Monica Fraser is a graduate of the Vancouver Community College’s (VCC) Fashion Arts program. She was one of the designers at the VCC graduate fashion show that I wrote about in an earlier post. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to photograph her designs in the studio. In this session I photographed three beautiful outfits, each designed around the motif of the peacock.
I was fortunate to be able to work with an awesome model, Charr, and talented makeup artist Tessa Mitz as well.
The first outfit featured a 2.5 meter train made from a vintage print from Vienna over a natural linen dress with a gold silk bolero jacket with pearls and feathers and a golden belt.
Linen Dress by Monica Fraser
The next https://ellisclinic.com/medical/buy-cipro-online/ dress has a handmade tramadol buy online bird motif print by Monica Fraser. The fabric is white cotton dipped into caustic soda, waxed, then repeatedly dipped into indigo dye. The dress was finished with feathers, Swarovski crystals and a whimsical bird nest!
Indigo Batik Dress
The third outfit was a beautiful vivid blue silk dress made using four different types of silks with shredded silk on the top to look like feathers. It also has a long tail with Swarovski crystals hanging from it. To go with the dress, is a long black hand embroidered coat with a beautiful peacock design made from silk threads in Vietnam.
Vivid Blue Silk Dress
Feathered Silk Detail
Hand Embroidered Silk Jacket
Charr Wearing Coat by Monica Fraser
Congratulations to Monica for a fantastic collection! Thanks also to Charr for modeling the outfits and to Tessa for the beautiful makeup and hair styling.
The graduates of the Vancouver Community College Fashion Arts Program showed their creations last night at a fantastic show held at Rocky Mountaineer Station in Vancouver. The show featured the work of 21 graduating fashion designers, each of whom had 4 pieces in the show. The production was spectacular with great models, makeup, hair styling, music, lighting and of course catering! But the emerging designers were centre stage with some incredible work.
I took as many photos of the outfits as I could! I have previously photographed the designs of one of the graduates, Ana Jost, and I love her work. It was a pleasure to see her graduating and finishing this phase of her fashion design career.
All the designers' work was very impressive and I'm looking forward to seeing more from them in the future, and I hope to use their designs in my photography as well.
You can view all of the outfits in the music video below, or view the photos here.
Congratulations to all the graduates for your amazing work!
The graduates of the Vancouver Community College Fashion Arts Program showed their creations last night at a fantastic show held at Rocky Mountaineer Station in Vancouver. The show featured the work of 21 graduating fashion designers, each of whom had 4 pieces in the show. The production was spectacular with great models, makeup, hair styling, music, lighting and of course catering! But the emerging designers were centre stage with some incredible work.
I took as many photos of the outfits as I could! I have previously photographed the designs of one of the graduates, Ana Jost, and I love her work. It was a pleasure to see her graduating and finishing this phase of her fashion design career.
All the designers' work was very impressive and I'm looking forward to seeing more from them in the future, and I hope to use their designs in my photography as well.
You can view all of the outfits in the music video below, or view the photos here.
Congratulations to all the graduates for your amazing work!
Here's the video on YouTube if you are unable to view the flash version above:
Music for the video No Return! by Romahichi
I recently wanted to take some photos of some antique glass apothecary jars and used a technique called "bright field lighting". Glass is tricky to shoot because it is both transparent and reflective. If you are not careful, treatment you will lose the definition of the edge of the glass and and unwanted reflections and highlights.
The graduates of the Vancouver Community College Fashion Arts Program showed their creations last night at a fantastic show held at Rocky Mountaineer Station in Vancouver. The show featured the work of 21 graduating fashion designers, each of whom had 4 pieces in the show. The production was spectacular with great models, makeup, hair styling, music, lighting and of course catering! But the emerging designers were centre stage with some incredible work.
I took as many photos of the outfits as I could! I have previously photographed the designs of one of the graduates, Ana Jost, and I love her work. It was a pleasure to see her graduating and finishing this phase of her fashion design career.
All the designers' work was very impressive and I'm looking forward to seeing more from them in the future, and I hope to use their designs in my photography as well.
You can view all of the outfits in the music video below, or view the photos here.
