WE ARE MOVING! This is where you will find us from now on

We are very excited! We have upgraded to our new website with our blog inside the site. 

That means that you now have access to content about our Style & Stories Portrait Portfolio, professional portraits, event and product photography located on our website. 

We will therefore not be posting any more content on this site. 

Please add our MVNP blog to your RSS feed and stay up to date with our latest projects and information that will help us help you to present your company's and your personal brand in the best possible light.

See you there!

THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR STYLE STORY DURING WOMEN'S MONTH 2014! #MVNPStyleStory

We expect that we will soon be painting the town red with Desiree Naude of Somerset West, the winner of our Women's Month 2014 Share Your Style Story Competition!

Desiree's choice of option 2 (when in doubt, follow designer Bill Blass' advice and wear red!) has won her a three-hour Style and Stories Portrait Portfolio shoot including make-up by Candice Harker worth R2 500.

We look forward to telling Desiree's story soon. 

As usual, we will post the images on the blog so add us to your RSS feed.

Thanks to everyone who entered our competition. We really enjoyed learning more about you through your style story! And now we are very keen to also tell your story in style.

Call us to book a Style and Stories Portrait Portfolio shoot!

For more information and prices write to office@shuftipics.co.za or call 072 3553 264.

We look forward to telling your story in style!

SPRINGTIME, SEPTEMBER 2014

Style & Stories Portrait Portfolio: Marnelle

Photographer: Martin Van Niekerk Photography

MUA: Candice Harker 

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Marnelle

MAKE-UP ARTIST: Candice Harker http://www.mobilemakeupartist.co.za/

SHARE YOUR STYLE STORY #MVNPStyleStory & Win During Women's Month 2014

Fashion changes, but style endures, said Coco Chanel, and she would know! 

What a StyleStory she could tell.

But we want to hear all about your Style Story (#MVNPStyleStory) and then we want to help you tell your story in style with a photos shoot and a portfolio of portraits. 

From 1 to 31 August in celebration of Women's Month 2014 we offer you a chance to win a Style & Stories Portrait Portfolio photo shoot with 15 images on a CD worth R2 500.

All you need to do is:

•  to go to our Facebook page
• Find the StyleStory Competition app
• Choose an image and quote combination that best describes your personal StyleStory
• Type in the number in the allocated field and you could be the lucky winner. 

To increase your chances:

• Share with your friends through Facebook, on Twitter with  #MVNPStyleStory or email and 
• Get another opportunity to vote 

The winner will selected through a random process using Woobox and will be announced before 10 September 2014.

FLASH BACK # 10: Jenny / 2011

Photographer: Martin Van Niekerk
Model: Jenny
MUA: Candice Harker

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Gisela

BY ERIKA

Graceful as a gazelle, gentle as a breeze and beautifully brainy is Gisela ‘Dancer’ Iles.

When not dancing for The Psychedelic Theatre performance art group she can be found in front of her books as a Stellenbosch University student.

We first met Gisela as part of the poi or fire eating team we photographed a few years ago.

Over the years we met up again for photo shoots and recently for the Save The Tie, Save a Child fashion show in which she participated as performer and model for Saskia Wicomb’s IEMAND label.

The same qualities that makes her an exceptional dancer, helped create these beautiful studio images of Gisela.

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Illze

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Beautiful, elegant and timeless portraits for woman of all ages

We want to tell your Story in Style!

Interested in finding out how we can create beautiful images of you, follow this link to 
Martin Van Niekerk Photography's new blog

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Elize

BY ERIKA

Thanks to good old Facebook, I reconnected with my school friend Elize again after about 35 years. At first it we only kuier-ed in virtual reality but in 2012 Elize moved from Limpopo to Stellenbosch and we just carried on where we left off years ago.

It has been a wonderful experience getting to know Elize as an adult while at the same time enjoying the familiarity of a friendship that started in Grade 1 in 1968!!!

At the beginning of this year Elize who has been practising yoga since 1988, established the AnahatYoga & Wellness Studio in Die Boord, Stellenbosch with two partners, Candice Jones and Johan Kotze.

