Beaupix Studio

Ciara and Nikki are winning!

This is amazing and awesome at the same time. People I worked with in two separate projects are winning together very successfully in a very competitive online casting!

Here's the list of currently winning models:

http://castingchallenge.mylifetime.com/people/winning/

On pages 1 and 2, I see there are many good models, but the only ones that I worked with in the past are in the top 3!! They are Ciara from Georgea and Nikki from here in Massachusetts:

http://castingchallenge.mylifetime.com/ciaracaneega
http://castingchallenge.mylifetime.com/nikkimuse

I want to make very certain that they win together!

They are both very good models and also very nice people, so please help them win together by making an account and voting for them!! They take one vote per user per day, so you can vote today and tomorrow!

   

Click here to download:

Good_job_Ciara_and_Nikki.zip (245 KB)

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PRC PhotoSLAM! at The Wonder Bar in Allston on Thursday, September 24th

Photographic Resource Center is hosting another round of PhotoSLAM! at the Wonder Bar this week. I just got an email confirmation that my 5 pictures are in this event. I'm planning to attend this event, and looking forward to meeting with other photographers!

PhotoSLAM! 
Date: Thursday, September 24, 6pm
Location: The Wonder Bar, 186 Harvard Ave, Allston, MA 
www.wonderbarboston.com FREE 

The previous PhotoSLAM! event:

         

Click here to download:

posterous.zip (510 KB)

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Unexpected extra staff in urban location commercial shoot

On Sunday, we had a small commercial shoot in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. This was for one of my repeat clients, who designs and makes jackets in Boston area.

The model was Margaux, and the makeup and hair styling was by Chrissy. They did fantastic job, as their usual, which made my my work smooth and easy (the photos below are unretouched).

Those skateboarders wanted to get in the pictures, but I am pretty sure my client has no use for their pictures, so why don't I make some use by sharing a picture of the unexpected extra staff participation with you?

The shoot went smoothly, taking a good part of Sunday afternoon with the perfect sunny weather. Because I shot in a shade under the blue sky, the color temperature of the available light was close to 7000K! But by choosing the direction of the model's face, I could blend in some of the warmer colored lights reflected by nearby building to neutralize blue sky light, and then added a key light with a flash ("potato musher" driven with four NiMH C-cells; these deliver consistent light quality and the battery lasts much longer than the AA-driven flashes) bounced on a silver umbrella mounted on Manfrotto Combi boom stand. Initially, I was using a 41"x72" silver reflector to fill the shadow a bit, but because the wind was strong, I had to give it up and had the assistant stand by the light stand just in case strong wind knocks it.

The painful part was that, I lost 3 reflectors when we left the location in front of RISD auditorium. I guess some RISD photography students picked them up - oh well. I had to place an order for replacement, which came to some $200! Ouch!!

P.S. This is the shoot that was postponed since July 26th's posting below.

   

Click here to download:

Unexpected_extra_staff_in_urba.zip (539 KB)

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New England Weather and Fashion Photography

Sunday is usually a good day for location shoot, because there is less foot traffic in almost anywhere other than residential area. So, I had a fashion shoot planned for this afternoon, and got everything ready by last night. One headache for location shoot, especially the New England summer is unpredictable weather. Until a few days ago, today was supposed to be a perfect day. Now, chance of shower, thunderstorm, strong wind and basically everything I don't like for a photoshoot, but the forecast was not obvious enough to make my decision obvious. It was bad enough to make me concerned, but not bad enough to immediately postpone.
 
Sunday 11am, while sitting in brunch with friends, I was looking into my Blackberry Tour (which just launched two weeks ago) to check weather. Texting to crew members about updated forecasts. [Note: I usually don't do that...]
 
We decided to reschedule the shoot.
 
Well, the rain would've been manageable, but the air was too hot and humid, and makeup would not last long.
 
But felt the urge to shoot something. So here it goes. My new BlackBerry Tour 9630 with my favorite location photo from 2008.

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Creative Headshot of a Classical Music Composer

This is a shoot I did several weeks ago. I picked up a phone call from a classical music composer at Harvard University, asking for a creative professional headshot. Unlike actor's headshots, her headshots had more freedom to include creative elements, and I wanted to incorporate something that relates to music... but I have no knowledge nor experience in music, so I needed some time to think. So I told Hannah to let me get back to her by email in a few days, and hang up the phone.
 
The challenge was obvious: incorporating music into a picture of the woman who wrote it. I started sipping a cup of steamy green tea to stimulate my brain, and many ideas were generated and immediately scrapped. After some time, I sent her a few ideas, from which she chose a couple. One of the ideas resulted in the attached pictures.
 
I swept the studio floor when setting up for the shoot, but swept one more time, and laid out Hannah's hand written score on the floor in a random order. We didn't damage a single leaf but she probably had to manually sort them in order after the shoot. I wanted to create the crisp, bright lighting for dramatic effects, and filled the shadow just enough to see what's there. This is the type of lighting that is most demanding on the makeup, but Rose Fortuna (of MAC store on Newbury St.) did fantastic job, as her usual.
 
