Anyone interested in doing a shoot in South Africa?

Here is the plan.

I think it would be fun / profitable to organize a week long shoot involving locations / models / nature.  I chose South Africa because I want to travel there - if you are disappointed with the location, you can start a thread on other locations that should be used next time.

I thought at first I could organize most of the trip myself and then send out an open invitation, but I think this new plan might be better.  What is the plan?

First we find people who are seriously interested in in the event  (4-10 people).  It would take place some time in the fall (August -> October 2009, although date is flexible), probably cost a few $1000 in addition to your flight getting there, be a week or so long and give you a lot of stock to upload.

When we have a list of of semi-confirmed people, we can each work on getting a single days shoot organized.  I have looked into using a production agency, and perhaps that is still an option, but if we do the organizing ourselves we would save a lot of money.  If we each took a day, the work load would be reduced and manageable.  If you didn't want to do any organizing work, you could just pay extra for the trip to compensate those who did organizing.

After being at one iStockalypse event I saw that it does work to have multiple shooters at one setup.  Yes, there would be similar shots, but people use different lenses, have different ideas, different editing, keywords, cameras, angles so there seems to be a good variety in the results.  Sure the income from the shoot would be considerably less than if you were there by yourself, but so are the expenses.  When shooting with 3 others, you also gain from the creativity of the other photographers and may get shots you would not of thought of otherwise, in addition to just being more fun with more people.  If we were 8 people, I think we could split into two groups of 4 and switch models after a few hours.  In each group of 4 there would be 2 shooters and 2 assistants (holding reflectors, shade, giving ideas).  After 30mintues or so the shooters / assistants would switch.

So perhaps there would be 3-4 days shooting models / locations and 2-3 days shooting wildlife / nature.

And how is this going to be profitable?  Well if all you got was 200 pictures - the average picture earns at minimum $50 over it's life time.  That means the shoot would earn you $10,000.  If you spent $5000 you would get 2x return on your investment and a great trip.  Hopefully the pictures would earn more than $50 each and you would get many more than 200 shots.

So speak up if you are interested something like this - weather you are up for coming along and planning, just coming along and have the event served to you on a platter, or not interested at all

All my resources are available to you...

I might join you, I might not, but at the very least I want 1 day at the pub!

If the dates are flexible, the 10-12 July is the photo and film expo in JHB, which should be nice... 27 June to 6 July is also the Mr Price Pro Surfing champs - http://www.mrpricepro.com/ or later in July, we should see another Redbull BigWave surfing contest (unconfirmed) http://www.redbullbwa.com/

Typical studio day, look at aprox R2500 per day ex equipment. Full Studio rental fee (so about $250 - exchange rate is about $1 : R10)

Depending on the type of models you want to shoot, expect to pay about R1000 per day for anything decent (ie... a model that can cope with instruction of 4 photographers) Personally I would suggest setting up location shoots instead of studio.

Nice locations can be locked down for about half of a studio's rental fee.

Don't want to fly with your whole kit? Rent it....

8 days rental of (just as a guideline, Nikon kit also available):

5dmkII - R425 per day (stock machine)
1DmkIII - R510 per day (wildlife and sport)

24-70 f/2.8 - R187 per day
Canon 500mm and 600mm - R425 per day
Canon 800mm f/5.6 - R765 per day

Decent sized tripod (really big stuff) is about R130 per day
Wemberley freeflow gimble heads is also about R130 per day

Cost of Living...

Depends on how well you want to live... Dinner for four at a local steakhouse will run you about R400-R500 for four people (dinner, coffee, desert)

Stay... again, you can get nice locations for about R2000 per person per night or you can get bed-&-breakfast locations for about R300 per person per night.

Sean also mentioned in a PM that foreigners would have a hard time getting things organized, especially from abroad.

It's just a question: why did you chose SA? I agree it's a beautiful place for landscape and nature, but just for models? If that is the purpose, you could pick one of the Baltic states where there is a lot of unemployment now, a very low price level on anything, plenty of Caucasian looking models (German descent), and flights into there are much cheaper too. Dolgachov and some other locals could offer excellent advice.

I picked SA because I am also interested in taking some nature, wildlife shots.

Quote from: leaf on March 27, 2009, 09:18

I picked SA because I am also interested in taking some nature, wildlife shots.

Riddle:  Is Leaf going to SA because he is getting a fab new lens, or is Leaf getting a fab new lens because he is going to SA?

Leaf is maybe getting a fab new lens because leaf is maybe going to Svalbard

Just so everyone knows - and I'll threadjack later - but I'm going to be doing a Paris/Rome trip early in 2010 and I'd consider working up a group trip if people are up for it. </threadjack>

yeah, please do keep me/ us posted...

[off-topic]Did you know there is an off topic button even [/off-topic]

Great idea, ZA sounds great..
Depending on the job / work situation, this could be very interesting. I would love to go to the african continent to shoot nature and wildlife.. And what ever comes along..  - INcluding a few models of course...  

Other locations would be equally interesting to me.. It would be great to meet some of all the great people from here, to share a few days of social shooting... To me the cost / benefit calculation is not the main concern...

Quote from: leaf on March 27, 2009, 10:50

Quote from: Pixart on March 27, 2009, 10:46

Quote from: leaf on March 27, 2009, 09:18

I picked SA because I am also interested in taking some nature, wildlife shots.

Riddle:  Is Leaf going to SA because he is getting a fab new lens, or is Leaf getting a fab new lens because he is going to SA?

Leaf is maybe getting a fab new lens because leaf is maybe going to Svalbard

The LEAF must remember to include some very warm clothings in the svalbard budget..  Never been there, but my guess is that it could be quite chilly there at night LOOL

And don't forget the gun!

Generally, SA sound fine, and I should be in for it even though it requires extra preparations in terms of getting there, safari organization, lens required, etc. but it should be a terrific place for wildlife/landscape shots. Not for model/studio shots though. It would be an awful waste of time in my opinion to do model shoots there, plus I have always considered mass shoots (where several photographers shoot the same model at the same time) kind of kitschy. We can always do that anywhere. We don't have to go to Africa for that.

Just as an idea, we can go ( I in fact I plan to go) to greece around May-June when tourist season is not in full swing. I'm sure you all know, Greece is a magnificent place for landscape photos. I visited some of the islands last year and it was great. This year I plan to visit some different (Mykonos, Zakyntos, Lefkada, etc) and I can assure you that at that time of the year the accommodation prices are really low. i paid 20 euros for two person bedroom at a decent family run hotel. Should anyone consider coming, let me know, I can organize everything, besides the flight tickets, at no charge as I'm going there anyway and would enjoy the company of fellow photographers.

Also should anyone want to visit Macedonia (my home country), i can organize that as well. But that's another topic.

So generally I'm in for SA, but we need to work out the details Leaf. I can also try and take part in organization of the trip if required.

Regards from Macedonia, Ljupco

I don't see the point of have human models in South Africa, but what about hiring a tame lion or a tame leopard? 

Regards,
Adelaide

PS: I like kudu biltong! 

I would like to join in - August to October is Spring - early Summer in SA, so it would be a good time for nature photography.

Because of the massive changes in altitude, we have green coast in the winter, and green inland in the summer. Best time to shoot wildlife though, is in the winter (the grass is shorter, and water scarcity brings more animals to the waterholes... Eco can give better feedback about that than me.