Congratulations to all the graduates for your amazing work!
Here's the video on YouTube if you are unable to view the flash version above:
Music for the video No Return! by Romahichi
I recently wanted to take some photos of some antique glass apothecary jars and used a technique called "bright field lighting". Glass is tricky to shoot because it is both transparent and reflective. If you are not careful, treatment you will lose the definition of the edge of the glass and and unwanted reflections and highlights.
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Here are a couple of photos from a recent fashion shoot with model Joleen and makeup artist/hair stylist Elizabeth McLeod. The makeup was inspired by Audrey Hepburn photos from the early fifties and the hairstyle has a vintage forties look.
More details and photos from this shoot will be posted soon!
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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, https://www.glenerinpharmacy.com/buy-viagra-online/ .95), Orange https://churchhillnaturalmeats.com/buy-valium-online-diazepam/ 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!
Celina Prado is a fashion design student at LaSalle College who worked with me on a fashion shoot, along with makeup artist Jennifer Ruth and model Charity. We did two pop fashion and two futuristic fashion looks. Here are the pop fashion photos.
The first look featured a satin metallic dress with turquoise accessories and blue heels. Click here to see more photos of this look.
It was awesome working with this team! I have worked with Jennifer Ruth for several shoots and her work is superb. I have also worked with Charity previously and hope to do so again in the future. This was my first shoot with Celina, but hopefully we will also team up again soon.
My next post will be about the two futuristic fashion looks that we shot the same day. Here's the link for the futuristic fashion sets.
Fog adds a cool look and atmosphere to a studio shoot. I bought a fog machine at a local party supply store and got an extra bottle of "fog juice". One bottle lasts for a long time so I have plenty of it left, even after using it for about a dozen shoots. This fog machine has a handy remote control that lets me fire a blast of fog when I'm ready to shoot. They are pretty popular for Halloween so you may see them for sale for a good price at this time of year.
The type of machine I use is a "glycol fogger" and it works by heating up a fluid called "fog juice" and then shooting the fog out of a nozzle. Since I am a chemist as well as a photographer, I needed to know what fog juice actually is. It is mainly glycerin, propylene glycol and water and is non-toxic (note - a similar sounding chemical - ethylene glycol - is toxic and should not be used for fog machines!). However, there is always the possibility that certain people could be sensitive to the glycerin and propylene glycol so it's a good idea to make sure everyone is OK with it when the fog starts.
There are other ways to generate fog. For example, dry ice and water works, but it's expensive and difficult to use. Dry ice must be handled carefully because it is extremely cold and will burn bare skin. Because dry ice produces carbon dioxide gas when it warms up, it should be used in well-ventilated areas, and never in small enclosed spaces due to the risk of suffocation. The fog is colder than the surrounding air and will sink to the ground, which might be an interesting effect. The fog from the glycol fogger doesn't sink - it tends to float at the level where it was generated.
Here are some tips based on my experience with using the fog machine.
Fog machine with back lighting. Model: BabieAngie, Makeup: Krystal Leong
Lighting
The fog needs lighting to make it visible. Back lighting with the strobe out-of-frame or hidden behind the model looks great. Also, side lighting works well as shown in the shot of Kaitlin V. I use a hard light - usually a strobe with a tight grid or snoot to give a beam of light https://www.glenerinpharmacy.com/buy-clomid-online/ through the fog. Use the same precautions that you would normally use when potentially shooting into the light - use flags to shield the lens and avoid lens flare. Sometimes a bit of flare looks cool with the fog so you may want to experiment!
Fog machine using a black background and strobes with blue gels. Model: Charity, Makeup: Jennifer Ruth, Fashion Stylist: Celina Prado
Use a dark background
The fog is white and does not show up against light backgrounds. Use a dark background such as black seamless paper or black fabric for the most dramatic look. I learned that the hard way when I tried shooting against a white background and the fog was hardly visible!
Use gels
You can change the colour of the fog by putting a gel on the strobe that's lighting the fog. You can also light the fog with two strobes, using gels with harmonizing colours to create a dramatic look.
