How it Came to be

Founded in it’s new format only 18 months ago by professional photographer, Kevin Tarr, after moving the studios from Merthyr House, Pinetown to it’s present situation in Hillcrest, it has come of age. The business had operated as a full-time entity in his own name for 12 years before that.

Exquisite Images are now situated in what used to be the B&B “The Spotted Quail”, at 60 Old Main Road, Hillcrest, not far from the Medicross Medical Centre.

The owner, Kevin Tarr, has had a lifelong passion for photography, and gave up his career in the corporate world, some thirteen years ago to pursue this full time. He recalls:

“As a student at The University of Natal in my youth, I earned pocket money giving extra lessons in Applied Maths to first year students, but I soon found that being a photographer for the student newspaper was much more fun, and this led to vacation employment at the Sunday Tribune during July vacs and at the Daily Dispatch during the Summer vacs. I was fortunate to have been coached by some of the best editorial photographers in the country, and this started a period of intense study by reading, re-reading and practising everything I learned, which carried on for 40 years. I don’t know why I even bothered to waste my time in the corporate world, save for the fact that I do enjoy the company of and understand the ways of corporate executives.”

“The practise grew slowly, along with the building up of professional studio equipment and it hopefully developed a name for dependable quality and service. The maxim “Creative Style with Technical Excellence” was a watchword that inspired our every assignment. Having said that, because it has grown mostly by word of mouth, and this way has an attribute that I like, that is that word of mouth advertising increases exponentially. I have, however, relied too much on this type of advertising – had I not, you all would have known about me!”

“Wedding photography has always been a staple diet of general photographers, and I have done countless weddings, but as my experience narrowed and deepened to exploit my particular talents, I developed a unique style in this branch of the craft. The fact that my premises used to be a B&B, with an inviting setting and rooms that each have their own bathroom, my weddings have evolved to provide a venue for the bridle party to use as a base for preparation on the wedding day. The hairdresser, make-up artist and any other services done on the day are done at this venue, where planning has enabled everything to be achieved in an organised way, in comfort. Flowers, corsages and wedding gown are all delivered direct to the studios. When the bride is dressed she simply walks down the passage into the studio which is all set up to do “drop-dead beautiful” bridal portraits and bridal family group pictures at a very high level of quality, enabling the high quality canvas enlargements I produce as part of the package. This is an advantage in that the pictures are done when the bride’s make-up is fresh and she is at the most beautiful she will ever be. Once these pictures are downloaded we close up studios and we all move off to the chapel together. There is secure easy parking here for 25 to 50 cars, so the whole process is easily done. Having said all this, one can see from the above that I don’t accept every wedding that comes, nor do I do a wedding or more each week. I only accept weddings where this plan will make sense to all concerned, and this keeps me to one or two per month, all of which come by referral. This is how I want it to be.”

“The recent acquisition of the best fine art wide format printer available, which is used for canvas and photographic paper prints with waterproof and lightfast qualities, has given us an edge which is allowing us to break the mould and move ahead. In addition, we also have a high quality scanning capability, and have been able to provide a range of additional services like quality large format family collages, complex posters, “sewing” of negatives to make panoramic prints, copying and restoring of old valuable pictures etc etc.”

“It has been an amazing experience to see how a unique business has unfolded, that has, thanks to the Almighty, a hope for the future.”