thiternik's photography

Relocation to Armenia and the last crazy month in Mauritius

2012-03-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

Good evening my dear followers! Especially the ones who are reading this from Yerevan, I have good news for you! First of all I am here today to inform you all that I am back to my home town and will be available for orders as from March. You can find my contacts in "contact" page - feel free to email me if you have any questions.

The last probably craziest month in my life photography wise was my last month in Mauritius. I literally didn't have any time to breath. My relocation news was quite a short notice and I had only some 1 month to try to finish all my personal projects on the island. Along with that I was extremely busy with the orders. Sometimes having 2 shoots in 1 day! So I ended up having no time for myself to get some tan before I leave. But that was worth it - instead I got a big addition to my portfolio.

Here I'll be presenting some of the shoots done during my last month on the island, trying to tell a little bit about each shoot. By clicking on the photo you will be directed to the full album of the photosession. So here we go!

I-GEO: This has been rolling in my head and later on on the paper for over some 8 months and I couldn't leave the island without doing this. The image of a strong confident woman in minimalistic and very geometric environment. I believe confidence can do unbelievable transformation with a woman who can achieve anything - even if it's too high and others say "you can't". Believe in you ladies and you will be the most beautiful and happy when you have the confidence. My special thanks to this incredible Mauritian model Karen Nicolini who like noone else matched the theme and gave me all I expected.

Heart Candy: Raquel Rault, the beautiful young model on the photo ordered me the photosession. The inspiration was a mixture of Victorias Secret and Guess style. The longest part was the making of. We went for brownish smokey eyes, muted lips (some red for the very last pics), very contoured face and big hair. Styling went perfect along with the femininity, sensuality and sexiness of the shoot.

InsideOut: It's been ages I wanted to work along with Sean Craig who probably has the most editorial face in Mauritius. Not only the face but also the attitude, the will and the open mind to experiments. He will do anything required. I completely enjoyed working with Sean and I would absolutely love to work again and again. The atmosphere is incredible and you just feel extremely relaxed whatever happens. I truly like the mystic inside out mood of the set along with his expressions and body language. The set-up was quite simple and location was my apartment. Thanks for my assistant Khatleen Minerve for being there and making the mood even better.

Iconic Love - dedicated to everyone in love, when nothing else matters: This is very personal and collaborative photosession and it has a funny pre-story. I was extremely busy those days and I had only Friday free for a shoot. It was going to be a big shoot involving quite much people: me, Sanjeet Boollel - the designer of this beautiful red dress, gorgeous Jasmina Ruben - who was about to leave the island on Monday and be back only when I am out of the country, Michael Lam Hun Chong - who was basically posing the first time but was very responsible and supportive and Khatleen Minerve as my assistant, who was available only for Friday. We arranged everything and and met at Port Louis all together - and here the stress came out. The dress was the wrong one and we didn't have time to go and fetch the right RED one, so we had to arrange it for next day - Saturday. Sanjeet has to be my assistant instead of Khatleen as she had an exam and I had to arrange and finish another shoot on Saturday morning to be able to run for this one afternoon. I believe nothing happens for no reason - so we had a lovely time on Friday at Waterfront, the whole team got very friendly and it was much easier for Saturday to come together and make the photos the way I wanted. Thank you Jasmina for being so into the shoot and so incredibly beautiful from within, Michael - for your patience and support, Sanjeet - for your first ever photography assistance and the wonderful talent of making this amazing dresses!

Born WILD: What else can I add? For a very long this extremely young South African beauty Courney Jade Horne, who is currently living in Mauritius and working in model industry wanted to do a shoot with me. Initially it was supposed to be a small bikini shoot, but as I was leaving I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't do smt more with her, at least a little concept. The key power of this shoot is her hair which we started doing a night before by doing big tight braids. The finishing touch was done just before the shoot by brushing them trough and teasing a bit to give extra wildness. The outfit went on her perfectly! I tried not to overload her with makeup, keeping it very matt and mostly contoured. As an addition I enhanced her mesmerizing blue eyes to give more of that cat-eye effect. The weather was extremely hot but the sky was incredibly beautiful. So enjoy a piece of summer.

Instinct: Shoot with Aurelie Calou, a girl who inspired me to make this outfit and the theme specially for her . I can't tell much about this shoot. I just enjoyed it and this was my very last shoot on the island. As per styling I didn't do anything with her hair except little bit hairspray to give a bit of a boost. I worked a lot with highlights! Basically all her highlight areas were covered with silver very finely milled powder - which is causing this glowing skin all over. I should say a true African beauty!

