fstopinertia - photography of angela marklew » beauty

Re-Inventing the Wheel

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:51:10 +0000

One of my recent assignments for my workshop was to shoot a portrait of someone and incorporate a mode of transportation as a design element. Let me tell you, I thought about every possible method of transportation and the only things that inspired me were things I had absolutely no access to (small airplanes, hot air balloons, etc). Everything I did have access to (cars, bikes, skateboards) bored me to death. I had NO ideas – this was a major problem. So finally I decided to take the most basic method of transportation – the wheel – and use it to create shadows in the hopes of producing a very graphic black and white image. Immediately after I shot, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that I just didn’t get what I set out to do…however, after a few days I was completely happy with the result.

It’s a common practice of mine to let my images sit a few days after a shoot before I look at them – it gives my emotions from the shoot day a chance to dissipate, so I can look at the images with fresh eyes.

My last assignment was to incorporate motion into a portrait. This one was a lot easier for me on the idea front and as soon as Ken told us our challenge, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to create a portrait that contained elements of focus in addition to the elements of motion.

While I was shooting my assignments, I also shot some straight up portraits. Thanks to Bethany (model) and Teal Druda (hair and make up) for helping me out with this shoot.

Permits.

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:02:52 +0000

Let’s talk about permits. Now, if I’m shooting a job (outdoors, in nature) where I’m getting paid, my crew is getting paid, and the model is getting paid, then I have no problem getting a location permit. However, if no one is getting paid – a prime example would be test shooting – then I start to have a problem having to shell out for a location permit. It’s especially frustrating since I’ve been told numerous times that I only need a permit if I’m shooting commercially (ie. if I’m making money, or if money is even involved)…which brings me to a shoot I did a few weeks back.

It was all planned out – a friend and I went out one afternoon and scouted for a location, the model and make up artist were confirmed, and a rad designer from Portland had sent down some dresses. Now granted, the location we found was in a state park and there is about a 50/50 chance of getting kicked out. BUT I figured the chances were in my favour seeing as i was using natural light and there were only five of us. I obviously figured wrong – almost as soon as we wrapped up the first look we were told to leave. At this point we went into full guerrilla mode – driving until we found some suitable backdrop, jumping out of the car, shooting for about 10 minutes, and then moving on. While this method was a little more stressful (ok, a lot more stressful), it reminded me about the great images that can be produced due to having to improvise.

Model JACQUELYNE SELLE
Make up & hair VANESSA
Clothing provided by CLAIRE LA FAYE

Alternate images from this shoot can be found in my portfolio.

1986

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:43:11 +0000

My team and I recently got together to do a beauty editorial inspired by the hair and make up of the 1980’s. My model, Alexandra, wasn’t even born until 1990 (which makes me feel old) – but she did an amazing job.

Make up & hair VERONICA LANE
Hair JOHNNY SANGA
Styling AUTUMN STEED
Model ALEXANDRA MATHEWS

I’ve been inspired by motion recently and wanted to add an element of that into this shoot. I spent a good while trying to get it to happen in camera, without getting the result I was looking for. So I had to do it in post. I like doing things practically as much as possible, but in this case it was actually ideal to take care of this effect afterward as it allowed me to have much greater control. You can go here and here to see more from this shoot…

Re-visiting old work

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 18:29:10 +0000

A few weeks ago I decided to finally put a new (bigger) hard drive in my computer. My computer had been running strangely and so it was decided that the best thing would be to reinstall everything from scratch. This was no big deal since all my files are kept on external hard drives. The only thing I was dreading was re-importing everything into Lightroom – luckily it went much smoother than I hoped for. Not only that, but as I was going through all the folders to make sure my ratings etc had made it through the import, I got to re-visit old shoots. In particular, a shoot from December 6th, 2007 caught my eye. I decided to look at the images with fresh eyes and re-edit to see if my aesthetics had changed much. I actually ended up choosing the same poses I chose the first time around (with an additional portrait thrown into the mix). Then the fun part became retouching the old images with my current retouching aesthetic. While the original retouched images from 2007 are still among my favourites, the newly retouched image has a completely different feel. I’m really not sure if I even prefer one over the other. What do you think?

The black and white version is the new edit and the colour version is the original edit. Seeing the two images together made me think about all the things that effect how I choose to retouch an image…not the least of which is what is going on in my life and how I’m feeling about it.

I look back fondly on this shoot – it was the last time I was back home (Ottawa, Ontario) for any length of time. Anna Finlayson did amazing make up and Jennilee was a trooper for being up to her knees in snow in a very short dress (I was bundled up and still freezing my ass off!)

Recent Work – Monochromatic: part 2

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:04:38 +0000

Excerpts from a beauty shoot I did a couple weeks ago…

Hair and make up by the lovely and talented Veronica Lane.

Colour Theory

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:09:10 +0000

About a month ago my favourite make up artist, Veronica Lane (who also happens to be an awesome lady) and I sat down to talk about an idea we had for a beauty editorial. Since I love getting my models messy, I brought up the idea of incorporating paint into the mix…and from there the idea for “Colour Theory” was born. So a couple weeks ago, Veronica and I brought on Ashley Hall (a fantastic hairstylist) and we spent half a day shooting. We had three great models who were all completely on board for getting messy (my favourite kind of models…)

This was one of the last shots of the day…to see more, check out both my portfolio and my behance page