Kerrie is a beautiful Irish girl who has also found herself living in LA, Santa Monica to be exact. I meet up with Kerrie on my 2015 LA Trip for a few hours to shoot and hang out. Kerrie is an interesting person and indeed a successful author also. You can check out her book, “Confessions of a Teenage Ballerina” on Amazon.
Kerrie has an amazing figure as the pictures show. She is a popular and regular feature on LA billboards when she models for 138 Water. You can see even more fab pictures of Kerrie on this Google Image Search.
It has been a few years since I last shot Shahira in my studio. She then she has made the permanents move to L.A. to pursue a career in acting as well as modelling. I caught up with her for a few shots and a chat while I was in L.A in 2105. You can follow Shahira on Twitter
Madeline Mulqueen is a stunning actress and model. I had the pleasure of working with a great team of Laura Mullett, Aimee Connolly and Madeline on this shoot for the Sunday World.
Madeline is a cool chick, great fun to work with. And as usual, working with the dream team of Makeup artist Aimee and Fashion Stylist Laura, we always have the craic on set. After we got the shots we needed for the papers, we then turned to a spot of experimenting and testing. I can’t remember who had the paint with them in the car, but Madeline for the idea of putting it on her face… and sure the rest is history… in pictures.
Rebecca Maguire is the stunning Belfast girl who won the Miss Ireland 2012 title. I first worked with Rebecca when she won the Miss Wright Venue in 2012, and from there she went on to win Miss Ireland. We shot this in June as her reign was coming to an end. We were shooting for the double page feature in the Irish Sun and for the cover of the Sunday World Magazine.
We assembled a great team for the shoot. Rebecca came down to my studio from Belfast for the shoot. Aimee came from Dublin for make-up. Edel drove down from Baltinglass. Laura popped out from Enniscorthy and Jason joined us also to video the shoot. The team worked great together and we got some fantastic images.
This was my first time working with hair stylist Edel Jones. Edel works in Tecknicolour saloon in Baltinglass. Edel done fantastic job with Rebecca. My favourite hair look from the day with the one above… there is a hint of a Cheryl Cole look going on I think. Combined with the fabulous dress, it is a very hot look. Rebecca really rocked it this look, which you can see in the video below.
As you can see from the shots, there was a lot of colour going on. It was the height of summer, so why not. Laura done a great job with the styling here I think. I am no expert on styling, but it all looked good. For a detailed breakdown on the styling and Laura’s train of thought for it all, you can check out her own blog post on the shoot. Check out on Lipstick Gossip – Meeting Rebecca Maguire
Below is a behind the scenes video shots by my assistant and DE Photo Staff member Jason Ennis. I kind of throw him into the deep end on this one as it was a last minute thought. Jason shot it on one of my Canon 1D mkIV bodies. I later edited the footage together and below is the result.
Tiffany Stanley is a well-known Irish model. She is has being modelling for a few years now and has done will in the press call / lingerie scene. She is currently represented by Andrea Roche Agency. Tiffany is back from LA where she spent the Summer. She went there to try her hand at acting, swapping the daily paper for the silver screen. You can read about it in the various places that covered it, such as the Sunday World and the Irish Daily Star. We organised this new sexy lingerie shoot to have some fresh shots for her to send out to press throughout the summer when she was away.
It was great to finally work with Tiffany. She is on my list of “Irish Models to Shoot”, so it was great to be able to make that list a little bit smaller. Once the list has been fully crossed off, I will let you know. I am sure you can guess who else could be on that list whom I have not worked with…. yet.
It has been a while since I last shot with Lisa Nolan. As I said previously, Lisa was one of the very first people I shot on my own back in the day. Those old shots have long since been confined to the archives…. never to be seen again 🙂 . Back then she was with the Bscene Agency She is with Assets Agency these days doing great for her self. You would have seen her on the TV last year on the ICA Bootcamp along with being a presenter for the online “The Guy Show” on YouTube.
This time we were shooting a piece for the Sunday World back in May. You can check out some of my other published work also.
We were shooting in one of Dublin’s top night venues, Krystle on Harcourt Street, under the Russell Court Hotel. It has been a popular venue for photo shoots in the past, the large green leather chair has been the backdrop for several pictures. With that in mind, I was trying to use other parts of the venue as a backdrop. One such part on offer with this curtain at the side of the VIP room. It match in well with the corset that Lisa was wearing. I love the shot of Lisa above, it a cute laughing shot.
The style team consisted of Laura Mullet as stylist and Julie Caulfield on Hair & Make-Up. This was the first shoot I worked with Laura and I was very impressed with her work. We got on great and have since worked together on a lot of shoots, which will be up on the blog her in good time. Julie of course is no stranger to the blog and needs no introduction at this point. But if it is your first time here, Julie is a top class Make-up artist.
After the shoot, Laura had to head off to do drop backs to Ann Summers, i.e. dropping the clothes she borrowed for the shoot back to the stores where they came from. This is one of the jobs of a stylist… one of the tedious parts for them no doubt. While Laura went away, Lisa and myself headed down to the Hotel for a carvery lunch ( great value for tone of food) and we went through some images.
Below is a shot of me hard at work. This is a behind the scenes shot from Laura’s phone taken pretty close to the time of the actual shot used above. You can’t see it in the set up, but I had a light just behind my left shoulder with a bare reflector for a hard light. You can read more about the shoot from Laura’s point of view on her own blog, Lipstick Gossip.
April Fitzgibbon, the Cork lass booked a shoot a while ago to update her portfolio. She was looking to approach an Irish model agency to be represented over here. She mentioned that she was currently doing her modelling work in the UK, but now she was looking to work more at home.