Splash Out: This is a shoot from my last week. I was very happy with the exotic mixture of Gabriella Chan. We arranged the shoot very quick. Again this was meant to be a usual bikini shoot, but I couldn't hold myself of not turning this to some concept. For the styling I went for a neat leather like bikini which was plain along with golden colour bracelet and big earrings - less is more. The make-up was quite strong: metallic golden eyeshadow over the lid and a very strong cat-eye, contoured/highlighted face and reddish lips. On the set I really wanted to input a dynamic feeling. So I had this enormous amount of assistants consisting of Gabriella's brother and his friends who were so patient during the whole shoot. Enjoy!

I feel it is becoming a very very long post so I've decided to stop here. I'll cover the other shoots from the last month in separate posts so that you are not extremely overloaded with information.

Love

Emma

the Breeze

2011-10-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hello to everyone reading this. Here I finally opened the blogger to write this very much delayed post on "the Breeze".
This is a very retro/flirty inspired shoot. For the details keep reading below the picture.
For the full album click on the photo and you will be redirected to my Facebook fan page
(though fb reduces the quality too much recently). Better quality at Behance.

Inspiration/Concept: The inspiration came from several points. I very much wanted to use marine notes mixed with flirty retro style of a fresh young lady. Chandre, a young blond model located in Mauritius was very much suitable for this and when she ordered a shoot to me we both were excited to make this happen.

Style: The little marine style dress was selected to pair with red high heels and short double lined pearl necklace to give a glamour feeling. In addition red manicure/pedicure, matching makeup and hair style completed the look.

Hair: The model had very nice straight blond hair, but I wanted to give some big volume to it (though it's almost impossible in Mauritius due to the extra humid weather). Perhaps hair took the longest time: I used 2 size curling irons + several types of rollers to keep the shape while I was doing the makeup. After the makeup was done I took of the rollers and teased the roots + lot's of freezing hairspray of Chandre's curls which gave that extra volume (some bts photos in the end of post). Finished with a thin white hair band some floral thing on the hair which guaranteed that old retro look.

Make-up: This was sharp Marilyn Monroe style make-up.
Face: I started with a light coat of a Maybelline Age Rewind liquid foundation (which gives very natural yet covered effect) topped over a light gel moisturiser. Little bit Revlon concealer under the eyes, top of cheekbones, bridge of the nose. Dusted little bit Chanel Universal Loose powder in Clair 20 on the last step of the makeup.
Eyes: Primed the eyes with MAC's Prep+Prime. Packed some light base color over the lids, put little bit of Loreal matt brown shade with pencil brush on the crease and blended that out with some Chanel mono eye-shadow in colour Sphinx. After the eyeshadow painted visible thick cateye with MAC black gel eyeliner, curled and coated the lashes with Dior Diorshow Extase mascara.
Cheeks: Contoured the face little bit with my favourite BH Cosmetick Countour and Highlight palette. Added some life on the apples of the cheeks with Chanel blush in the color "in Love". Finished with a nice layer of Wet'n'Wild Highlighter on the top of the cheeks towards up, making a C shape. That added a fresh, dewy and luminous feeling.
Lips: Chanel Red lipstick in color Adventure. I wanted more of a velvety feeling which shows up in the pictures and for that my BH cosmetics 120 eye-shadow palette (1st edition) was just perfect as I got several true red shadows there. After applying the lipstick I packed some of the red shadow directly on the lipstick and here we have very intense velvet lips.

To conclude here are some of the behind the scenes pictures as promised by my assistant Khatleen Minerve.

the White Butterfly

2011-08-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

I did a poll on my facebook page figure out which of my recent shoots to cover here. Due to my business I'll not be able to cover all.

The White Butterfly is a very romantic and artistic shoot I was willing to do since quite a long time when I saw the location. Kim was out of country and we decided to do the shoot when she gets back (though to the time of her return I turned crazy busy - 7 huge conceptual shoots in 13 days!). We hardly fit in time as Kim was leaving to Hong Kong to study just 2 days after the shoot. But anyway we managed to arrange it not to postpone to December, when I wouldn't have these dry trees with the contrast of magenta flowers.

Location: I wanted to shoot in this location since last year and I had to choose Mauritian winter to have this contrast between dry lifeless trees and beautiful flowers underneath. I was also inspired by this natural green walls.