The name Anahat, Elize explains, refers to the Sanskrit name for the heart chakra, anahata which means “unstruck” or “unhurt. It implies that underneath our human existence lies a wholeness that is eternal and boundless.

“We chose Anahat for the name of our studio because it beautifully brings the energy of “the Heart of Yoga” to our studio and we wanted our studio to resonate with the love of the path of yoga, shared from the heart, with the people of Stellenbosch.”

It is in the lounge of this beautiful and tranquil space that Martin chose to photograph Elize for her STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO.

“The big windows on both the east and the west sides of the lounge as well as neutral wall colour makes it an ideal place to do natural light portraits,” he says.

“It also helped that on the day of the shoot, we experienced a typical Boland winters day with cloud cover and rain for most of the day creating a huge soft box on all sides.”

As we always say at MVNP, in the right light and at the right time, every woman is extraordinary.

MAKE-UP ARTIST: Candice Harker http://www.mobilemakeupartist.co.za/

Martin, Elize and Candice make-up artist cum photographer's assistant
in the lounge of the Anahat Yoga Studio in Stellenbosch 

Candice working her make-up magic with Elize 

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Tanita

MAKE-UP ARTIST: Candice Harker http://www.mobilemakeupartist.co.za/

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Madelein

BY ERIKA

Whenever Martin and I talk about which of his modelling portfolio photographs we like best, one of us will mention 'that one of Madelein in the blue dress'.

Four years, one engineering degree and one wedding later, we were fortunate to have this graceful and beautiful woman back in the MVNP studio. 

And the results did not disappoint! See for yourself.

Madelein Dreyer definitely puts a different face to the stereotype of an engineer. She is currently doing a Masters in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town investigating new control systems for myoelectrical protheses. 

Quite a mouthful but we are sure, it is nothing she can't master! 

MAKE-UP ARTIST: Candice Harker http://www.mobilemakeupartist.co.za/

FLASHBACK # 6: Sasha / 2010

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Catherine

BY ERIKA

Catherine Poole is a trichologist and if you are wondering what on earth that is, that was my first reaction too when we first met.

A trichologist, she explained, is someone who encourages hair and scalp health and treats hair loss and baldness. 

Catherine who trained in the United Kingdom, is based at HairOptions in Somerset West and uses non-surgical and laser procedures to restore ones crowning glory to its former glossy and abundant state.

From these gorgeous images of Catherine with her healthy head of hair, it is clear that she is a walking advertisement for her profession.

MAKE-UP ARTIST: Candice Harker http://www.mobilemakeupartist.co.za/

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FLASHBACK # 4: Pauline / 2011

STYLE & STORIES PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO: Lanel

BY ERIKA

Dancer by night (or day) and business woman by day (or night).

Always enthusiastic, innovative beyond belief but at the same time well-prepared and professional, Lanel Van der Kolff very successfully juggles being the ringmaster as well as performer with The Psychedelic Theatre, a performance arts group from Stellenbosch.

And I think, it is exactly this combination of passion and poise that Martin’s studio portraits of Lanel captured.

We have been fortunate to work with Lanel and her team of dancers, fire dancers, stilt walkers, mimes, puppet masters, magicians, jugglers and physical theatre performers on a few occasions. And we will again at fashion show gala event for the Save the Tie, Save a Child project at the end of June.

Lanel who trained with contact improvisation dancer Sam Pienaar at the University of Stellenbosch founded The Psychedelic Theatre around 2009 with actor Marvin-Lee Beukes.

Since then they have danced their way to trance parties, raves, street festivals, corporate gigs, weddings and birthday parties as well as a full-length theatre show! At the end of 2012 The Psychedelic Theatre even presented Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Taal Monument in Paarl, complete with fire dancing, narration and spectacular costumes. 

To book The Psychedelic Theatre for an event, festival or party, call Lanel Van Der Kolff at 079 148 1933 or email her at psychedelictheatre@yahoo.com or visit their Facebook page.

MAKE-UP ARTIST: Candice Harker http://www.mobilemakeupartist.co.za/ 

FLASHBACK # 2: Merlene / 2010

“In Light there is Dark, and in Dark there is Light.”  - Kami Garcia, Beautiful Darkness