Jamie x Summer

I love testing with new faces, and so when Jamie approached me on instagram suggesting we do a shoot, I jumped at the chance. I have recently been enjoying the fluidity of shooting outdoors on location, and using the natural light around me. It’s a great change from being in the studio and having to tweat light until I am competely satisfied with it, and it keeps me on my toes in terms of observation.

I had one of my favourite and most trusted makeup artists, Jyoti,  on board. Luckily, she is also a stylist, so I didn’t have to worry about wardrobe. Sometimes I can get by and put looks together, but often I am just bluffing and a proper stylist can get the job done much quicker.

I’m not incredibly fashionable myself. Haha.

 

Jamie was fabulous to work with, I can’t beleive she’s only just finished high school. We shot really fast, as she didn’t need to warm up at all and just got straight into delivering brialliant frames. She was able to emote really well, as was so in tune with her body shapes and positions, so the shoot flew by.

We also snuck in some winter looks at the end- can you tell it was actually really warm weather?

Photographer: Steph Doran
Model: Jamie Fowler @ Brazen
HMUA/ Stylist: Jyoti Chandra

Olivia Visits The Studio

I have been working with a few actors and actresses recently to capture natural, honest portraits of them for their CVs. The latest talent to enter my studio was Olivia, who was great fun to photograph. I really wanted to capture her friendly, cheerful nature, so there was a lot of smiling going on (some of it prompted by my terrible jokes.) All the best for the auditions Olivia!

Testing With Lara de Koster

I love working with new talent, and testing with new faces is one way that I get to constantly do this. Often, the photography and style of images needs to be quite simple, as the model will need images that show them with minimal makeup and styling. This makes expression and posing very important.

A few weeks ago I was asked to shoot Lara de Koster, who had only moved down to Melbourne a few days before. Lara is a musician too, but is aiming to break into Melbourne’s modelling scene. She had such a sweet look, and was a little shy at first, but she quickly opened up in front of the camera.

I had Marlene Olsson as my hair and makeup artist. She is brilliant at what she does, so I was glad to have her on board. Marlene agreed to start off with a more natural look, but then wanted to experiment a little later on once we had the basic shots in the bag. I think its important to let your team experiment when testing, so that everyone gets something out of the shoot. So of course I was more than happy to let her experiment too!

Our second look was more of a wet hair look. Here, we focused on expression and conveying a bit more attitude. Lara is such a sweet girl, so this was a challenge for her. But I think she did really well, and by the end of the shoot she let loose a bit more and was able to convey more of an attitude through her face and posing.

Finally, Marlene wanted to experiment with braiding the hair for one last look. I was amazed at how quickly she put this look together. The braiding was incredible! For this look, we wanted to focus on the textures in the hair, but a strong expression was also important.

I’m looking forward to seeing where Lara’s career in Melbourne takes her.