2017 Swimsuit Series - #1 Tayler

You can always tell that summer is just around the corner when you see the first Swimsuit Series blog post is up.    This shoot was with Tayler, who is a model from Canada.  She was here on vacation last week.
This time of year the weather can be a bit unpredictable, but we lucked out and got a perfect day.   Here's to many more perfect days for the rest of the summer, and hopefully a few more swimsuit shoots !

The Birthday Shoot: Part 2

This is Part two of the Birthday shoot.  

For details of the shoot see the original post

The Birthday Shoot: Part 1

Last month I hit a major age milestone, yes the Big 5 0 !!!   To celebrate, I decided to organise a big shoot and invited some good friends that I have worked closely with over the last six or seven years.  For Make-up, I invited Afroditi, Maria and Serena, for Hair I invited Pinky from Salon Pink who also brought Ciara, also Bryant came to assist with lighting and live streaming of the shoot.  Alex kindly allowed me to use whitespace studio for the day.
I asked some local designers if they had any outfits I could use and base a concept around.  Amir Robinson (Gino Group) loaned 6 outfits from his recent fashion show,  Desiree Riley (D'ezir) offered to model and also provided a couple of outfits from her collection and Chineza (Sevuhn) came to the shoot with another 5 outfits.    In addition to Desiree, I asked Aliana and Teah to be the models.

D'ezir Noire

A couple of weeks ago I got to shoot the latest collection from D'ezir and as the title indicates everything in the collection is black.  Not only is Desiree the owner/designer of D'ezir, she was also the model for the shoot and creative director.  She provided inspiration images and scouted out the location, making my role in the shoot fairly straight forward.
Desiree asked Christopher Vee to do the make-up and Tracy from StylzBy Traci did the hair.  Bryant was my lighting assistant and Kyla, my dog, made a guest appearance too.

How Rude !! - with Dani

This shoot with Dani is inspired by some cheeky and sometimes rather raunchy Instagram accounts that I follow.   Since Dani brought a pink teddy bear as a prop,   it seems appropriate to post the blog today.........

Happy Valentines peeps.

Street Style with Sophie

I did this shoot with Sophie whilst she was back on island for the winter break.  Sophie wanted some natural looking shots with a casual street style vibe for her portfolio, whereas I was interested in getting some images that were more edited, higher contrast, stronger shadows and with a brighter wardrobe.   So we decided to shoot both styles.  Sophie got in contact with her friend Kristen at Modblu on Reid Street.  Kristen kindly allowed us to use clothes from the store.  She pulled and styled a selection of outfits that met both of our needs.

Hayden's Shoot

Hayden is an aspiring model from Australia that visited Bermuda in back October.   I got in touch with him after I seeing his post on a local photographers Facebook page, he was looking for photographers for test shoots.  When I chatted with Hayden he indicated that he was looking for a glamour shoot.   

2016 Swimsuit Series - #5 Atalya

My the last swimsuit shoot of 2016 was with Atalya.  She was on the
island for a vacation and had found my profile on model mayhem and emailed me to see if I wanted to do a test shoot with her.   When I googled her I found out that she was a professional model/actress and had previously been a contestant on America's Next Top Model.  Taking my count of ANTM contestants to two now.  Woohoo !!

#YayaMadeMeDoIt

This was a shoot that I did back in August.  I'd scheduled a summer shoot with Alize earlier in the year and thought Yaya Clothing would be a great look for her, so I asked Omejae if we could use some outfits.  Omajae said that Catrina was also looking to shoot some of his looks, so I decided extend the length of the shoot and use both models.   We did the shoot during the afternoon on a bright sunny day with no breeze.  It was scorching hot and tough conditions to be active for 3 straight hours.

2016 Swimsuit Series - #4 Brooke

I'm normally pretty quick at turning shoots around, but this summer I've been quite busy with non photography related stuff so this is a shoot from way back in July.  
I did a studio shoot with Brooke earlier this year and at that shoot she expressed that a bikini shoot was on her bucket list.  Well Brooke, now you can put a big tick next to that line. 
We did this shoot on an afternoon which was a nice change, as I mostly shoot really early in the morning.  The only issue with afternoon shoots is having to photoshop 300lb men in speedos out of the background, as was the case with this cover image.

