it must be love....part deux...

this is the second installment of our weekend away - we went to Old Mac Daddy's Trailer Park in the Elgin Valley - one of my new favorite places!  love this quirky, beautiful place tucked away in the mountains along the valley road off the N2.  i have been wanting to go here, or one of their sister resorts, Daddy Long Legs and the Grand Daddy Hotel in Cape Town for a while now, mainly to see their creative designs.  Old Mac Daddy consists of villas and old fashion amercian trailers, each with the inside designed to a specfic theme by a SA designer. The park also has its own restaurant, The Barn; swimming pool; lake for fishing and cycling trails - although Nick and I weren't feeling very energetic for the cycling part!  We were staying in the King Midas trailer, situated right on the lake.  This place was the perfect way to end a brilliant weekend - and we are definitely wanting to go back there soon and take a few friends with!

one of the villas

the swimming pool

one of the trailers

inside the Barn restaurant

time for a read

inside our King Midas trailer

our trailer

view from trailer :)

just wanted to end off by sharing this video with you, Lovesick by The Arrows. The Arrows are a South African band and are fantastic! so if you haven't heard of them before check it out!

it must be love...love...love...

some people love it, some people hate...however you feel about it, i hope you enjoyed valentine's day yesterday!  my hubby nick and i have been working our little socks off recently so we decided to take this weekend off to go away together.  nick surprised me on the friday by taking me to a place called Hannah's View in Pringle Bay.  my, it was really stunning there!  Hannalie the owner has made this place feel like a home away from home. With her great attention to detail she has made the house so beautiful...the rooms were lovely, beds comfy and breakfast delicious!  

I often take my camera with me whenever we go away, and this time took more pictures of the house and the surroundings then nick and i as they seemed more interesting! :)  i also took the opportunity to make my first business proposal and see if Hannalie liked any of my photographs whether she would like to use them for her website.  she agreed!  so here are some of the photos i took while we were there. :) 

      

the breakfast room

       

the amazing house

                            

       

the reception - i loved the apron!

 

the lounge and a bottle of wine waiting for us in our room - this scored big brownie points from me! :)

    

the outside lounging area

Hannlie's attention to detail - flowers everyone and a stunning clean pool!

love the old antique bath style

 

our next stop was the Old Mac Daddy Trailer Park in the Elgin Valley...part two to be posted tomorrow.

Whether you are in the mood for love or not, thought i would post this song.  an oldy but a classic and brings me back to my london roots....

                     

lensbaby yeah......

haven't blogged in a while, been a little sick and also been trying to gear myself up for a couple of shoots i have for the next couple of weeks.  have felt really inspired and challenged the past couple of days to step up my game a little, so have been studying a bit more on photography and been learning a little of Lightroom.  i am quite excited about this year, and if things go according to plan i will have more time to do photography properly! yay!  
brought myself a lensbaby the other day for my canon and had been meaning to give it a whirl.  i only bought the cheapest one out there, which retails for about R400 from Exposure (really cool camera shop in the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock).  i have been messing around with the lens the past couple of days, and seeing as my hubby wasn't up for being a model, i took a stroll in our garden.  was surprised to find some flowers out there as both of us are neither the gardening type.  but low and behold, here they were and this is what came out.  not the happiest with them and think i need to experiment a little more, especially more with people as that's my passion! :) would like to see what the difference is between this lens and the more expensive lensbaby for the canon.  maybe if i try and find someone who has it i will test it out, but don't think i am going to be using this lens an awful lot.  not bad tho for a R400 purchase! :)

i leave you with a song by yann tiersen, from one of my favourite movies "Amelie".  such a feel good, lazy sunday afternoon chill out song! happy days! :) 

little wing....

my hubby loves his music and recently we watched a program called the seven ages of rock.  just watching it made me fall in love with the 1970s and the music scene then. one of my faves was the episode about jimi hendrix, what an amazing but also sad and tragic life.  a song of his i could listen over and over to at the moment is "little wing".  

i have added corinne bailey rae's cover version of this song as she seems to put such raw emotion in the song.

thought this song would also present nicely some pics that i took of my friend Jenna las week.  she asked me to do some head shots of her for castings (jenna is a dancer/performer).  below is what we finished up with :)

Well, she's walking through the clouds,
With a circus mind that's running wild,
Butterflies and Zebras,
And Moonbeams and fairy tales.
That's all she ever thinks about.
Riding with the wind.

When I'm sad, she comes to me,
With a thousand smiles she gives to me free.
It's alright, she says it's alright,
Take anything you want from me,
Anything.
Fly on little wing.

bold and underlined....

for the first time ever the other day my hubby came to help me with a photo shoot.  he was actually quite helpful, seeing good places to take shots and i gave him the job of 'gaffer' carrying the equipment and helping with the reflector for the right lighting. I might hire him :) 


these are the shots we took, of our good friend Julian Adams.  As he was here in South Africa for a while on holiday he asked me to take some shots of him for his new website.  We went along to Kalk Bay, which is a great location for good rustic shots, and started off in Julian's favourite coffee shop, Olympia.  (Thanks Olympia for being so accommodating and for the good cappuccinos!) 


have quite a few busy months ahead with a few shoots booked, feel really privileged and excited! so watch this space!


while you have a peek at the shots, would like to introduce my new fave band at the moment, Future of Forestry.


Enjoy! :)