Style: It should have been very light and airy. So I asked Kim to bring her ballet outfits. I got a feeling she ordered to sew the big skirt just before the shoot as I required that kind of for which I am very thankful. We used 2 skirts: 1 for the airy feeling near the green walls (basically I just wanted to get the picture I'll post little bit below) and 1 near the dry trees to give very light feeling showing the dance movements well.

Make-up/Hair: Make-up was simple. I did my contouring/highlighting keeping the under eye area quite light, I put some white eyeshadow on Kim's eyelids and under eye area (and she got surprised I put eye-shadow in that area, basically cheeks). After I put some black and brown eyeshadow under her Asian eyes just to make them more visible from distance, prolonging from the edges. I kept her lips very natural, the same lip/cheek stain in caramel-rose from 3 Custom Colour.
Hair was as simple as it could be. Instead of sleek buns ballerinas have I kept it a bit messy natural hold.

Shoot itself: After finishing all preparation we moved to the location along with Kim and Jenny (her lovely mom who kindly agreed to assist me). I didn't want her to pose - wanted movement and feelings. So after choosing which lens I am going to use doing several test clicks the street show started! The ground was very rough but Kim did great! Sunlight was there to provide this beautiful mood. Kim danced and danced and danced - I was there to watch the beautiful movements of her and to immortalize them! All lasted about 1 hour I believe.

We all had wonderful time, I got the picture I wanted and 12 more which came out naturally.
Check the album on facebook by clicking on the picture or simply here!

Thank you Kim for being that patient and not complaining at all! Thanks to your mom who was so positive and shining! Have a great new start there in Hong Kong!

Love
Emma

my Sweet 24

2011-08-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

Since I turned 24 the year is turning crazy around! I'm so much energized and motivated that doing and post processing the photosessions every other day! I already have one coming up tomorrow as a logical continuation of the last 3 shoots I had during a week..and there are another 2 coming in future 5 days.
I'll shortly tell you of the shoots.

So let's start with "the Teaser" with the gorgeous model Delphine Dholah. This girls is a pure inspiration. Most of the time she reminds me of Adriana Lima, the other day the model from the 2nd shoot (the Forest Soul) told one Delphine's portrait made her isntantly thing of Angelina Jolie.

1st - "the Teaser"
inspiration: I was very much inspired by Adriana Lima's some photoshoots. Some retro style and the one in Spain Vogue. As you all know I don't try to re-create the things - the just act as an inspiration and push me to do things quicker.

style/make-up/hair: I went to a very much classy look carefully choosing the outfits and accessories. For the hair we kept it glamoureous big waved. For the complexion I used a light layer of Chanel Mat Lumiere foundation in 40 + 3 Custom Color 10 color concealer pallete, finished dusting Chanel Universal loose powder. For the eye makeup I went to a dramatic cat-eye look using some base light shadow, some bronzy shade on her crease, MAC gel eyeliner all over her eyes with prolonged edges, ended up the eye makeup with a coat of my favourite Lancome Hypnose mascara and a pair of light but long fake eyelashes. For the lips I used 3 Custom Color chick and lip stain in Caramel rose which gives that hint of color making the face alive still looking very natural. As always I did quite strong contouring on Deplhines's face. Her bone structure is just perfect for that!

I want to thank Khatleen Minerve (Sakura Mizuki - mi next shoot model) for the assistance and patience to all my crazy requests.

Here is the album cover of the shoot, you can view the whole album at my bacebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.267520549940860.84361.108843319141918

2nd - the Forest Soul

When Sandrini contacted me to order the shoot I asked her to send me couple of her pictures. I was having a promotion on mini theme shoots so I had to think over a concept for her. There was this picture of her with feather earrings and I instantly got the idea - though let myself think over couple of days and only confirm the shoot with her.

inspiration: Like a flash I got an instant image of the shoot. I decided to make her somehow alike Pochahontas and I didn't regret!

style: I had to have a long walk in Port Louis fabric market trying to find the matching material. I would walk with my boots asking in the shops if they have smt similar, then I found the fabric you can see in the shoot. I got some other materials to make the belt, bracelet, hair band along the feathers which were initially earrings. I made the dress just before the shoot in some 10 minutes and was fun seeing the transformation of the fabric turning to an Indie dress. Sandrini got shoulder length hair so I decided to put long extensions on her and do couple of braids to hide short hair and add more texture to the final pictures.

