Melissa & Cordelia - Model shoot / Makeup by Kylie Bersinic

Kylie Bersinic, who is a very talented makeup artist in Canberra, asked me to do a shoot with her to expand her portfolio. Well, that's a good way to expand my portfolio working with talented people around me as well. Kylie brought one girl, Cordelia, who is not doing professional modeling, but has a very pretty face. And Elite Models sent me 1 model, Melissa, a gorgeous girl, to get her book updated. And Priya Chandra came to help with hair, she did an amazing job on those girls' hair.

I booked CIT studio to do this shoot but it was canceled in last minute (Dave called me in the night before the shoot to cancel it) then I had no choice to move the shoot into my house. Actually I didn't mind to do it at my house. We can do photoshoot everywhere as long as we know how to play with our lighting. So basically I used a white (a bit more yellow-white) wall as background and setup my flashes for this beauty shoot.

Check out behind the scene photos:

We did it in my living room, a bit messy though.

That made my lighting. I played a bit with color gels as well.

And here are the photos:

Model: Cordelia

Model: Melissa

Outdoor:

Playing with digital art:

Makeup by Kylie Bersinic

Hair by Priya Chandra

Chloe Morello - Model shoot

Alright, this time I'm gonna show photos only. There's not much to talk about. Natural lighting, gorgeous model and a beautiful winter day. I love this shoot, it has been a long time I haven't come out to do some natural portraits like this, well, not really glam like these, but yeah, most natural they are.


Chloe did makeup for herself as she's studying makeup in CMA.

I filled flash on this one, camera left.

And my most favorite shot of the day:

Rachelle Wood - Model shoot

This photo shoot with Rachelle was on the day right after the shoot with Simone Luker. Rachelle is a very lovely model and very enthusiastic as well. She's a mix of half Australian and half Filipino, that's why she has a very oriental look.
We came to a tunnel passage to get some closeup shots first as planned.  She did the make-up herself.

I really like how Rachelle give me some variation emotions for these head shots. Look really lovely.
I used a simple lighting setup for these shot, one light shoot thru square softbox on her right and one naked kicker flash behind her head. You can view an example here:

(Simone, my girlfriend's little sister, did a great job for holding the light again)

Another shot for this setup, this time I let some flare came into my lens:

After a few shots at the tunnel, we walked a little further to the riverside to take some shots with the trees. This time I had Rachelle did her hair wet to give me a very natural look. And I think that look was totally match to her:

The key light for 2 photos above was only use by ambient lighting.

Then when the day almost ended, we tried our luck to do some more shot with the sun as back lighting. This time I turn off all my flashes.

And the last photo is really my fave one. I love how natural she was and the way she blended into the environment. I just realized that I like to do this style some more times, so now I'm looking for models who are perfect match to nature like Rachelle.

Simone Luker - Model shoot

I had another wonderful shoot with Simone Luker on last weekend. We met up at the Garema place in Civic and walked around for some location spots. This time I use a lot of ambient lighting as main light.

These last photos at the bridge I used one SB-600 putting behind Simone for back lighting. I chose the angle to have Simone cover the flash behind her but in some photos I need to do clone stamp with the light stand.

Next: Photoshoot with Rachelle Wood

Melissa Tan - Model shoot

I had a photoshoot on last Saturday with Melissa Tan and that was a great shoot to both of us. It could be considered as a model test. Melissa Tan is a fantastic model, she did a great job on posing, very inspiration. She came from Malaysia and studying in Canberra now and she has worked in the professional industry before. I was happy to shoot with her.
The shoot, actually was involved by the model and me. There was my girlfriend's little sister came over to assist with the light for a while but most of the time was only 2 of us. To be honestly, this is my very first model shoot in Canberra, that means almost 2 month since I left Vietnam. It can explain why did I feel so excited.
The location was mainly in the back alley near the bus interchange in Civic. We played around with some doors, stair steps and even a truck. Most of the time I use 2 lights, they are Canon 580EX (with honeycomb grid) and Nikon SB28. And when the sun went lower, I had some chance to let the sun light behind Melissa as a back light. Then the final shot I use the sun light directly on her as key light. Let's check them out

There was a lovely stair that I could came up with this very nice composition.

This shot, her hair wasn't lit by the flash I put in the alley but was lit by the sun light.

In this shot I used the sun light as key light.