Makeover and props
I have team up with Gini from Trulycolour hair and make-up to start makeover photography, I really enjoy working on something like this, Gini is great at make-up and hair styling, which gives me the opportunities to come up with different lightings for different style.
The first one is the floral print dress, the make up is more classic so I use softer lighting, then we move on to red dress and the use of saxophone and the frame, I then use more low key lighting, I added a bit blue rim light on the hair for the saxophone pictures, make it feels like she is actually playing in a jazz venue. Clair is such a nice lady and very happy to try different things, couldn’t ask for a better model for my first makeover shoot in the new studio
My favourite image of the shoot. It not conventional face facing the camera shot but its got lots of drama and little details.
Clair with a photo frame
Pet portrait – Black & white sheep dog
Kelly is a typical black and white border collie, her owner Julie saw me at the Mortimer fun day stand and booked a session with me for her. It a real task to photograph a black and white furred dog and do it well, I need to make sure the white fur wouldn’t burn out and the black fur still has all its texture. It might not look it but I think its actually more difficult to photograph the black dog on the black background, like the ‘Pug’ I did couple of years ago that won me a merit from national BIPP portrait award .
Black pug on the black background
Kelly the sheep dog is a bit different, I need to make sure the black fur is light properly that it shows texture and you can see all the details. I put a spot light on the black fur and a large Rotalux opposite as the main light. adding the fill in light and the backdrop spot light. Luckily, Kelly is a very well trained dog and does what she told, which means I can put her the way I want it. I am pretty happy with it.
Defined lighting for black and white dog
Kelly’s so well trained that I can make her cross her legs, which Julie told me she never done it before, with a little encouragement, she did it.
Kelly cross legs on the box, she look so relaxed
The I put her inside the box, she just does the cutest thing for me, Its a really good shoot, love the photographs.
Adorable studio portraits
I have Morgan and Derri in the studio last Saturday, these girls are just adorable, Derri the little one just a joy to work with, she is like most of the children at that age; perfectly happy to have fun in the studio and having loads of interaction with the older sister, Morgan is 8 and more self-aware. She knows I am taking the photo of her and she is trying to preform from time to time. I have to use Derri and make up games to try to get her to forget the face that she is in a studio. Slowly, the natural expression come out.
I simply get Derri to sit on Morgan’s back and they just started to tickle and hugs, the genuine laughter and happy expression is just gold. I love the face that their arms around each other and there is a lot of interaction and connection.
Prop’s out 🙂
I usually get the box, the bench and the swing out after they gets more comfortable in the studio and in front of the camera. This shot of them in the box is just adorable. especially with the addition of the doll that belong to Derri. Great composition and perfect interaction.
I love to photograph with grey backdrop. Its so versatile and I can add colour and producer depth with spot lighting. The colour blue and red outfits looks fantastic too. The best thing is the swing is perfect size for both of them to sit together side by side.
Portrait collage
Joe and Ellie are brother and sisters, they came to the studio with their grandma for the birthday present for their mum. It was a really good shoot. The great thing about working with young adults is the fact that I can spend more time with them, and get the lighting right and do something more creative and different on lighting. They do get longer to get into the shoot thou, I have to spend more time to get them to relax and happy to be in front of the camera and understand my instructions.
I told them to bring lots of props and outfits to show who they are and what they like, as you can see from the images, they like cricket and football, Ellie also loves to read. I think the photo on the playground swing sums up really nicely, its also one of the best images from the session.
Jenny (grandma) is over the noon and totally thrilled what the viewing and just want as many images as possible. I told her about the collage design and show her the Polaroid effect that I can do. Which I think suits the pictures perfectly.
Pretty good resolute I think.
Collage from studio shoot
Put the whole design onto a 40 x 30 inches floater frame, its big and really impressive.
Collage design on floater frame
I am confident that Jenny would be really happy with this.
Hello world!
I have decided to start the blog, let people know about how I work and the studio in general, there are lots of ideas and things to talk about, do follow and check my blog from time to time.