Here are some photos from a recent photoshoot with personal trainer Maggie. A couple of days earlier Maggie had competed in the 2012 Sandra Wickham Fall Classic fitness competition and came in 3rd in the bikini category, so she was in great physical shape! She had amazing discipline and dedication to achieve this level of fitness and plans to resume training and enter more competitions in 2013.
I’m fortunate to have worked with many amazingly talented people in Vancouver, including makeup artists, hair stylists, models, photographers, stylists and designers. It’s a great pleasure to have the opportunity to collaborate and create beautiful images with such talented people!
Here are some photos from a recent photoshoot with model Lily and makeup artist Mika - both of whom are beautiful, talented and great to work with!
Here is Part 2 of the Harajuku-inspired fashion shoot that I did in December.
Harajuku fashion originates from Japan and gets its name from the Harajuku station in Tokyo, which is popular place to find many types of street styles, collectively called Harajuku fashion. The styles usually include colourful and crazy hairstyles, makeup and outfits.
For this shoot, I teamed up with makeup artist Mika, stylist JoAnna Keller and model Laurel. We had a lot of fun with the creative makeup and styling as you can see in photos below!
When Danyella contacted me for updated headshots, I was happy to have the opportunity to work with her again. Not only is she beautiful, but she is also a talented actress and model and is a future doctor – currently a student at UBC.
I never know whether Danyella will have blond or black hair because she seems to alternate between both looks quite frequently! Either way, she is exceptionally pretty and with her brains and ambition, I am sure she will be very successful.
We did the shoot at the Studio by MikaDoesMakeup, which is a gorgeous location and wonderfully decorated. I found a parking spot close by, which was a challenge in downtown Vancouver, and brought my gear and set up, while Danyella was getting her hair and makeup done by the fabulous Mika (Mika Does Makeup) and Faye (Faye Smith Makeup and Hair Artist).
I started with the headshots against a black damask curtain, which contrasted nicely with Danyella’s blond hair. After that, we did the rest of the shoot in the massage area of the studio. I was inspired by the sheer fabric curtains, which combined with Danyella’s modeling and the great hair and makeup, made for some great shots.
Shadows are as interesting as the light. Chiaroscuro is a term used in photography, as well as cinema and painting, that literally means “light-dark” and originates from the Italian Renaissance. The shadows help define the image, making the two dimensional appear three dimensional.
The idea for this shoot was to have the model, Saori, emerging into the light from the shadows. To get that effect, I used a black seamless background, making sure that the key light did not spill onto it by keeping them well-separated. I started with a large gridded softbox close to Saori, on camera right to light the portraits and close-ups, highlighting Julia’s makeup work. By moving the softbox in very close, the light falls off quickly so the opposite side of her face is quite a bit darker than the side with the light. To control the shadow’s darkness I used a large white foamcore panel and a silver disk reflector for fill light.
For the full body shots, I really wanted to get the shadowy look, so I used a more focused light – a gridded strobe on a boom in front and above Saori. For an interesting background, I put a fog machine and another strobe to backlight the smoke/fog behind Saori. For some of the shots, I used a blue gel on the strobe to make a blue smoke effect. With this set-up, Saori’s face was well lit and her body gradually became darker, fading into blackness.
Post-processing was done with Lightroom 3.3 and Photoshop CS5.
Credits: Inspired modelling by Saori Sloan
Beautiful peacock themed makeup by Julia Lockley
Here are some photos featuring glitter eye makeup by makeup artist Tessa Mitz, and models Oksana Bach and ScarlettS. We started the shoot in the studio using a couple different hand painted muslin backgrounds. One was a European-looking village scene and the other was a moonlit beach. I wasn’t sure if these would look too cheesy, but I think they worked and gave a different look than a seamless paper background. I’m always interested in different ideas for studio backgrounds!
After the studio session, we moved to a small Vancouver park to finish the shoot. A lot of my photography is done in the studio, so it was great to have the opportunity to do an outdoor location shoot with natural light.
Here’s a slideshow with Scarlett’s photos:
The music for both the videos is by Remote Spaces from the “Silo” album.
Here’s a short behind-the-scenes video of model Tia getting her sugar skull makeup done by Jenny and hair styled by Rhi to get ready for a photoshoot. The video also includes also a couple of clips with model Joshua with his skull makeup already done and getting some final styling touches by stylist Jihan Amer.
The theme of the shoot was based on the Dia do los Muertos (Day of the Dead) holiday in Mexico, but with a seasonal spring blossom twist. I’ll be posting more information about this shoot soon, so keep an eye on my blog.
Here’s a preview of one of the photos from this shoot:
Here are a some some photos that I took on the roof deck of The Studio by Mika Does Makeup with model Ariel K. Marie. It was pretty cold up there so it was a very quick shoot! It’s a beautiful location with a great view, so I’m looking forward to another shoot when the weather gets a little warmer. I hope that you have a happy Valentine’s Day!
Valentine's Makeup by Mika
Click to see more Valentine's photos with Ariel K. Marie
I love the art of Sylvia Ji and was inspired by her Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) paintings. We had an amazing team for this shoot – everything came together to create some very cool images. The overall theme was “death” but I wanted to combine Winter – which is symbolically associated with death – with Day of the Dead, sugar skull inspired imagery. Jenny did a fantastic job with the makeup, and Dani and Candice were awesome with the hair styling. Dani’s styling was perfect and Charity was beautiful and inspired
I chose “Gone With the Storm” by One Dice as the music to accompany the video slideshow, which fits perfectly with haunting vocals and strings and cold, icy piano!
This is the second part of the shoot that I did with Charity,Jennifer Ruth and Celina Prado. In Part 1 we did 2 pop fashion looks. In Part 2, here’s a futuristic fashion theme with black lights, smoke and neon colours!
We used two outfits for this shoot. The first was a black dress with neon pink stripes on the sides (H&M, $39.95), Red Dollhouse boots (Winners, $18) and a rainbow purse (Value Village, $5.99). The second outfit was a white top (H&M, $14.95), Orange knee-high socks (Winners, $2), Harajuku Lovers purse (Winners, $88) and blue Dollhouse heels (Winners, $16). Proof that you can be fashionable on a budget! Here are some of the photos from the shoot.
It was a lot of fun and as a photographer, I really enjoy using unusual lighting like the black lights and effects like the fog machine!