make-up: I made Sandrini's complexion very even and matt first layering several layers of 3 Custom Color 10 color concealer pallete (I am loving it for the moment, you can use it every way on your face) plus a lot of powder foundation both on her face and body. I put the same cheek/lip stain from 3SC as I did on Delphine on her lips. For the eyes I went for golden tone as a base, matt brown as an intense crease color and gel eyeliner on top of her lid and little bit down to make them keep the shape on the shoot, coat of mascara on curled lashes. Finished with intense contouring/highlighting.

note: I should say Sandrini is not a model and this was her first experience. I am quite surprised of her attention and the ability to listen and reproduce all I requested from her, starting from body language ending with facial expressions. I love the strong true feeling of a woman in the shoot.

here is the result, I assure you you will not be disappointed getting in to view the whole album, it turned very warm/real and spiritual. the whole album in fb at: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.269536093072639.84728.108843319141918&type=1

3rd - dry Summer

It's quite a long time we are planing to have a shoot with this very young Mauritian model Naomi Somai, who is going to turn 15 only this Friday, August 28. I congratulate her again.

inspiration: I was already inspired by Naomi, but when I saw that huge empty pool in my friend's complex I couldn't find peace until I do a shoot there. I was lucky enough to fit in time as the next day of the shoot the pool was about to be filled by water.

style: initially I was thinking to do several bikini outfits out there, but then I remembered of this flashy blue fabric I bought around new year which I never used. This was just perfect. Sometimes 1 meter of something can do magic. And it turned to be a dress and the main outfit for the shoot. I have some part with bikini too, but after the shoot I am having a doubt and don't want to mix it with this sparkling shoot.

hair/makeup: I went very rok'n'roll with the hair. Made a ponytail and a huge puff in front. Naomi is very young and doesn't have any big skin issues so basically I just went with a light layer of 3SC concealer pallet again, golden eyeshadow, black cateye and false eyelashes. Again some contouring/highlighting and ping sparkly lips.

the shoot turned very geometric and neat, maybe some of you know that I am obsessed with geometry. I did a bit different during this shoot. I changed my usual shooting time to get a bit harsh light. So the sun and silver reflector worked perfect. I hope you will enjoy all the albums, I'll try to find time to post the other ones too.

My thanks to a young but raising photographer Karen Pang who was there to assist me.

So for this current shoot this is the album cover, and here is the album link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.270097173016531.84870.108843319141918&type=1

feel free to leave your comments, I'll get more energy from them!
wish you a great day and thanks for your time reading this huge post!

love
Emma

Balance

2011-07-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone who is reading this. I've been a bit lazy after my exhibition and completely forgot about blogging. I still have to write a post on my exhibition. I'll try to do it coming up time.Meanwhile I would like to share a shoot I did yesterday.

I was inspired by several photographs of some supermodels/superstars like Natalia Vodianova, Angelina Jolie and some photos of Camilla Akrans (an amazing fashion photographer). In couple of days I got the overall idea what I want to get in the shoot. There was this white wedding dress in my wardrobe I decided to use.Then I wanted a dress with a full open back and here I remembered a dress made by one of my friends Sanjeet Bollell (Mauritian fashion designer). The other day I saw that mirror hanged over my TV and here I got the full concept. I wanted to show the balance of two realities in women. The name of the album came to my mind on that 2 hour road when reaching the location when I saw fishermen using old balancing weights to weight fish.

I was happy to have Gwen Elle Chan, this amazing fragile beauty to work with on this shoot. It's quite a daring shoot for Mauritius but I wanted to highlight that feminine lines and curves of a woman body, without showing any intimate parts or whatever. She was all there in the mood and didn't complain even for a second though it's winter time here in Mauritius. It lasted about 2 hour including make-up until the sun went down. The weather was just perfect - thy sky was all covered by clouds making a natural giant soft-box for me, so all is done with daylight and fix lenses - the way I love.

STYLE:
Face: I blended quite light color of concealer under Gwen's eyes, cheekbones, forehead, chin and bridge of the nose to highlight that area and finished dusting translucent powder all over her face to set it. After I did quite intense on contouring under the cheekbones, temples of forehead, chin and sides of her nose. So basically I opened the secret of my contouring/ highlighting techniques - his is why you can notice that multi-dimension on the face on photos.
Eyes: I wanted to get very intense brow line and gradually dissolving near lash line. I put white matte base shadow all over her eyelid and lower lash-line, after I lined her brows with black eye-shadow and prolonged them on the sides, put little bit more black in the inner part of the lid and blended quite well to get that gradient. Last step was a simple coat of mascara.
Lips: I didn't want lipstick feeling or anything glossy or nude so I chose to put lip pencil (color is called Cabaret and it was perfect for my color scheme )all over Gwen's lips and then just soften and blend it with my fingers transferring some heat to make it more natural and blended. I got the lips I wanted .
Hair: I decided to mess up Gwen's perfect hair by teasing them a bit for the white part, and just pinned them for the black part.

