This is the beautiful Kenda. Kenda is a truly amazing girl, obviously, but the real star at this shoot was our own MUA extraordinaire — Holly Corsano. Yep, Holly was definitely the driving force behind this entire shoot — from styling, to make up, to hair to general direction, it was all her. After working with somebody for years, you just kind of learn when you can take a back seat and let them hold the reins– Holly did it flawlessly.

A couple of days before the shoot I showed Holly who we have coming our way and she just had a vision. Kenda’s flawless skin tone needed that extra special touch to make it pop. Some extra fancy airbrushing and cucumber based clear body lotion later and we have shine Perfection. It’s “reflective,” to quote Holly herself! :)

We also wanted to keep the eyes clean and muted and contrast this with the dramatic black lipstick.

The result is clear as day — sheer genius!

Kenda also did an incredible job of taking my direction and interpreting our vision. The look in her eyes is so deep and …..soulful! As I said while shooting, “I can see right into your soul!!”  And look!! Pretty hands. Pretty, pretty hands. Well done, Kenda.

The perfect shoot– a great end to a busy week! :)

(Here’s a link to the large format image for a closer look at all the shimmery, glittery details.)

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It’s been so busy that it’s been hard to keep up with the blog. I just returned from New Orleans where I shot with a couple of other photographers and good friends of mine and a couple of girls. The model I worked with is Mallory and I swear I could have sworn she is Alessandra Ambrosio’s long lost twin sister. Take a look for yourself…

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And our setting — the gorgeous New Orleans.  The buildings are so unique and such a great resource as backdrops! Fellow photographers Reny Ramos, Dave Contreras and Arthur Alikhanian (from left to right) and Mallory.

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…to see us! :)

Here’s the mention of our January giveaway in Stamford Magazine. If you haven’t done so already, go to the Inspiring Style blog and leave a comment for Amber and you could be the lucky winner. It’s that easy!

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Want to shoot with us? — Here’s the perfect opportunity to win a free fashion photo session in out new Stamford studio.


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We would like to thank Amber Schievi, the writer of a fabulous style blog called Inspiring Style and Stamford Magazine for helping us make this fun giveaway possible. Please feel free to check out the blog for further details. All you have to do to be entered to win is post a comment on Inspiring Style some time in the month of January — but we’d say the sooner, the better. Amber will then pick a winner at the end of the giveaway at random so everybody has an equal chance of spending a few style-filled hours with us! :)

We’ve already seen some amazing feedback and interest — we are absolutely flattered and look forward to meeting our winner in a few weeks!

GOOD LUCK!

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Here’s gorgeous Caroline. Lots of fun!

Make up and styling by Holly Corsano.

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The images from our latest fashion photoshoot. These were all done in the new studio in Stamford!

Model is Meredith Howard @ Bella, NY; MUA is the one and only Holly Corsano @ www.hollycorsano.com. Results are amazing! :D Take a look.

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Please meet Chloé!

Yes, this gorgeous lady in the middle is Chloé! Gorgeous, right? Mom and dad look good too, but she is obviously the standout star here. ;) We definitely got some great family portraits even though Chloé turned out to be a really fast crawler!

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Thanks for having us over, Mom, Dad and Chloé!


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The Value of a Make up Artist

A few people have asked me if they need to have a Make Up Artist (MUA for short) for their photo session. The answer is no, but it’s so strongly recommended that it’s almost a definite yes. Let me explain! :)

Model, Meredith, is getting airbrushed by make up artist, Holly Corsano.

Model, Meredith, is getting airbrushed by make up artist, Holly Corsano.

While most of us ladies are pretty capable of doing our own day or night make up, there is such a thing as flash/studio-appropriate make up (very similar to “stage make up”) that the average person knows very little or nothing about. That’s why we use MUAs whenever possible on our personal projects and strongly recommend one with clients.

A MUA will step in on set to do "touchups" as needed.

A MUA will step in on set to do "touchups" as needed.