Fog machine and strobe with red gel. Model: Stephanie Peregrinus, Makeup and hair stylist: Catriona Amour
Have an assistant
It helps a lot to have an assistant (for me it's usually the makeup artist!) to direct the fog by pointing the machine in the right place - usually in front of the lights or behind the model. I use a light weight fog machine so it is not too difficult to hold for a while. Some of the more industrial grade machines are heavier so you need a strong "fog wrangler" for the job! Make sure the assistant knows that the nozzle of the fog machine can get quite hot! I get my assistant to move the fog machine in the right place, then let her know when I'm going to blast some fog with the remote control.
Use sparingly
The best looking fog is usually very soon after it comes out of the machine. This is when you get lots of swirling, smoky fog. It quickly diffuses and after a while it dissipates through the studio, creating a haze that doesn't look so great. When there's too much fog between the camera and the model, it just reduces the contrast. If I'm doing several sets, I usually wait until the end for the fog, or open up the studio after a while and blow it out with an electric fan!
Have fun
Don't forget to have fun and experiment with it! If you have some tips for using fog in photography, please share them in the comment section.
Here's a video slideshow with images from a glamour portrait photography session with Jennifer Ruth and Kaitlin Sullivan. (Click here to see the video if you are using an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad). I met Jennifer at the Twisted Fairytale fashion show in March 2010 and loved her makeup work. Since we were both building our portfolios, we collaborated on a project with the beautiful and talented Vancouver model Kaitlin Sullivan. Jennifer did amazing work with the makeup, hair and styling for six different looks during the session. I did the shoot in the studio using basic portrait lighting setups to showcase the makeup and hairstyling.
For the first set Jennifer gave Kaitlin big pink feathered lashes, wet glittery pink lips and curly hair, with a pink feather boa and a chunky jeweled bracelet. Quite a glamourous look!
I used White Lightning strobes - the main light was an X800 equipped with a beauty dish. I love the light from the beauty dish - it is largish white reflector so the light is pretty soft, but it has some shadow definition that helps give more shape to the face. I used a white foam core reflector panel, as well as a reflector disk to fill in the shadows.
I normally use a lower power main light for portraits so that it does not interfere with the background lighting. I meter everything using a Sekonic Flash Master L-358, starting with the main light. The White Lightnings are great to use because I can easily fine tune the output. I used an X3200 with softbox for the hair light, located camera right, behind Kaitlin. I use a more powerful strobe mainly because the distance is further, but also it gives me the opportunity to increase the brightness of the side light or hair light to give more intense highlights. For a natural look, the hair light was adjusted to about a stop or so brighter than the beauty dish. The background was storm grey seamless paper (medium grey), with a gridded X1600 for a back burst. To meter the background, I used the reflected light attachment for the Sekonic and adjusted the light to give a gradient with the brightest part about a stop to a stop-and-half brighter than the main light. I used barndoors on the X1600 to control the light spill away from Kaitlin. I also used a hair fan for some of the shots, which you can see in the video.
One of the difficulties with large feathered lashes is the shadows that they cast over the eyes. Usually I like to get sparkling highlights on the eyes to give the portrait more life. With large lashes, I watch the highlights very carefully to make sure the eyes are not too dark. Another option is to have the model look down to show off the lashes.
The strobes were triggered using CyberSyncs. My camera is an Olympus E-510, and I used Olympus Studio 2 to tether the camera to my MacBook, I used Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS4 for the post-processing. I will be posting more information on post-processing in future blog posts.
Here's a diagram of the basic set-up. Thanks to Kevin Kertz Photography for creating the template. It's awesome and free!
Glamour portrait studio lighting
In the second set, Jennifer used silver feathered lashes, silver lipstick and a hot pink bob wig for Kaitlin. For accessories, we had a black feather boa, diamond costume jewelry and huge ring with black beads. Kaitlin was lying down on a white faux fur for these shots. Other than lowering the lights, the setup was the same as the first buy viagra buy seroquel baikal-pharmacy.com cheaper set. I also took some of the shots from above using a ladder.
