Beauty Shoot

Today I had an "event" sort of thing that turned out really well!!  I'm quite proud of my organizing skills, actually.  My friend Jessica North is a hair stylist/MUA but due to health complications hasn't been able to do much recently.  To celebrate her recovery, we had a beauty day and some models came over.  She did hair and makeup and I photographed them.  It was really fun!!

First shoot of the day was with Alex.  I did her senior pictures last year, so it was fun to see her again and talk about how college going for her.  She brought her sister Kacie with her too, who was my helper in getting great smiles out of Alex.  Kacie also stepped in for a few cute sister pictures.  Jessica put Alex's hair in these beautiful soft curls and gave her bright red lipstick.  I think she ended up looking a bit like Sandy from Grease, when she gets the makeover.  It was great!

Second model of the day was Kelsey, one of my sister's friends.   I love Kels, she's an AMAZING model, despite the fact that she doesn't actually model much.  She's also a pretty cool kid, and works at the tattoo shop I got my camera half-sleeve at.  And where I need to go to get it finished.  Kelsey was, by the way, my vampire pin-up, which remains to this day one of my absolute favorite photoshoots ever.

Next was Olivia, another of Christy's friends.  I did her senior pictures, too, actually.  Liv is adorable, and can pull off the 80s look amazingly well, so we put her in a pink sweater I just finished knitting last night and Jessica gave her this poofy side pony-tail and bright eyeshadow to match the sweater.  The total effect was too cute.  At one point during her shoot, my punk rocker friend Adam wandered in to pick Kevin up for band practice and I made him pose with her for two quick frames.  He wasn't really sure what was going on, but it looked pretty sweet.

Last official shoot of the day was Kara, who is erich's DJ friend Trix (not my friend Trix)'s sister.  She messaged me on Model Mayhem awhile back, so I invited her to our event.  She has a super cool asymetrical haircut, so Jessica put the longer side in tight curls, slicked back the other side and spiked out the back.  It looked gorgeous.  She ended up holding Kaleigh's dog Mickey for a little bit and it turned out really cute.

Mickey also got his own little photoshoot, which was extremely difficult as he had no desire to stay on the background.  I managed to get a couple insanely adorable pictures of the little pokemon though.  http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-bw/506.shtml  <-- click this link.  I'm telling you, this dog looks JUST LIKE the pokemon Lillipup.  And yes, I'm 23 and still play Pokemon.  It is awesome.

Jessica left after Kara's session - she was exhausted after a long day!  I was tired too, but after taking a quick look through the day's images, got my energy back.  Trix (my friend, not Kara's brother) did makeup for herself as well as me and we had a dance party to Lady Gaga and Kesha and took pictures of each other.  It was was really silly and very fun, and we got IHOP after.  Definitely a good (and productive) day!  I am going to sleep well.

PS I'm super in love with this pic Trix took of me and my tiger rug with her iPhone (I WANT ONE!)

Death Scenes - slightly gory

Last night, my friend/handyman/assistant Kevin and I got bored.  This happens more frequently than people would think, but sometimes our boredom inspires more than just Kev cleaning the back porch.   Last night it inspired murder.  We've been talking about this a bit recently, having some people over and doing some gore makeup (if you've seen my zombie and vampire photos, you know our love for this) and staging some kill scenes.  Trix Morgan, who modeled for me once before, was IMing me on Facebook discussing a future shoot, and she ended up coming by.  Kevin's friend Bolea stopped by, and this kid Ricky I knew in high school, who brought my cousin David with him.

Our first kill of the night was Trix.  She's a wrestler and dancer, so can contort her body into some amazing angles.  I pulled out the liquid latex to scuff up her legs and hands, as her death was by falling down my front stairs.  Put a grid on my speedlight (no outlets around for the Alien Bee), mixed some fake blood with water, and positioned Trix on the stairs.  It didn't look to comfortable to me, but if my model says she's good, then awesome! 

We took a couple shots where I was at the bottom of the stairs, and had a shadowy figure (David - who would only kill and refused to die) at the top.  After doing that for a bit, I went up to the roof and shot down.  Her leg wound looks especially gruesome in that shot!

While Trix was cleaning up, I cut Ricky's throat open.  This involved a lot more layers of liquid latex because there needed to be flaps of skin, and a decent amount of blood gel was smeared in the"wound" to make it look extra gross.  After some discussion, I decided I wanted to shoot this through my kitchen window, so we took a chair outside to stand on and fake blood was sprayed on the window.  My Alien Bee B800 was set up inside next to them and awesomely, my totally cheap remote trigger did it's job through the window!  Ricky had some pretty entertaining facial expressions, even when his mouth was covered.

Last set of the night was Bolea.  Kevin did a great job bloodied up Bolea's face, as his scene was that he went splat.  Splat!!  They mixed up this totally disgusting bloody mess to be his smashed in brains.  I especially wanted to shoot this one from the roof, and after doing that, went down to the parking lot where he was laying and got some shots there.

 And of course, a snapshot of his face, to showcase Kevin's wonderful work!

Alien Bees and Zombie Pinups

About a week and a half ago I finally achieved a major photographic goal of mine and purchased an Alien Bee B800 along with a softbox, umbrella, and heavy duty light stand. It's great stuff - the softbox is SO easy to assemble and light works wonderfully. Such a great purchase. I did some test portraits for the first couple days, using my sister and friend Erich as models. This is one of my best shots of Erich. There are more test shots to be seen on my (fairly new) facebook page -
http://www.facebook.com/elenadeephoto




Over the past month, my buddy Kevin and I have been practicing our zombie makeup, which finally was used for a zombie pinup session featuring my sister/model Christiana yesterday. Kevin and I made wounds using liquid latex, while my fellow photographer Cassandra Grzybowski helped apply bruise makeup. She did a beautiful job on the face and shoulders, I must say. And Kevin's knee wound and the one I did on her thigh look especially decayed in the classic legs crossed pinup pose, as you can see below. I've never tried pinup before, but have wanted to for awhile. Personally, I think they turned out quite well for a first attempt. Christy is a great model, and if anyone is interested in shooting her, she can be reached on Model Mayhem - http://www.modelmayhem.com/christianacdd