After her shoot in my Wexford Studio, she took her pictures to the Assets Agency Munster open day. This was a day where they search for potential models in the Cork and Munster area. This is a good idea from an agency point of view as a it adds a bit of balance to the location of models. Unfortunatly with the industry as small as it is in Ireland, most of the work is in the Dublin area. April impressed on the day however and she is now signed on the Assets Munster Section
Fairly soon after meeting April ( or if you follow her on Twitter or FaceBook), you get a sense of her pride of being a model who is “100% Natural, from head to toe”. She does not even have hair extensions….. her super long hair is all her own work. You will also get a sense of her intelligence as she is a self-confessed science lover and wannabe astronaut ( See the Sunday World recently )
April’s mom came along to the shoot with her for drive…. all 4 hours of it. It was a first for me having a parent in the studio during a shoot, but it was great support for April. Other people on set on the day included Nicole & Shauna Spain of Flutter By Styling who provided some of the clothes, April provided everything else her self. Aimee Connolly was also there available for makeup. April prefered to do here own make up, so Aimee was there for touch-ups.
April has been in the press lately with some of the other shots from this shoot. Check her out in the Irish Daily Star and the Sunday World. You can also see her on Joe.ie
Niamh Cullen is the current Miss Sunday World – 2011. Niamh won, following in the foot steps of Rachel Wallace and entering in the Miss Ireland Competition. Niamh came down to my studio recently with fellow Miss Ireland contestant, Aishling Alcock for some fun for the day and to get some new shots.
The wonderful, the beautiful, the talented Julie Caulfield was on Hair and Make-up duties for the day and she done a great job as usual. We styled it ourselves from various inspirational images combined with what ever cloths the girls brought down. The main aim for Niamh was to get some fun, sexy shots that were to be published in the Sunday World Newspaper.
Niamh felt that her image to date have been too cute, so her main aim from this shoot was to get some sexier images and to show another side to her. I think that we definitely achieved that. The shot to the right alone is a super sexy shot. This was actually the very last shot of this look, and Niamh nailed it.
The Shots that were actually used are shown below, they are the colourful, cutesy & sexy shots. Although the shot on the right is my favourite, it is unlikely to have ever been printed in the paper as the mostly want colour shots. I did supply this shot in colour, but the black and white just have that bit more impact and mode to it.
Niamh is a great, bubble girl as we had a great shoot. Her reign of Miss Sunday World is nearly over and the search is on for her successor. Do you have what it takes?
Rachel Wallace is the 2010 Miss Sunday World. Rachel came down to my studio with her friend Hazel for some fun and a shoot. It was a fun-filled few hours that resulted in some great shots that got published in the Sunday World (Oct 9th). See the tear sheet here. Along with being a former Miss Sunday World, Rachel is also signed with Assets Model Agency. She is a great model and fun to work with. The girl can pull more looks in 20 seconds than most. That skill / confidence level help making the short video so easy. The styling was provided by Carmel Daly. Unfortunately she was not able to make it down on the day of the shoot, she sent Rachel down very organised with plenty of out fits for the shoot.
Earlier images from this shoot which showed a Rachel smoking caused a little debate. Being honest, I knew it would and that is why the pictures were posted. I thought it was better to have people talking about your work over something such as smoking, rather than it not being noticed at all. You can see the post in question HERE.
This was the second shoot in my new studio and I am still very much in the testing phase. I am not ready to do up a full-blown post on the new studio just yet. I need to get to grips with it more, learn all its faults and failings before I can give a comprehensive write-up on it.
The first shoot in the new studio was with Lydia a short while ago. Shooting in the studio has been interesting so far. It is just as much of a challenge as shooting on location. When you are on location, you have an extra element to use for your composition…. be it a building, a beach etc. The location becomes part of the subject. Adding a model into the frame then should then be complemented by the location and vise versa. Being on a location means that you are there to shoot it as you see it (usually) and you are not going to be chopping and changing anything majorly around. The main thing that you would usually be controlling if your lighting, and its the lighting that sets the look of the shot.
Shooting on location results in unique results each time. This is why my body of work has been so diverse to date. Shooting in the studio will mean consistency and this will change the flow of my portfolio from its current state. The current state being one of loads of unique shots, and that being changed (maybe) to one of many similar style shots. This ultimately is not a bad thing, it just depends on the how you want your portfolio to look. Being able to create a different looking set of images in the same space with the same equipment seems daunting. Is it necessary?
I will do up a more detailed post on studio shooting once my is fully finished.
I decided to play around with the video function of the Canon 1D mkIV during the shoot also. No point in paying all that cash for a piece of equipment if you don’t at least try to get the full use out of it right. Rachel was a great model to try it out with, that goes back to her fun personality and her skill in being able to change pose so well.
If you were reading the Sunday World Magazine last Sunday (August 7th 2011) you might have seen some of these pictures. They are from a shoot I did back in early July. I am only getting to put them up now as they have gone to print. The location was Bettystown beach, which would not have been my first choice for a location due to the crowds on the day, and also know knowing what it looked like before hand, but it worked out well.
The looks was pulled by Liam Power and they were modelled by Danilo Taveres and Michelle Lima. I had worked with Danilo before and it was my first time working with Michelle. Michelle is a Brazilian model ( Danilo is Brazilian also) and she is a full time model. She is doing very well for her self over here with Compton. She is a great model, very professional and a lovely girl to top it all off.
It was an all Natural Light shoot, so there will be no lighting setup post to go with this shoot. I did however use modifiers to control the light. Control by either diffusing the light or reflecting light, basic light control really. But most of the shots are just plain out out in the afternoon sun.
As usual, any comments or questions, feel free to ask them below.