Where To View:
You can always view my full albums on my facebook page at http://facebook.com/thiternik .
For the Balance album it is: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.252479801444935.81380.108843319141918&type=1

I've noticed FB does someting with the quality so for those who are in Behance you can view the album also there : http://www.behance.net/gallery/balance/1817575

Thanks for your time and come back later on coming week, 2 more stories of the shoots coming up.

All about Russian Love !

2011-03-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone!

It's been a long time I haven't posted anything again. Today I would like to share the days of happiness of some Russian couples I had chance to meet/work and share their special day. Working with these people made me realize that in fact I enjoy working with couples and having that great feeling of adding a penny to their happiness.

I'll share 4 special days with you today briefly telling about each one.

Wedding of Natalia & Eugenie

This wonderful couple made my first ever wedding shoot so memorable. I enjoyed every second with this couple. They were young, beautiful, intelligent and full of love! If I had to choose a phrase for them I would probably say some words from a song "Love is in the air". Here are couple of photos of their wedding, some more you can watch at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15726&id=108843319141918

Coming up 3 shoots I was lucky enough to do with my partner/friend Kunal Jankee. Having a team adds flexibility and doubles the chance of a great shooting day!

Wedding of Alexey & Natalia
This session was about photography and make-up. It was a short wedding for overall around 1.5 hours including the ceremony. We were so inspired with the location and the outfits of the couple that managed to shoot in several locations and pass the mood of this candid wedding. More at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57025&id=108843319141918

Honeymoon of Denis & Ludmila

Such a positive couple! All I can say about them! They wanted to have something special with wedding mood so I took a wedding dress I got for one of previous shoots, did the styling and Ludmila's makeup/hair. This is what happens when there is nice mood, full trust and a great team! The couple was so happy with the result that even advertised us in a Russian tour agency website (http://www.wedding-travel.ru/responces/responce-116.htm).

We are double happy to see those sparkles when delivering the album to our couples! Here are some photos, the rest at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=54414&id=108843319141918

Wedding of Sergey & Irina

This is the case when first I should ask you to view the photos and answer me to a simple question "How long is this couple together?". Most probably many of you will say quite short as they shine so intensely and you can feel how happy they are, how much they are for each other and how strong and fresh their love is! Now I should surprise you - they are together 14 years already and I am more than sure they will be so till the end of their lives!

From the first second we met this couple we were having fun and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere full of love! They couldn't find the right photographer they would trust this special day of their life (in addition it was Sergey's birthday!). The planet is round and somehow the coordinator of the second wedding of this post showed them our work and the couple contacted directly! I can honestly say this was one of my/our most enjoyable shooting days ever. It's quite rare to meet people one day and spend the whole day in such a great mood, share happiness and the tropical rain in the end!

I think words are not suitable here, so I'd better leave you with the photos and you will see all! More here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=58318&id=108843319141918

PS: It's so nice to get congratulations and little emails from your clients when everything is done and time is passed. Thank you! We try to be the part of your day to keep your memories, but still not disturb you with our presence. All for you!

Dolls

2010-12-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

Good evening everyone,

Another month passed and I have to share something nice with you. Some 10 days ago I got a msg on Facebook on Russian. It was Vitali, a Russian-German photographer asking weather I'm still in Mauritius. It was a strange coincidence he came across me on the web almost all the model portfolios he viewed from Mauritius were done by me. Anyway. He was in Mauritius to do a wedding shoot and had to go after some 3-4 days and really wanted to shoot some girls around. While viewing some model photos Vitali came across my name and found me on Facebook. So basically I was the only connection between him and Mauritian models. I was free those days and agreed to organize a shoot for him during 1-2 days. He didn't speak English, so I also had to be an instant translator in the shoot. It was fun :)

First who came on my mind as model is of course Anne-lise, I really like working with her. She agreed, she is always ready for experiments and new eyes. So I arranged date and time with her and informed Vitali. In the evening another model, Judith, started chatting with me and asked how it's going on my side. I told about this shoot and she was so excited of it that I just couldn't ignore it and not invite her. She was happy, me too! Why? because I got a very nice concept!

