Family Portraits In Autumn

The light in the afternoon is so beautiful at this time of year, perfect for doing some family portraits. I was asked to photograph this very attractive bunch of siblings for their mother’s birthday (such a sweet present idea!) and it ended up being a really fun shoot.

We started off in the studio, but ended up in a nearby park. This is where the magic happened, as my subjects didn’t feel so awkward and un-natural in the confines of a studio setting. I let them just be themselves and muck around and taunt each other.

I’m sure their mother will love the images!

 

“Changes” Editorial

It seems like a long time ago that I worked on this collaboration with Marlene Olsson and Erin Tunn, but its finally allowed to be shown to the world. We photographed this collaborative piece around the time when David Bowie passed away, so there was a little bit of an influence in that respect. We also had no stylist on the day, as our scheduled stylist unfortunately fell ill. So the styling was all up to me, and therefore ended up featuring such designer garments as a vintage kimono (inside out), and a queen size bed sheet. Going to be all the rage next season, I hear.

Read about the shoot in an earlier blog post here.

TEAM
Photog: Steph Doran
HMUA: Marlene Olsson
Model: Erin @ GTR Global
Assistant: Josephine Tut

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.

Photographing Kidlets

I had the pleasure of photographing Callum and Lailey in my studio a while ago. This was my first time creating props especially for use with portraiture, which was a lot of fun, but also very time consuming! I constructed cacti and clouds from cardboard, and assembled a collection of props for the day.

I wanted to capture the personalities of the kids, but shoot and retouch the images in a similar style to how I approach my fashion work. I think the final images turned out well, and the parents really liked the results! But most of all, the kids had such a great time. They were so patient and excited to be in front of the camera. They both also took direction well. You may notice some siblings in there too, who were slightly more camera shy :)

To book a portrait session (with custom built props) don’t hesitate to get in touch through www.stephdoran.com