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    About Us

    How do you do?

    It's such a pleasure to have the opportunity to introduce ourselves to you!

    We're so excited for your new adventure, and thrilled you swung by our little corner of the internet for a bit. We document love stories and lives lived in love in an emotive, cinematic way, and we aim to provide our clients with an experience that they can hold on to for years to come. We view your trust in us as the greatest honour, and our promise is to always treat it as such, while having fun!

    We are luxury wedding photographers and we offer a unique experience to discerning couples. Our fine art documentary style ensures your biggest moments are captured with sensitivity and professionalism, immortalising your story in elegant images.

    Collectively, we have three decades experience as working professional photographers, so we are confident in what we do and how we do it. You will be in safe hands and we will make sure your experience is enjoyable from the first moment. Our storytelling is raw and authentic, and we want to capture the true you, so it is imperative that we are a good fit and that you are comfortable with us. Sound like your vibe? Then get in touch, and schedule a call with us so that we can see if we'll work well together, and to discuss your dreams for your big day!

    We are based in the vibrant city of Cape Town, South Africa, however, we love to travel and to discover beautiful new places, we love meeting new people, and we love telling intimate stories at any destination.

    (Psst, if you are planning a destination wedding in one of our favourite destinations, we will offer you a really special package to have the chance to photograph your wedding!)

    Shanellé

    Coffee addict & "the technical department"

    Born in Somerset West, a wild child born into a city life, Shanelle has always dreamt of being a photographer for National Geographic. Being a poet, a musician and songwriter, it was this love for telling stories that led her to a career in wedding photography. Since 2011, she has photographed hundreds of weddings and couples from around the world, and remains wildly excited about capturing unique love stories. Her creative vision and pure passion for creating once-in-a-lifetime images is contagious. Shanelle is an ardent soccer fan, and used to play hockey competitively. She also dreams of travelling to Turkey to sample Turkish coffee in the streets of Istanbul. She loves camping, cycling, and adventures that get her out of her comfort zone. She is also completely besotted with the ocean and goes to the beach as often as she possibly can. Shanelle is the main photographer and sometimes videographer in our team.

    Heroes: Maya Angelou, Anne Sexton, Sir Alex Ferguson
    Top five travel destinations: Turkey, Morocco, India, Zanzibar, Mozambique
    Passionate about: music, technology and psychology and humanitarian causes
    Most precious possession: her Takamine guitar

    Gita

    Book nerd, tea pot & "Google"

    Born in the Karoo and growing up travelling all over southern Africa with nature-loving parents, nature and landscape photography was a natural first introduction to photography. She went on to study travel photojournalism through an international school, and worked mainly as a commercial and editorial photographer for the ten years before she met Shanelle and they teamed up. Gita is a qualified and registered nature guide, ornithologist, and a nutter for camping, hiking, and everything outdoors. She plays the piano badly, and has an obsession with books, incense, yoga, tea, gardening, cats, and Japan.
    She still actively pursues fine art landscape and travel photography and her work is found in private and public collections in South Africa, and also in Europe and the USA.

    Heroes: Jane Goodall, Hayo Miyazaki, JRR Tolkien, Annie Leibovitz
    Top five travel destinations: Japan, Italy, India, Botswana, Taiwan
    Passionate about: environmental conservation, social issues and art
    Most precious possession: The authentic Chinese tea set from Yingge for which she was nearly detained at the airport

    Our Story

    Two air signs with a love of art and music came together and the world just made sense.

    We met online due to a glitch in an app back in 2018, and were immediately smitten. We shared so many interests and passions, dreams and ideals, and we immediately fell in love with each other’s kids, too.

    We moved in together, living as a blended family for the first time in 2020. When lockdown happened, it was hard! Life and the pandemic threw us all the curveballs, but we persisted in the face of all the challenges, and overcame them, one by one. We finally got married in February 2023, and we’re happier than ever in our queer but tight-knit family.

    We love to travel and we travel a lot, preffering to wildcamp in remote places where we and the kids can be wild and free. We relish the discovery of new places, flavours and people - something we're delighted to share.

    We enjoy good coffee, real slap chips and conversation and experiences that make us think and grow.

    Our favourite thing in the world is to tell stories, to capture beautiful moments, to cherish them and share them with the world.

    We shot our first wedding together in 2019, and honestly, we just clicked (that pun snuck in there all by itself!). We have a natural rhythm when working together – something we didn’t expect but loved to discover. Now, we can’t wait for the next time we get to shoot a wedding together, and we hope the next one is yours!

    Our Approach

    Apart from the essential technical knowledge necessary for successful and professional wedding reportage, we understand that our chance to capture your big day is a once in a lifetime, and we will treat it as such. Your wedding day is the most important day of our lives. Our personal, artistic approach ensures that your pictures embody who you are, your values, and your dreams.

    We want to know you, memorable moments you’ve shared, what you value, and what makes you excited, so that we are better able to document your unique story.

    Whether you’re planning an elopement or a full scale traditional celebration, we want to tell your story in a way that will have you wiping tears of joy for decades to come, and fondly remember the day you made your promises of forever to each other.

    The joining of love, life and presence in a single moment

    As seen in:

    Love Letters

    Thank you so much for capturing those special moments.

    Wendy & Mark

    THE most beautiful photos I have EVER seen!!!

    Ronel van Niekerk

    Wowieeee! Love love love! Thank you so so so much for the incredible video! 🤩 Thank you so much for the gorgeous photos and highlights video, Shanelle and Gita. We sincerely appreciate it.

    Mia Spies

    Really thank you so, so unbelievably much for everything you did - the video, the photos - it is so beautiful! My mom cries every time she watches it (I think Charl too, a little bit!) Really unbelievably beautiful. It was just really so great that you could do everything for us and we appreciate everything so much. We will contact you again if we want to have photos taken again and will definitely recommend you to anything who needs photos. Really, thank you so, so much, and it was so good to meet you and to share everything with you.

    Richelle & Charl

    What a beautiful wedding and a fantastic couple. It was super working with you.

    Tracy

    You truly are incredible!

    SA Weddings

    Follow Us on Instagram

    @plainbluestudio

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