Concept/Styling/Make-up: These 2 girls are same height and very contrasty skin color. I got black extensions for Anne-lise and Judih got brown for herself. So the concept was to get some doll look. With doll dresses, attitude and that nice contrast between girls.
Makeup was all about eyes, smokey sexy eyes, pink lips, contoured face.

Location: Initially we wanted to go to Gris Gris, which is the place I did my "Fairy of the Windy Cave", but it is far in the south, Vitali had to come from far north and I live just in between these 2 locations. So afterall we decided to cut the way and do it in Flic en Flac, especially when I showed him the rocky place I had in my mind, it's only some 10min walk from my place.

Behind the scenes: We looked very strange walking on Flic en Flac streets with 2 camera bags along with Vitali + Judth and Anne-lise with their cute small dresses, long-long hair and extra makeup for such a coastal line town, but it was funny. Finally we got to the place and started the Doll concept shoot around 5.15pm. Forgot to tell that we both are shooting with daylight - so it was quite easy to arrange everything, we needed the same light and positions. I tried to guide the girls to get the look I wanted - and I got it!

I think I should stop talking now and just leave you watch the outcome from my camera.

PS: Thanks girls for all your hard trying to stay on those rocks with your heels and great posing. Vitali, was very nice to meet you!

Please view full size not to loose details. Enjoy!

Quick Model-Portfolio for Deeya

2010-11-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hello over there, this post is for those who just like to list model portfolios. Deeya, a girl passionately loving to pose contacted me to do a shoot for her. I've been thinking what to do, wanted smt bright and fresh, but still simple. So finally we set up a day and here we are!

Concept: I asked my husband to buy some types of fruits I would need to give an extra touch to pics. The concept was just simple summer fruit stories and some touch of bright colors in the photos.

Location: I went out of my house and had a look around. Finally decided to do a shoot exactly in my complex. First part was done just in my terrace with the grenade.
The second with oranges was the funniest part! I mad a studio out of my pool shower wall and to tell the truth I liked it! I had a branch of green leaves hanging from one side giving an extra touch and a ground of white corals! I don't really need a studio - I have my own outdoor ;)
The last third part was done in the pool. I promised and apple to Deeya if she gets into the water :) it worked!

Equipment: Simple is the best - this works for me as something magical! I used only one camera (Canon 5D MK II), one lens (Canon 100mm f/2.8) and one light (my favorite! the sun!).

Styling (style/hair/makeup):
Style: I wanted to get fresh summer glamorous look mixed with some casual sexiness. Didn't want to put lot's of cloths/accessories. So we ended up with simple male t-shirt which I always have in my wardrobe, a pair of boots I got from South Africa and a pair of high-high heels from Mango! in the end I out pair of earrings and bracelet to finish the look.

Hair: For the hair I used a small barrel thong to curl all the hair then run my fingers through them making them look a bit messy (I just hate that "just done" feeling on hair!) so, as Mauritians say -VOILA! we have the hair you see on the pics.

Makeup: this is my favorite part :) Recent 4-5 months I've been doing lot's of makeup (thanks to my best friend Kunal who discovered this thing in me :D). The goal was smokey eyes which would pup-up Deeya's eyes. for that I went for my favorite black/silver makeup with a touch of golden-greenish shadows (barely visible). I love contouring! and highlighting! this is what I always do on my shoots. I contoured Deeya's cheeks, nose and forehead with mate bronzer then highlighted cheekbones, bridge of the nose and top lip line with silver-pink highlighter. For her lips I went for nude lip-liner and powdery pink lipstick+gloss.

PLEASE VIEW PHOTOS ORIGINAL SIZE NOT TO LOOSE DETAILS! ENJOY!

baby Fairy and the mother

2010-11-30T02:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a while I didn't posted anything here, but I guess that's because I have so much staff to post hich scares me. And as you have already noticed I like to go into details and so on.
I'll try to be short with this post just letting you watch a very warm mother-daughter relation shoot.
It's already some 4 months I'm extremely busy doing photo/makeup/styling and don't really get that time for friends around. Anna, another Armenian living in Mauritius.. I kept her waiting for this shoot for such a long time - but finally we did it!