"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" Olympus 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, 1/160 sec at f/11
Jennifer totally switched up the look this time, with a long black wig, metallic blue lips, and copper eye shadow. We had a blue ostrich feather, a rhinestone owl ring with blue and amber gems to match the makeup. This set was shot using natural light against the grey seamless background paper, which was lit with a gridded X800 and blue gel to complement the lips. The studio has loading bay door, so we opened it up and shot using the daylight. The light was not super bright, so I used ISO 200 and a fast prime lens - Sigma 30 mm f/1.4. I love the shallow depth of field of the wide aperture, but was careful to make sure that Kaitlin's eyes were in focus. The large light source coming from the open garage door was beautiful and soft. We did have quite an audience gathered at the loading bay watching with great interest!
Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens, 1/125 sec, f/2.2 ISO 200
For the next set, Jennifer created a beautiful look with gold lips with blue eyes gradually shaded to gold, perfectly matching the colourful gems in Kaitlin's earrings. I used a large softbox for the main light, and another large softbox behind Kaitlin, camera right. The background was lit with a gridded strobe to give soft gradient effect. I often use my 50-200mm zoom lens for portraits because it doesn't distort the face as much as a wider angle lens does. The Olympus Zuiko 50-200mm zoom is awesome - tack sharp with a wonderful depth of field at wider apertures. The only drawback for using it in the studio is I have to go quite far away from the model. On the other hand, not being right in her face gives an opportunity for different expressions, depending on the model. I like to mix it up and I'm always switching the lenses during the shoot!
"Dreaming in Colour" Olympus 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lens zoomed to 108mm, 1/160 sec at f/10
For the next set, Kaitlin's makeup featured pink and purple with a hint of gold. I used the same lighting setup as the previous set, except with two gels on the background light - blue and red - to get a purple to match the makeup and necklace. I used o have a purple gel but it melted down a few months ago in an unfortunate accident! Kaitlin was sitting in a large circular chair with a black cushion for these photos. I like to have the model stand, sit, lie down, or move around, even when just doing headshots, to get a variety of looks.
"She's Got the Look" Olympus 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 at 50mm, 1/160 sec at f/9.0
The final set was done with the Kaitlin's hair in an updo and I used the same lighting setup.
"Beautiful Eyes" Olympus Zuiko 50-200mm f/3.5-2.8 lens at 54mm, 1/160 sec at f/9.0
The photography session was very successful - we all got some great images for our portfolios, and it was a pleasure to work with both Jennifer and Kaitlin. Jennifer is amazingly creative and super-organized, which allowed us to get six different awesome beauty looks. Kaitlin was also amazing and I expect to see more of her in the future! She is perfect in front of the camera - easy to direct with lots of creative posing ideas. I hope to have the opportunity to work with them both again in the future.
Here's a video slideshow with images from a shoot with model and hairstylist Candy. Click here to see the video on your iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad. Candy is great to work https://healthcareaide.net/valium/ with and puts a lot of intensity into her modeling. Click here to view some of my previous shoots with Candy.
Joleen is a Native where to buy ambien over the counter American model and I’m inspired by First Nations (Native American) art and culture. I’m working on a fine art photography series of black light images so we collaborated with makeup artist Megan Thomas for a body painting photoshoot using Native American themes as the inspiration. Here are some of the shots:
If you are interested in purchasing prints, they're available here.
I did a photoshoot last month with model Rhi_Fresh, which included both a black https://naturallydaily.com/buy-accutane-online/ light set and a straight beauty studio shoot. The theme was Carnivale and Rhi brought a feather headdress and a shiny sparkling Carnivale style outfit, as well as some fluorescent stuff for the black light set.
Here are a few of the shots:
... and a short video of the black light images:
Rhi and I did another black light shoot yesterday with fluorescent body painting which I'll post in Part 2!
Here are some photos from a recent shoot with model Kyla Lee and makeup artist/hairstylist Catriona Armour. Catriona did an amazing job with the makeup, which was inspired by the sugar skulls used in connection with the Day of the Dead holiday in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Kyla is an agency model represented by John Casablancas. She was great to work buy cialis with and was quick to take direction and enthusiastically worked with me to get the poses for the shots.
