(Note: “The Housewives” was a term I fondly coined in 2006 after I started getting shoot requests from private, individual women who became my clients. Many of the women who contacted me were married and in their mid 30’s and were doing the shoots as gifts to their husbands. The folder in my archives is still called this and so I’ve stuck to it, in part just for the irony: most of these women are not “housewives” at all, but strong independent and forward thinking women who I have had the honour of documenting.
All are private commissions and the demographic has changed substantially over the years. Some I’m still in contact with, others I’ve totally lost contact with, some have become friends, some may wish not to have their real names used, others don’t mind, some may have their faces obscured for privacy reasons, others have generously shared their experiences of being photographed.)
I met and photographed beautiful Shane in early 2014. The shoot brief was to make a large series of images over a two day shoot which were reminiscent of Cape Town and a reminder for Shane of her time here. We shot at 4 locations with 5 looks over the two days.
The shoot team consisted of myself, Shane, an assistant, a hair and makeup artist and a stylist. On day one we drove out to Witsands beach which lies between Scarbourough and Kommetjie. It was blowing a gail force and we had to, last minute, relocate to the little basin inlet where the boats launch in Kommetjie which was not a beach at all but a sort of rocky area and not great.
We then shot at the base of Table Mountain with the mountain and the Fynbos plants as the setting.
On day two we moved to Muizenberg beach where we shot using the iconic and colourful old changing house as a backdrop and renting a surfboard for some extra shots in the waves.
Last up we drove through to Somerset West where we shot a short series of images with Shane at the Cheetah Outreach with one of their huge purring cheetah’s as our second model.
