syringa

Lately I've been in front of the camera a lot and neglected my own camera,
despite just having gotten new camera lenses and new editing tools.
I didn't know the first thing about Lightroom or Photoshop until yesterday
but since I wanted to get more into photography,  I watched some tutorials online.
Here are the first results from a photo shoot that I had with Richy some weeks ago.
I didn't edit much, just some basic skin corrections and lights/colours.
I'll try to find more creative ways to use Photoshop...... sooner or later.

If you have any great Photoshop tips and tricks, or any tutorials, feel free to share!

a journey through time

A few months ago I stumbled upon a Facebook page full with beautiful vintage photography: The Elderwood Photography.

First I simply enjoyed looking through all the images but the more I saw, the more I wanted to have a vintage photo shoot like that myself. Since the photographer and I live in the same town (Hamburg, Germany), I decided to give it a shot and messaged the photographer, and just a few weeks later the date for a photo shoot was set.

Now, I've had a couple of photo shoots with friends and other photographers before but this was a brand new and exciting experience. Ava (the photographer) picked me up with her car in the morning and drove us to her beautiful studio with many different sets, backgrounds, props and costumes to choose from. (I even got to cuddle with her adorable puppy Lemmi!) We then talked about what I had in mind in great detail and Ava helped me decide between different styles and showed me examples that would work well with our sets.

And not only is Ava an amazing photographer but she's also a great makeup and hair artist, so the next step was getting me all dolled up and pretty for our first set. We decided to start with a very classic wavy hair-do and strong eye makeup and bright red lips since the first theme I chose was "Femme fatale". Our second set was the complete opposite, kind of "Boystyle" inspired by a photo shoot of Scarlett Johansson where she's dressed in suits and looks incredibly sharp.

Since Ava has experience in front of the camera as a model, she always knew exactly which pose would look best and gave me great tips on how to stand, where to move my arms, how to turn my face etc. She also always took the time to make sure that I like everything by showing me the photo results between takes. It was really easy for me to feel comfortable in front of the camera with her because of all the help and feedback I got.

On that note, Ava is also just a very sweet, fun, intelligent and beautiful person in general! Before and after the photo shoot, we talked a lot about many different topics and it was easy to relax the entire time because she created such a great atmosphere. She also offered me a huge selection of sweets, snacks and drinks. And after we finished, I got a CD with all the photos from the shoot so I could select my favourites.

All in all, this was an amazing experience for me and definitely a boost for my self-confidence as I've never felt that feminine and beautiful before. I'm pretty sure that I will be back in Ava's photo studio soon! :)

And finally, here are the photo results and also some pictures of her great studio:

pierrot

Since I can't quite decide which photo I like best, and I don't want to spam my entire FB profile by changing my photo every single day, I finally decided to write a little blog post and share my favourite results from the photo shoot with Torsten Belger from "Immortelle Fotografie aus Leidenschaft" in his studio in Bremen.

This was actually the first time I've ever worked with a photographer that I didn't know before, thus I was pretty nervous/excited and glad that my dear friend Delsin accompanied me. But that nervous feeling faded fast since we both got along very well with the photographer and he made it easy to relax and gave me lots of tips for poses! 

For the first part of our photo shoot, we used a simple white background and high key lighting, for the second part we changed to a darker background, lighting and atmosphere in general and added black tulle to play around with. I like how the same look/outfit can have an entirely different effect depending on the setting you choose.

I really had a great time and I hope to work with him again in the future!