Colours of Summer

On Tuesday, I had lots of fun taking photos of the beautiful Summer Du Preez at Giba Gorge in Pinetown. This was my second time working with Summer – previously, we had done an urban portrait shoot – and I could tell we were developing a photographic rhythm.

Summer wanted these photos to stand out from traditional portrait shots, so we decided to get creative (and messy) with coloured powders, and trick ‘levitation’ photography.

I chose Giba Gorge for our setting, because it has a variety of interesting natural and man-made backdrops.

After a 2 km trek, we arrived at a waterfall, and began the levitation shots. Summer didn’t hesitate to step into the icy cold Winter water, her feet turning a shade of purplish-blue. She managed to look elegant despite the cold, and while balancing in various difficult positions.

Next, we headed off to the edge of a dam, where the sunlight was creating a beautiful halo around Summer’s hair. I love how her neon pink top and flowing white skirt stand out against the shades of green and gold in these images. She really looked like a riverside goddess/queen.

Lastly, we reached the abandoned houses, which I chose as the setting for our coloured powder images – my favourite part of the shoot.

Summer has a passion for visual art (as well as music), and told me that she’s used to being covered in paint, so she had no trouble getting pelted with coloured powder by my assistants for the day: Rowan and Kelly (Summer’s sister).

A few poorly-aimed throws resulted in Summer getting the powder in her eyes and mouth, but she just laughed, and some of these moments resulted in the best pictures. I would do a shoot like this again any day.

After all the powder was finished, it was time to call it a day. We took one last customary group shot and began the long walk back to the car. I was super excited about these shots because of the creative and colourful concepts, and I couldn’t wait to get home to start editing.

Thanks to Rowan and Kelly for their hard work throwing the powder (pictured below) and for making sure Summer looked good throughout the shoot.