Skin naturally has a sheen or a coat of natural oils which are created by our own cells to protect the surface of the skin. Even if you have dry skin and even if you can’t see it in person — it is certainly there and likes to show up ones the strobes go off flashin’. :) This sheen is the bane of professional photographers. And no, it cannot easily be “corrected in Photoshop.” A pimple or another form of skin imperfection can be Photoshoped but  shininess cannot. At least not with satisfactory results. Part of the reason for this is the fact that sheen is in essence exaggerated highlights. We don’t want to remove highlights because they are an important part of a 2-dimensional image that is supposed to portray a 3-dimensional reality. The play of highlights and shadows gives images dimension. The lack of one or the other (or both) creates the so called “flat” images. As you can see dealing with sheen is a little bit of a catch 22 –we don’t want to remove it and we certainly don’t want to dull it down, which also creates flatness, but we also can’t have it stay in as it’s distracting and makes people appear sweaty. The only way really to deal with sheen in a portrait photograph is to recreate skin — this is an advanced and expensive Photoshop technique and for the general portrait session, it just isn’t worth the time and money involved.

Hair also needs touchups in addition to the make up.

Hair also needs touchups in addition to the make up.

A MUA uses liquid and powder foundation specific to photoshoots that will eliminate this shininess. She/he will also accurately match your skin color — it is surprising but not all of us do a good job at matching our own skin color with our daily wear foundation. A MUA will also contour your face — using the principles of light a good make up artist will use highlights and shadows to enhance the structure of your face — narrow the bridge of the nose, exaggerate and heighten cheek bones, etc, etc.

A great looking image is the result of team work.

A great looking image is the result of team work.

Also, a make up artist working with us carries a lot more responsibilities after the initial make up is done. She or he remains on set to make sure that we have a good handle on flyaway hairs and sprays them down as needed and occasionally will step in to correct and adjust the make up or do “touch ups.” In essence, this important person is an additional set of eyes on set that are trained to look for the things that are not quite as perfect as they need to be for a great looking picture.

Here’s a mild to moderate case of a shiny forehead; the cheeks were even shinier here but I wanted to keep our model anonymous.  I was quite happy to discover it was hard to find a good example of a really shiny face –this  means we don’t have as many messups as I though we might! (juust kidding :) )

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So, Kristina and I had a shoot this past weekend. Surprise, surprise :) Except the difference between this shoot and all of our other ones was the fact that my body movements which always work towards my advantage, worked towards my disadvantage this week. Let me explain. I have never had a problem with positioning my body- holding a pose and creating lines without any hardship or much explanation has always been my strongest point when it comes to photo shoots. Body movement excites me, which is why I tend to get bored at beauty shoots. I have always been aware of my body, and throughout my modeling, the face expression & eyes have been the one thing that I have worked on. Well this shoot required not so much posing of the body, since it was supposed to be more of a natural shot- for example- me laying on the bed, or looking out the window…well believe it or not, when I move around the house or do normal things even without Kristina’s camera in front of me– I don’t just slump around. So Kristina and I were having a hard time making me look un-posed..If that’s even a word…listen I can’t help it if I do everything very methodologically (Kv was that the word you used?) in my own head. I am a Capricorn :) we do everything planned. So no matter how frumpy I tried to look, lol…it still looks like I am posing, but my body movements come so natural to me that I don’t even notice it….and the results of this shoot are me trying to look as un-posed as possible..Sigh….I guess I have to work on my un-posing abilities P.s I love making up words! :D

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We are so excited to announce that the look we did with Sarah a couple of weeks ago was featured at Fashion Maga-Zine. Please check out the link to the article here and don’t forget to vote for it!

Fashion Maga-Zine is a great online publication that keeps its finger on the pulse of the hottest global fashion and beauty trends, so make sure you have their page bookmarked! Also, make sure you register so you can see the large image, it’s definitely worth the 15 second it’d take you to do so — Sarah looks absolutely stunning in it and you just have to take a closer look at that make up job!

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Click on the image to access the article.

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