Have you ever stood, looking at postcards while on holiday, wondering “Why can’t I take photographs like that...?”

I am a professional photographer, and an accredited tour guide for the Western Cape. I love photography, and I love to share my photographic knowledge and would love to take you to the best places to get the best photographs.

So, what makes a photographic tour so much more different than a normal tour? Well, several things really- like having time for that “Just one more shot”, and having time to set up a tripod, and having someone to ask “What setting on my camera do you think would be best to use?” or “How can I compose this photograph better”, or even “I’ve been having a problem with...” On a photographic tour we often pull off on the side of the road to take photographs of a beautiful scene, where normal tour operators have a strict itenary to stick to. And it’s about getting together with likeminded people, who have the same interests as you.

Even if you don’t know a lot about photography or your camera, a photographic day tour in the Cape is the perfect place to learn how to use your camera, be more creative and take some awesome photographs. I cannot think of another place on this planet that can inspire you so much to be more creative than Cape Town, the beautiful wine lands of Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl surrounded by magnificent mountains. Everywhere you look is another photo opportunity!

Cape Photographic Company offers standard, specialized and custom photographic day tours, for beginners, amateur, and advanced photographers.

STANDARD PHOTOGRAPHIC TOURS

TABLE MOUNTAIN & CITY PHOTOGRAPHIC DAY TOUR

Table Mountain dominates our Mother City, and during this tour you will get to photograph Table Mountain from different angles, like the classic photograph from Blouberg strand, The V&A Waterfront, with its colourful street performers and Signal Hill, with spectacular views over the newly built Green Point Stadium for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer, Robben Island and Table Bay. We visit the Castle of Good Hope, and The Company Gardens, where you will find squirrels eager to pose for your camera, for a little payment in peanuts, off course.  No visit to Cape Town would be complete without a walk around the vibrant, colourful, neighbourhood of Bo-Kaap. Its cobbled streets and brightly painted houses make it a feast for any photographer. 

CAPE POINT & CAPE OF GOOD HOPE PHOTOGRAPHIC DAY TOUR

We drive along the Atlantic Seaboard, for a “photo-stop” at Camps Bay, to photograph the Twelve Apostles, and on to Hout Bay, a quaint village and fishing harbour. The harbour offers us endless photo opportunities. Colourful fishing boats with magnificent mountains, fishermen offloading their “catch of the day”, seagulls in flight, or a trip to Duiker Island to photograph Cape Fur Seals (optional and seasonal). From here we drive to Good Hope Nature Reserve and to Cape Point with its historic lighthouses. On our way back we stop at Simons Town, a charming village with Victorian architecture, and to photograph our penguins at Boulders Beach. We end the day with some of photographs of the colourful beach huts at St James Beach, or Muizenberg Beach.

CAPE WINE LANDS PHOTOGRAPHIC DAY TOUR

Load up your camera, and charge your batteries, the Cape Wine Lands are one of the most beautiful places you will ever photograph. On this tour we visit the historical town of Stellenbosch, also known as “Die Eike Stad” (The town of Oaks) with its Oak lined streets and historical Cape Dutch buildings. There are a selection of wine farms to visit in Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, and Paarl. Stellenbosch is situated in an exceptionally beautiful area dominated by the soaring peaks of the Hottenstot-Holland mountain range and is the largest and most established of all the Cape Winelands.  The town of Franschhoek has an atmosphere of its own. Meaning ‘French Corner’ it is just that: a little corner in the Cape with strong French influences due to the French Huguenots of old and Paarl is situated in the Drakenstein Valley, at the foot of the enormous granite boulders which gave the town its name. We enjoy the day photographing a variety of wine farms, and concentrate on the elements that make a good landscape photograph, and the elements that make a good wine, off course!

 SPECIALIZED PHOTOGRAPHIC TOURS

MACRO or CLOSE-UP PHOTOGRAPHIC DAY TOUR

The Cape is famous for its Fynbos (meaning ‘fine bush’), and Table Mountain alone has more plant species than the whole of the United Kingdom. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens lies on the slopes of Table Mountain, and offers great scenery, peace and quiet, and a escape from the city- a perfect place to spend a hour or two photographing flowers.

Kirstenbosch honoured Mr Mandela by naming their priced yellow Strelitzia (Strelitzia reginae) “Mandela’s Gold”. This is what President Nelson Mandela said when visited Kirstenbosch National Botanical garden on 21 August 1996: “ I am happiest when I am in the wild because I can listen...as the poet says ‘In the still air music lies unheard, in the rough mountains, beauty’s height unseen’. I always feel the force of that sentiment when I am in this environment. And I am very happy that you have done me the honour of being associated with this remarkable place.”  

There after we travel to Butterfly World. This 1000 square meter greenhouse offers the photographer the perfect opportunity to take macro close-ups of butterflies which are often difficult to photograph in the wild. On colder days the butterflies are often less active, making this a perfect outing even on rainy days.

