Last week I got to photograph the gorgeous Chu sisters, Julie and Allison! They are both models with Wilhelmina Hawaii, but they’d never actually done a shoot together before, so we did an impromptu shoot together a few days before Allison left for New York.
Models: Julie & Allison Chu (Wilhelmina Hawaii)
MUA: Erica Elisha
Assistant: Edward White
…And, for the bonus round, a couple of fun mask photos!:
Recently, a videographer working for Smugmug came to Oahu to film me shooting for a profile on me as a photographer. The video isn’t out yet, but here are some of my photos that I shot during the filming. Even though the weather was the exact opposite of what I’d been planning for, I am really excited to be sharing these images. Keep an eye out for the final video, coming soon!
Model: Justine
Stylist: Tyson Joines
MUA: Zairrah Geyrozaga
Model – Allison Chu (Wilhelmina Hawaii)
Stylist – Tyson Joines
MUA – Lorena Metmet Morallo
A few weeks have have come and gone since my last post, but they’ve been filled to the brim with busy days and nights. So many projects and events! September has included Fashion’s Night Out, several portrait/test shoots, a local Pepsi campaign, a magazine cover shoot, participating in local politics, the Hawaii Five-0 Season 3 red carpet premiere, and my first photography talk, which has left little time for blogging, but I’m hoping to get back on the bandwagon now that things are calming down.
So, without further ado, I present the rest of the fashion shoot I showed a preview of for my last post. Once again, this shoot was brought to you by the following crew:
Model: Nina W.
MUA: Sarah Pacheco
Stylist: Tyson Joines
Assistants: Ed White & Neka Stephens
Today is my awesome friend and stylist Tyson Joines‘ birthday! It’s been so wonderful working with him over the last year, and his styling efforts have made a huge difference in the quality of my work. Looking forward to many more years of working together and making ze magicks!
Upon Tyson’s request, here’s a preview image from the most recent shoot we did together this past Tuesday!
Model: Nina
MUA: Sarah Pacheco
Stylist: Tyson Joines
Assistants: Ed White & Neka Stephens
Special thanks to House of Aria for letting us change in their shop!
Model: Taneka Stephens (Wilhelmina Hawaii)
MUA: Erica Elisha
Stylist: Tyson Joines
Here is a shoot I did with my awesome team this past June. The first image for each look is my original pick, and the second is what I added today. Which do you prefer for each look?
Happy Aloha Friday everyone!
Model: Amanda Li Paige
MUA: Sarah Pacheco
Assistant: Edward White
These are my favorite shots from the early morning swim shoot we did before Amanda heads back to the mainland for school. I was inspired to use sea shells as a theme from a shot in the editorial “Blue Lagoon” by photographer Nicole Bentley for Vogue Australia, but after working on the photos and picking my favorites, I realized they are also vaguely reminiscent of the work of one of my all-time favorite painters, Jia Lu, particularly her painting entitled Water.
(I also made the starfish circlet myself!)
You might also note that this is titled Fashion Friday – another effort to schedule out my posting a little bit more! We will see how long that lasts… :)
How I met Ace is a funny story. I had been at a going-away dinner at Buca di Beppo for a makeup artist friend along with my husband and my stylist, Tyson. During dinner, Tyson and I both noticed a handsome young waiter walk back and forth past our table. Of course, we were the most awkward we could possibly be and started eye-stalking every waiter and waitress that went past us trying to spot him again, to the point that our own table’s waitress kept stopping to ask if we needed anything. My husband was obviously the most mature one among us, and told the waitress straight up that we wanted to talk to a specific waiter. Eventually, Ace made his way to our table, and after introducing myself I asked if he was a model. “Nope,” he said.
I then asked him if he was at all interested in modeling, and when he confirmed that he was, we all exchanged information and added each other on Facebook and Instagram with plans to do a shoot soon.
Unfortunately, due to crazy schedules, “soon” turned into “a few months later”, but I decided that it was getting ridiculous and I needed to just shoot Ace, who had in the meantime been signed to Wilhelmina Hawaii on our recommendation. I wasn’t even his first shoot – he already had one under his belt as a groom for a stylized wedding shoot with Creatrix Photography!
For this shoot we had no stylist, and we had no makeup artist – the shoot was pretty much just awesome friends hanging out on the beach at sunrise, but it went better than I could have imagined, and Ace is a natural. Looking forward to working with him more often in the future!
After shooting in Waimanalo, we headed to Sandy’s to watch Ace do his thing as a professional skimboarder. Those photos will be in a later post!
Special thanks to Tyson for attempting long-distance styling advice via text message!
I’d like to thank everyone for their awesome support of the Americana 2012 photo shoot! Now that I’ve finished with that project for now, it’s back to catching up on my editing and working on making the new apartment livable before I go back to shooting for almost a week straight next week. I don’t have much else to say for today, but wanted to share an image that was a true collaboration with our whole shooting team. Our amazing model and good friend Taneka came along as Tyson’s wardrobe assistant for our second day of shooting for the Americana 2012 shoot, and thus hadn’t been planning on modeling at all, but my husband Ed has had an idea for an Americana portrait for a while, and she agreed to pose for it post-shoot. Our fantastic makeup artist Zairrah stayed later than she had to and did some awesome makeup, Ed styled Neka with some of Tyson’s accessories and then shot the photos with lighting assistance from Scotty, and then I edited the image!
Hello everyone!
Welcome to my revamped website/blog! Unfortunately, despite all good intentions, it is not running at 100% quite yet and has a few bugs to be worked out — which I suppose is what happens when I choose to move my website the same weekend we move into our new apartment. However, the website has come together enough for me to deliver its debut photoshoot, as promised – unlike our apartment, which will likely remain in a state of boxed chaos for the time being. Special thanks goes out to my BFF Kaeo Kepani for designing and coding this layout for me!
I’ll write again soon (after I recover from this editing all-nighter) about what I intend to do with this blog, but for now, I leave you with my latest project, Americana 2012. Inspired by a combination of last year’s shoot for an American Eagle competition and actually having a few free days during the last couple of weeks, this project began with me telling my stylist friend Tyson Joines, “Let’s do something Americana before the 4th. Maybe with fireworks.” This project, despite its humble beginnings, was not immune from scheduling conflicts, traffic, and other obstacles, but I’m proud of the talented group of people I had the privilege of working with, and am quite happy with the fruits of our labor.
I hope you all enjoy these images, and I wish you all a Happy Fourth of July!
Click each image to see it full-size!
Special thanks goes out to Homecoming Boutique and Philanthrophy by Madison and Company, two amazing local boutiques located on Oahu!