I wanted to create a fairytale warm atmosphere around this two, and I also wanted baby-girl Janna to grow up a bit so I would be able to get the expressions I wanted. Anna, that's the other reason I kept you wait so long.

here is the story:

Once upon a time ago..more precisely in the end of Dec 2009 in a young Armenian family was born a Mauritian baby-fairy :)

conditions: beautiful mood, daylight and old Canon 350D + mostly 50mm
concept/style/hair/makeup/photo - me

PLEASE VIEW ENLARGED NOT TO LOOSE DETAIL SHARPNESS!

Fairy of the Windy Cave

2010-08-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

This is the fourth photo-shoot from Mauritian fairies series. To learn more about the description just jump to the very first post of the blog.

A very rapid post to cover Chinese-Mauritian type. Finally I was able to find the right fairy I was looking for. Her name is Haley and she was suggested by a friend of mine in Facebook. I decided to do the shoot in Gris Gris, its a nice place in Mauritius. The beach is not surrounded with corals so we have great crushing waves there. I was visiting Gris Gris the first time and didn't know it's that far from my place. Everything went as usual. Haley came to my place, I did her hair (though I made curls, they were flat by the time we got to the location, she told that's her hair type..anyway..) followed with makeup and dress creation.

The road was very long, it took some 1.5hours to get there and back. We were a bit tired when got there. It was windy and cold but after a while we didn't notice any cold. I forgot one detail - hope that's still fine.. I forgot to take those double bands I put on fairy hair.. and we were so far from home to go back for them. I should send my special thanks to my husband for assisting me that day. he was helping to control the fabric with the wind and saving our lives when we were climbing the cliffs.

Hope you will like the shoot - enjoy !

! Highly recommend to enlarge before viewing not to lose detailed view after blogger resizing.

young Sarah

2010-08-06T02:53:00.000-07:00

Good day to everyone!
Today is the day to share some portraits of my current muse Sarah which I took earlier this week.
When I was doing her big-big hair for Fairy of the Lake shoot (which took some 2hours) I noticed in the mirror it would be great to take some portraits with that half done lot's of hair. I didn't have time then, the sun was going down and also didn't want to mix 2 shoots.
Finally we arranged a day to do this one.

STYLE:
The day before I went to local supermarket to buy this huge hat which I saw some 5 months ago - and this was the right choice! accompanied with that great hair and natural but at the same time a bit bold makeup I was expecting to get some nice portraits. Anyway it's easy with such an angel face. I didn't want any other color to be in rather than red so I asked Sarah to bring a red bikini. She took both bikini and that red scarf which made her red dress.

HAIR:
This time it took some 15-20 minutes to make her wet hair become dry and big, she was a bit confused but trusted me :) I just put some hair mouse on her towel dried hair to make it even thicker and was brushing and blow-drying very quickly. With no pressure to keep the volume. The goal was just to make her curls open up and become straight.. lets say semi straight with lots of body.

MAKEUP:
FACE: Next step was the makeup. We switched to the balcony to have that natural light and I started painting her. Yes - painting, with all those brushes and so on.

I started with clean moisturized face. After applied Revlon mousse foundation with a brush followed by Maybelline canceler applied with fingertips under the eyes.
Countered her face with Pupa mate bronzer using a big brush.
After I set up the makeup with Loreal Infailable pressed powder applying with a big powder brush using light touch just to make the bronzer nicely blend with the skintone.
In the end I applied a little bit of Wet'nWild highlighter just on the top of her cheekbones and bridge of the nose to make the complexion brighter an alive.

EYES: I didn't want to do very dramatic eyes - so I went for natural golden-beige tones with just a touch of khaki.

Started applying warm sand (Mary Key) color on the whole lid followed with golden (Loreal) just under her eyebrows and inner corner of the eyes.
After I took by lending brush and started applying Chanel eyeshadow in Sphinx on the crease line which is a great blending and eye defining color. It creates some sort of shadow without that much makeup feel.
Next step was defining the eyes a bit, but as I told above I didn't want to go for dramatic eyes so I used Loreal mate brown eyeshadow from Hip collection and my angle brush as an eyeliner to get the result I wanted - defined but still not overdone.
After I again used my blending brush to put just a little bit of Loreal khaki color on brown line to make it softer.
Finished with Loreal Voluminous black Mascara.

Overall we got nice natural blending colors which were doing their job good - defining and enhancing Sarahs already beautiful eyes.

LIPS: Red! this is my favorite color in my shoots. I went for a warm red this time trying to match it with the hat.