WEST COAST FLOWER PHOTOGRAPHIC TOUR

Springtime is flower time, and any photographers dream, as the West Coast is transformed into a wild flower wonderland, from August to September every year. Heading North from Cape Town, our first stop is at Blouberg strand, where you can take the “classic” Table Mountain photograph that you see on so many postcards. Thereafter we travel to the Tienie Versveld Flower Reserve and  the little town of Darling, were you can take photographs of a diversity of wild flowers due to the fact that different veld types such as Sandveld, Renosterveld, Rietveld, and Strandveld all overlap and mix here. At the West Coast National Park, we visit the Postberg Reserve, an ecologically sensitive area that is specially opened to the public during the brief flower season. Thereafter we make our way to Cape Columbine, to photograph the lighthouse, rocky coastline and more wild flowers. We end  a perfect day by photographing Table Mountain at sunset, sipping sun downers on our way back to Cape Town.

MOUNTAIN PASS PANORAMIC TOUR 

I enjoy taking panoramic photographs; it is a complete different format. I enjoy clicking the shutter... repeatedly! It’s not about taking the picture; it is about making the picture. There are many scenic routes here in the Western Cape, but for the bigger picture, you have to travel to our majestic mountains. This photographic tour takes us over five of the most spectacular mountain passes in the Western Cape: Sir Lowry’s Pass, with its beautiful views of the Hottentots Holland Mountains, Somerset West, False Bay, Strand, the Cape flats and Table Mountain in the far distance. Viljoen’s Pass brings us to the heart of “Apple” country and provides wonderful landscape photographs over the many fruit orchards, a sight not to be missed in spring when they are in blossom. Franschhoek  Pass was originally known as the Elephant’s  Path in memory of the elephants migrating along this route, welcomes your camera to the heart of the Winelands with its beautiful vineyards and old Cape Dutch homesteads. Du Toit’s Kloof Pass is one of the most dramatic passes in South Africa with cliffs rising up to 2000 meters. Bainskloof Pass was built by the legendary Andrew Geddes Bain, and is a rugged and dramatic scenic pass with views over the Wellington Region’s Winelands and towards the North, the vast open wheat fields of the Swartland region, the “bread basket” of the Cape.

PORTRAIT AND PEOPLE TOWNSHIP TOUR

“If you want to take more interesting photographs, get your camera in more interesting places”- the township of Khayelitsha is such a place. It’s an awesome experience to interact with the township dwellers and to take photographs as they go about their daily routine. The shacks and spaza shops, the market place and the butchery, the Sangoma (traditional healer) or a gap-toothed grin of a six-year-old or the utterly quiet, frail face of an elder, all makes for very interesting and different photographs. Any visit to Khayelitsha, is not complete without a visit to Vicky’s B&B, to see and experience the wonderful changes this remarkable women is bringing about within the township. The photographs we take in the township is a combination of candid, posed and journalistic style photography, and experiment with colour and black and white photography.

SHIPWRECK AND LIGHTHOUSE PHOTOGRAPHIC TOUR

South Africa has a beautiful and very photogenic coast line. Add to the picture a lighthouse, or even an old rusted shipwreck, and now you’re talking. WOW! On this tour you have to come equipped for all types of weather. Our tour starts in Cape Town, where we will first photograph the Green Point lighthouse, and then on to Llandudno beach with its shipwreck. Llandudno is one of the most photogenic beaches you will ever see! From there we make our way to Cape Point, with its historical lighthouses and shipwrecks. We then make our way past Simons Town, and Fishhoek, for a ‘photo-stop’ at the colourful beach huts at St James Beach and Muizenberg on our way to the scenic drive to Rooiels. Chapman’s Peak might be Cape’s most famous scenic drive, but the scenic drive from Gordon’s Bay to Rooiels is longer (18km), has better places to stop and take photographs, and is, arguably, more scenic. At Betty’s Bay we can photograph Penguins on our way to Hermanus, renowned for its whale watching. Whale season is between July and November , as southern right whales congregate in the safe and sheltered bay to mate and calf. We photograph the lighthouses at Danger Point and Cape Agulhas, and after a visit to the Shipwreck Museum at Bredasdorp, we make our way back to Cape Town.

BAD WEATHER AND RAINY DAYS

In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias named the Cape, ‘Cabo Tormentoso’, the ‘Cape of Storms’. Bad weather and rainy days is so thing we here in the Cape know too well. But bad weather really makes for awesome black and white photographs, with dramatic skies as a backdrop. You can achieve powerful shots by slowing the shutter speed to record blurred movement, like the movement of the waves, or the wind blowing reeds in a wetland or a wheat field. Waterfalls are a perfect subject to experiment with.

“I am always looking for ‘active’ skies...clear blue cloudless skies become featureless grey in black and white.”

So don’t let rainy days be boring days, come out and play...

CUSTOM PHOTOGRAPHIC TOURS

Whatever type of photography you enjoy, or would like to learn more about, or whatever and where ever you would like to go to take photographs, a custom photographic tour will be designed for your needs.

TRANSPORT

The transport I utilise is a Land Rover Defender 110, and can seat 6 passengers. The four wheel drive will enable us to get to difficult to reach places, and the height of the car is a advantage when taking photographs. I often stand on the roof rack of the Land Rover to get a elevated perspective or to avoid a distracting foreground. For larger groups I make use of an 18 seat Sprinter.