2016 Swimsuit Series - #3 Michelle

Michelle is a part-time model from Toronto and was in Bermuda for a week in July, visiting a friend.   She thought a beach shoot would be a nice way to end her vacation and found Maria through some Instagram searches.  Unfortunately, the day before the shoot Maria became sick and had to cancel, but thankfully Riley was able to step in and assist with the Make-up.
Concept wise, it was a pretty straight forward sexy beach shoot using swimsuits that Michelle had brought with her.

Sanele Junior Xaba

Sanele was visiting Bermuda at the beginning of July to take part on the Bermuda International Collections fashion show.  He is a South African model with albinism who is making a name for himself in the fashion world with recent shoots for GQ, Marie Claire and Adidas.   Sanele was also featured in an article in Vogue Homme which discussed the rise of 3 male models with albinism.

2016 Swimsuit Series - #2 Rebekah

So much for my plans to be actively be shooting a lot this summer !
So far I'm off to the slowest start for several years.  However, I did get the chance to get out early in June and shoot with Rebekah.  This was Rebekah's first time modeling so we stuck to basic modeling 101 poses and kept the expressions fun and flirty.

2016 Swimsuit Series - #1 Siairah

Well summer has finally arrived and although I'm a little late starting the swimsuit series this year I think we got off to a great start with this shoot of Siairah.
We kept this concept pretty standard and based it on Sports Illustrated style.  The swimsuits were a mix between Siairah's own and some that I had bought towards the end of last summer.
This was my first outdoor shoot of the year and now I'm ready to slap on the sun screen and get at it.

Studio Shoot with Brooke

I did this shoot with Brooke and Maria a couple of weeks ago at whitespace studio.  
When Brooke and I originally chatted back in January, she mentioned that she wanted a swimsuit shoot, but given that it was cold back then, we decided to do a studio shoot instead.  The concept was simple and based on a series of black and white images that Brooke found online.  Of course I couldn't resist adding some colour ones too.

Beauty Shoot with Indigo

This shoot with Indigo was planned for earlier in the month but Indigo was sick and had to cancel.  Then last weekend I got a late cancellation, so I asked Indigo if she was available, she was the perfect fill-in, given that we already had the shoot concept planned from before. 
The concept was created by Maria and Indigo, so all I had to do was turn up and shoot it.

Studio Shoot with Sophie

Sophie was back for a couple of weeks so we agreed to shoot.  She had a
concept in mind which was a series of studio style images with monochrome clothing.  The inspiration images were also black and white so I shot with that in mind, but still added some colour images too.  Maria did the hair and make-up for the shoot and changed up the hair for each look.

Art Nude Studio Shoot (NSFW)

Last weekend I had a shoot booked that got cancelled at late notice, so the night before I put out a casting call to see if anyone wanted to shoot.  I got a reply from a model who wanted to do an art nude shoot and also wanted to remain anonymous. We decided to do some close up bodyscape images.

It gave me the opportunity to try out the Kino Flo lighting system for the first time.  These lights are fluorescent tubes that stay on throughout the shoot, so you can see exactly what the highlights and shadows look like as you shoot.

Contains Nudity 

Studio Shoot with Rachel

When I asked Christopher if he wanted to do a shoot he informed me that he already had a concept and model in mind.  The shoot, as you will see, was simple and sexy and based on two inspiration images that he had found on Instagram.  It was great to get to shoot with Rachel again after almost 4 years.   When I first started shooting people, around 2008, Rachel was very active on the modeling scene and we worked together on many shoots.   Strangely enough the last shoot we did together was a beauty shoot, which was also the first time Christopher and I had met.   For this shoot, Christopher did the make-up, Traci did the hair and Rachel styled the looks.  Oh, and I did the lighting :)

Rockabillies

This shoot was a collaboration with Salon Pink, Janika Roberts, Afroditi and models Sammy Blakemore and Aliana King.   Pinky and her team came up with the concept, which was inspired by the hairstyles of the 1950's.   Janika Roberts styled the shoot with clothing borrowed from Orange Bay Company.