Started applying a natural color lipliner with soft strokes just to naturally define lips.
Fellowed with Channel red lipstick applied with lip brush, that gives you more control.
hint: to get those perfect red lips us a canceler/clean lip brush, take a bit of canceler on the brush and clean away any imperfections and draw a perfect lip line.

The shoot consist of 2 parts. The first one was done in my balcony. It was a bit confusing cause I didn't have any place to move with my 50mm lens. But that problem was solved by standing on the chair. After some shoots I felt I got what I wanted and decided not to finish the shoot and continue that on the beach. I quickly found a marine dress in my wardrobe and a wide red belt which was just perfect with this dress on Sarah.

We had good fan shooting all this, especially on the beach. Thank you young lady for posing :)

! Highly recommend to enlarge before viewing not to lose detailed view after blogger resizing.

Kid Series

2010-07-24T02:24:00.000-07:00

When I just started my way in photography I felt addicted to take portraits of kids. Here is a small collection of kid portraits taken in Armenia and Mauritius. The first 6 are taken on the same day. I was just walking in Flic en Flac beach, Mauritius and trying to get the feeling of that day. The rest are taken other days and years. The last 4 photos show 4 emotions of 1 year baby-boy Narek(natural, sad, happy, confused).

All the photos are taken with natural daylight and the kids are in their very natural environment. Hope you will enjoy watching.

Please enlarge for detailed view. Thank you.

Fairy of the Lake

2010-07-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

This is the third photo-shoot from Mauritian fairies series. To learn more about the description just jump to the very first post of the blog.

The shoot covers that white ethnicity of Mauritians. The model Sarah was a real fairy - just look on her! I was sure the results will turn out something really fairy like with her. She is also a very mixed type with some Mexican, Spanish and American origins. The conditions again were very dangerous. I took my portable stairs (liked top views) and put just in the ocean (yes, the shoot was in the ocean, bat the fairy is the lake one) noone holding it, and the boat was floating..strange.. I wish someone took a photo of me in that situation. So here is the real fairy - enjoy !

! Highly recommend to enlarge before viewing not to lose detailed view after blogger resizing.

Fairy of the Beach

2010-07-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

This is the second photoshoot from Mauritian fairies series. To learn more about the description just jump to the very first post of the blog.

The shoot is about fairy of the beach. Wanted to get very airy and calm mood. Again was very lucky with the model Anne-Lise. She is a very mixed type of Mauritian, with some African, white and Chinese origins. The shoot took place just in front of my balcony, at Flic en flac beach. The conditions were strange. I took portable stairs to be able to take some top view shoots. It was dangerous to put it just on the white sandy beach and expect not to fall down with the stairs - but I didn't! after a while my mother in low came to help mi to stay alive on that. And ere are the results - again feel free to express yourself ;)

! Highly recommend to enlarge before viewing not to lose detailed view after blogger resizing.

Fairy of the Rocks (Mauritian Fairies Series)

2010-07-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

Good day everyone!
Finally I decided to start my photo-blogging. I hope by time I'll get my audience here. Please feel free to leave your comments/thought/suggestions.. just any emotion you had while watching my works. So.. here we go!

Mauritian Fairies Series :
I was doing some project for local based model agency and I was surprised how different Mauritian people/girls are. When you come to Mauritius as a tourist or even to work you consider only dark-skin/creole/Indian type of people to be Mauritian. I was surprised with the variety of ethnic types of Mauritians and decided to show it some nice way. Started the work in the beginning of June 2010 - plan to finish by the beginning of August 2010 (overall around 8 fairies).

- Official Description: I am doing big series of Mauritian fairies, the Mauritian girls are very different, from black-African type to Indian, white European and Asian.

- Photo, makeup, hair, dress: me

- Equipment for the series: Canon 350D, kit 18-55mm, Canon 50mm f/1.8 (on this shot), Tamron 75-300mm.

- Dress: meters of different color fabrics, from 8-10 meter long wrapped around the models.

The first shoot was about Fairy of the Rocks. I was lucky to find Sanjana - the Indian type model. She is really nice person and I enjoyed working with her. The photo-session took place at Flic en Flac beach, actually where it ends - surrounded with lots of black rocks. Before starting the main shoot we did some test ones just before reaching the rocks - on the beach. I'll also post them now.
Big thanks to Natalia - my assistant and friend for that day. She was the one to manipulate the fabric.

So enjoy watching and feel free leave comments. Thanks for reading. Will be posting coming up fairy-shoots.