Betty’s Bay in the Overberg. And my little baby photography background

My mom lives in Betty’s Bay in The Overberg. We go visit as often as possible because obviously we LOVE my mom and Lester. It’s so nice to see them and lounge on their porch with an ocean view as the boys play in the garden. Jack loves exploring the fynbos, paths and streams and digging his heart out at the beach.

There’s so much to do in the Overberg – with beaches, fishing, quad biking, hiking and even sand boarding. In Betty’s Bay you’re also very close to Hermanus, Stanford, Kleinmond, Pringle Bay and Elgin. After about a year of exploring the area, we’re still dead-set on Betty’s Bay as the perfect weekend retreat for the whole family.

I recently got a propers Canon professional camera and a few lenses from Graeme, so I’ve started playing around again. I used to be my school’s photographer and belonged to a photography club back home. At Varsity I was also the paper’s photographer and one of my first jobs was working as an assistant / studio manager at a really cool mulitmedia agency in Joburg. There I learned so much from Mike Rumble – from editing to technique and working in the field. We’d go to marathons in the area and I’d manage the media center where I’d edit and supply photos to the journalists, sponsors, writers and event organizers. Mike also did photography for a few hotel chains, holiday resorts and other sporting events. It was one of my favourite jobs, even getting up at 6am (sometimes) to help Mike get the perfect light for the perfect image was exhilarating.

When I moved in to TV production and started growing babies I let go of this passion a bit. Then as I moved further in to PR and social media I let it go completely. I love Instagramming sweet pictures of our precious kids, but I really want to go back to the basics. I’m doing a photography course again and learning everything from scratch. I have to get a proper editing suite again. Right now, I’m shooting on auto and clicking *enhance* on all my pictures which is like… cringe worthy. My brother Paul is an excellent photographer, so I can’t wait for him to come visit and show me a few tricks.

I got my first camera when I was a little girl, and with Noah’s growing interest in photography and documenting I really want to learn more so I can teach him the right way from the start. I gave him my old Canon Cybershot which is like a bridge camera with some manual settings.

I’ll share some of this journey as I go, and I’ll create little cheat-sheets and help you guys learn too. We’re all trying to capture memories of our beautiful lives, so I want to get to a point where I can use more of my photos – heck maybe even print and frame some of the boys. Right now, I have a very basic understanding of all the settings and editing, but hopefully we can all learn together on this.

So here’s Betty’s Bay. I wanted to take these now and then re-take them in a few weeks time once I’ve learned a thing or two. You really need to head out to the Overberg and experience it’s majesty – especially this Spring! Just an hour or so from Cape Town and it’s like stepping back in time. I can’t wait for warmer weather so we can explore again!