. We envisioned the owner taking us to the bank to draw the money (as they would do in Jhb, but there you'd make your own way) but they just said, "next time you drive past (it was on a main road), bring the money. OH MY WORD. We were gobsmacked.

Anyway, so he was there with his one son who has the same first name as my boss, a fairly unusual name. The son was lovely and even looked after my kids for a bit while he took some pics of the two of us walking on the beach.

So D and I are waiting with bated breath... hopefully there are at least a couple that are worthy of printing on canvas :) There should be some cute ones of the kids as we took ours later that same day and they still looked cute.

P.S. I had some 2011 black and white calendars printed with 3 of our prof pics on them and they look stunning! I am now hooked on playing with the photos and will be visiting my local Kodak to see what else I can do with them.

P.P.S. The kids are about 70% there with the walking - they walk by themselves more than they crawl these days and Connor esp walks very confidently. I had a "moment" last night as he is getting to be a big boy!