Caught in the net

As a photographer working in the industry of beauty I see both the beautiful and the not so beautiful, and sometimes it's very hard for me not to be influenced by it as well.  It's ironic because even though I am a photographer and I know how photographs are Photoshopped, yet I still buy into all the beauty ads of how this one product will change my life.  Often I feel like if I take more care with my appearance I will somehow become the doctored images I see every day.  Of course this is a dream that no one can ever hope to achieve, but frequently - I do admit - that I get the impulse to change my daily routine in order to become more beautiful.

But then again I also admit that I love doing portraits because I'm always looking for that shot when the model reveals herself to me, often I find that I get the real person in the last few shots of the day.  Some people hate those last shots because probably in their eyes they seem vulnerable, but that's what I love about being a photographer, being able to catch my subjects vulnerability.

Anyway, moving on from my random thoughts.  Last week I had a photo shoot with my cousin Jenny.  It was a beautiful sunny, freezing day.  I didn't have an assistant and I was also makeup artist and hairstylist which I rally enjoyed.  We visited three locations, Kohimarama Beach, Dingle Dell reserve and also Mt Talyor.  The sun was quite harsh so had bit of difficulty with contrast on the face.  But overall it was a fun shoot as we didn't have any concrete ideas of what we wanted and just worked with the environment that we had.  Jenny was a lovely, very cooperative model that kept a smile on her face even though she must have been so cold.

Since I didn't have an assistant we couldn't get any behind the scenes photos, but if you want to see the finished results, I will be shortly uploading them on my Facebook (search for Chiaroscuro Photography), you can also find photos from other shoots on there.

I am also back at uni now, and slowly trying to adjust myself back to waking up early - which is extremely difficult for me!  I'm starting a new project, so will update when I have some work produced.

Hope everyone is staying warm by thinking about summer - I definitely am!

Jenni

Golden Hour

On Saturday I had a photo shoot with a promo model who wanted new images for her portfolio. The location was St Helier's area, and as I had never walked round that area I was a bit apprehensive about shooting there.

When I woke up in the morning it was sunny and gradually got grayer, luckily for us the weather held and we got some really beautiful lighting. We were also quite fortunate that it was sunny so the model was completely freezing her ass off :P.

Because this was portfolio for a promo model I knew that capturing shots of the whole body was very important, so the whole time I had to remind myself to not just focus on the face, but the whole body. I did find it a bit of a challenge as I always find that it's very hard to arrange a models body so that it won't look awkward.

Some photos from the day:

























I'm slowing organising some more photo shoots for my last 2 weeks of holiday...hope everyone is braving the cold and bringing out their cameras too!

Jenni