One trick you don't see in the pictures is that, I had to fabricate a tiny pillow to put under Hannah's head so that I get her head positioned at the best angle without causing pain in her neck.

P.S. I later found that the composer's website was up and running... so here it goes: http://www.hannahlash.com/index.html

   

Click here to download:

Creative_Headshot_of_a_Classic.zip (184 KB)

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Some updates from Beaupix Studio

Hi all, I'm so sorry about my long absence here! Beaupix Studio had to move in practically no notice, and I suffered from downtime, especially at the worst timing when I had to do a lot of other work. But luckily the production at the new space is going well, and I've been pretty busy lately. There were many interesting projects that I didn't get to post here...
 
Wedding of Carolyn and Kate (my first gay wedding to attend and, of course, shoot) was very exciting with lots of positive air. They are just back from honeymoon and having fun picking pictures, but I posted some of my quick pics on facebook the day after their wedding, so please check it out:
 
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025523&id=1499185010
 
Besides wedding, I had many actor's headshot sessions, several creative professional's headshots, fashion shoots, and more beauty headshots.
 
One of the beauty headshots was with makeup artist Natasha Ahmed of Mass Makeup Artist, who wrote an article to publish on Make Me Up magazine. My beauty headshot accompanied her article, and if you can pick up a copy to see the work, you'll see the beautiful makeup work by Natasha.

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Wedding: Theresa and Chris

On April 4th, right after Speech and the City event (see a few other posts from this event), I had to rush to the wedding of Theresa and Chris. Their wedding was a small one, taking place in Arnold Arboratum in Jamaica Plain, MA. It was unfortunately windy and rainy afternoon, but amidst the happiness and excitement of the new family, the weather was a tiny problem... well, except for the additional challenges presented to the photographer!
 The reception was in a hotel in Cambridge, and some indoor photos were taken there as well.
 One unique part of their wedding was that the dog was an important part of the whole day, and he was also the "ring boy," (he carried the rings on his neck ring). They had some challenge in finding a dog-friendly venues, so they went for the outdoor ceremony and a dog-friendly hotel for the reception.
 Congratulations to Theresa and Chris!

                     

Click here to download:

theresa-chris.zip (2800 KB)

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Headshot inspired by work of Kaizen Photography of Los Angeles

One might think headshot photography is a monotonous operation to shoot one after another of people... and get paid for pushing buttons. But that's exactly how photographers without brain would operate, and their website portfolio is not very exciting to me, even if hundreds of beautiful headshots are presented to demonstrate their experience. Good photographers would study the looks, style, and personality of individual client in a few minutes of conversation and make suggestions for the clothes and hair styles, and chose everything photographic, including the background. This type of photographers are rarer, but they usually have smaller but interesting portfolio and their websites often have insightful comments and suggestions. One such photographer I came across is Kaizen Photography of Los Angeles (http://kaizenphoto.com/). I don't know them and I never spoke to them; I merely looked at their work online.
 
In particular, I found this headshot to be of interest:
 

 
This headshot uses a simple but pleasing color arrangements (blue top and eyes in contrast to warm skin tone and orange hair), although the blue is a bit intense. It is also shot against the bright window, something that's not commonly done.
 
Indeed, this was interesting enough for me to try it myself. I added a new element to the work of Kaizen, though. These are two examples of headshots that I shot against the city view out of the window in my studio in downtown Boston. What I did differently is to change the color of sunlight.
 
P.S. the word "kaizen" is a Japanese word for improvement.

   

Click here to download:

Headshot_inspired_by_work_of_K.zip (349 KB)

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Catherine at Speech and the City event

This past Saturday (April 4, 2009), I had the pleasure to shoot Speech and the City event (see other entries from this event). There was one corner in the event where a real person (not models) can walk in and get a makeover on their hars and makeup. I had the opportunity to take pictures of a few of these people... and here are two pictures, before and after the makeover, of a corporate executive Catherine. 
 
The makeup work was by Chelsie Glamour Company. The photo was taken with natural light only, but with a oversized silver reflector on model's right for a fill.
 
More from this event coming soon...

   

Click here to download:

Catherine.zip (418 KB)

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Samenta of Guilded Boston at Speech and the City event

This past Saturday (April 4, 2009), I had the pleasure to shoot Speech and the City event (see other entries from this event). There was one corner in the event where a real person (not models) can walk in and get a makeover on their hars and makeup. I had the opportunity to take pictures of a few of these people... and this one is Samenta of Guilded Boston.
 
The makeup work was by Chelsie Glamour Company. The photo was taken with natural light only, but with a oversized gold reflector on model's right for a fill.
 
More from this event coming soon...

           

Click here to download:

Samenta.zip (981 KB)

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