Shoots: Selfportraits - Harry Potter (for Starlight Magazine)

The newest issue of Starlight Magazine is out and the theme was to show off the nerdy sides that many Lolitas have. I did a feature on my interest in Harry Potter. Check out the magazine here.

Selfportrait: Curiosities

Passing a Sunday afternoon by doing a selfportrait I've been wanting to do for a couple of weeks, but have had to put off, because of work and and a stupid corneal abrasion. 

To those of you who don't know, I'm a big Harry Potter fan and that's a movie replica of Prof. Snape's wand in my hand. The fairy dust was one of my Christmas gifts from Tenna. 

This second version was actually the first edit, before I decided to change it up a bit. I've been editing my photos in the same routine for a really long time and felt like mixing it up a bit, hence the first ones being all colour explosion ;)

I acutally hate doing selfportraits most of the time. Obviously, it's a lot more difficult getting the right shot, when you're not seeing what you're shooting when you're shooting it. It helps with the camera being tethered to the computer, but it's still tricky to get everything right. Alas, they are necessary to test light setups and new ideas. So while I'm not a big fan of them, one of my goals this year is to try to do more selfportraits, so I can get some practice, because on the plus side, they require much less planning than a model shoot (but I still want to do more of those as well, hehe, so altogether, more shoots need to happen ;)).

Shoot: Doll Memories (For Starlight Magazine)

Once again it's time for the a new issue of Starlight Magazine and this time I did a shoot for them to go with the Christmas theme. I decided not to do a very literal interpretation of the theme, but rather just grab elements from the classic fairy tale by H. C. Andersen - "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". Well, basically, I just used the characters. So they're these two dolls in an attic full of forgotten memories and when no people are around, they come to life.

You can read the latest issue of Starlight Magazine here.

Models: 

Lone (Ballerina)

Tenna (Soldier girl)

Doll Memories 

Tenna
Jacket: H&M
Skirt:Homemade
Shirt: Dear Celine
Boots: Unknown
Tights: H&M
Jewelry: Accessorize
Hat: Asos

Lone
Dress: Homemade (two dresses from H&M combined)
Blouse: Asos
Shoes: Chinese Laundry (modified)
Jewelry: Miss Selfridge, Glitter, Homemade
Tights:: H&M
Hairaccessories: Accessorize

This shoot was very different from what I've done before in terms of location. This is up in the attic in my building. It was extremely difficult to light the rooms up there because of the dark wood everywhere and the lack of daylight. There are a few small windows, but the sun sets so early these days, so it was almost gone when we started shooting. It was definitely a challenge, but I tried to work with what I had and I like the result - They look so much like dolls :D

Shoot: The Seers - Tenna/Selfportraits

The new issue of Starlight Magazine went up this week and as always I have been busy finishing photos and articles for the magazine. I did three shoots for this issue. I took a couple of selfportraits and then Tenna and I had a shoot a couple of weeks ago. Since the theme was Halloween, we went all out with occult stuff, hehe. We planned for it to be four photos with different kinds of divination that would complement each other. I ended up titling it "The Seers". It was really interesting doing not only different shoots, but also different setups and still have it be in the same series.

The Seers



Model: Tenna





Selfportrait




Selfportrait



Model: Tenna

 Bonus pic:

Selfportrait

 The photos with the ouija board and the crystal ball are shot using my new beauty dish, and I have to say that I really like how different the light is compared to the soft box. I'm really looking forward experimenting more with that one, even though I actually had to do this shoot (with the crystal ball) twice, because I wasn't satisfied with the first outcome - but that mostly have to do with my being really awful at posing and my face, noting works, lol.

The tarot cards and the runes I already had lying around and then I found this neat crystal ball. But Tenna whipped up the ouija board out of practically nothing. She's awesome like that :D

Don't forget to check out the new issue of Starlight Magazine and stay tuned for the photos from my Snow White shoot. :3

Shoot: Heidi - Pregnancy

About a month ago, I had a shoot with Heidi. She's pregnant with her first child and wanted to get some photos of her magnificent belly before this special time is over. So I transformed my living room to a home studio and during about an hour and a half, we had done three setups and were finished. Heidi had been so thoughtful to provide plenty of inspiration photos, so I had a very clear idea of what she wanted, which helped tremenduously, as I was very unfamiliar with pregnancy photography in terms of lighting, posing, basically everything, but I think it went well and we are both happy with the result. :3

So here are few of the finished photos:



Selfportrait: Feels Like Alice

 

So I bought this wig on ebay for like super cheap mainly for lolita photoshoots. I just received it and I thought I'd test it out. But it's so weird to see myself in these photos, it doesn't even look like me, haha, but it was fun to be blonde for an evening :D

The last three ones I was testing out and playing around with backlight - I love it, even though it is so hard to control. 

Recent selfportraits

        

         

So these are some of the shoots I've been doing in the last week. Yeah it's some silly stuff: Antlers, veil, artificial ivy garlands, crazy makeup and I had a string of fairy lights too in one of them, but that looked too ridiculous, haha ;D

And I put up both the colour and the b/w versions of the last two images. I couldn't decide, hehe.

But it's been really nice, these past two weeks, to have some time off work to relax and practice with different light setups. I took some photos this evening too in which I wore my new wig, but I'll post those tomorrow.

Shoot: Lone - Black background

I recently bought a softbox for my speedlight and some black velvet, then I invited Fair Lone over and here's the result:

Oh, I bought a cable for my speedlight as well, which I'm so thrilled about - Finally I can get my flash off my camera. :D

In other news, I'm doing a shoot for the next issue of the new online magazine 'Starlight Magazine' made by Danish Lolitas for Danish Lolitas. The theme for the next issue is fairy tales. I'm really looking forward to doing this, because I'm practically itching to do more photoshoots with Lolitas and also, 'fairy tales' is the best theme ever :3

Selfportrait: Dark Swan

So obviously I saw Black Swan last week. I liked it, especially when Nina became the Black Swan. So I thought I'd do some selfportraits inspired by the movie. It's been so long since I've gone that crazy with make up, so that was fun. I was sure I was going to end up with permanently blackened eyebrows, haha, but after much scrubbing it came off again.
I had a light setup planned in my head, but it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it, because with my camera doesn't allow for wireless connection with my flash. I think the next photography purchase I'm going to save up for is a SB-900 flash so I can use it as master to set off my SB-600. I still like the result though.

The black background is actually just open space. I shot these at night using my flash, a reflector screen and one of our living room lamps.

I also took some photos for my Lolita fashion blog yesterday. I went to the park, because for once in a really long time the sun actually shone on one of my days off and I'm a sucker for backlight.

Shoot: Lone 2

Last weekend Lone and I did another shoot together - this time inside at my place. We shot for about an hour and a half, doing three wardrobe changes (you only get to see two though).

All right, I'll just show you the pics:

I don't want to get carried away or anything, but I'm so happy about these pics - I think they turned out really great, which only makes me want to push harder to improve and that is a feeling I've missed.

Right now I'm thinking about solutions to my background problems. These pics were shot infront of a white wall, which works fine, except there are two lamps on the wall that I have to edit out, not that it takes that long to do, but I'd like to work something out, so I can use different colours for backgrounds. I really want to try working with a black background.

I could invest in a whole set up with a frame and a seamless paper set up, but I think that's a bit too expensive and would rather do this as a last resort.

Then Walimex makes these foldable backgrounds that are kind of handy, but then I'd have to choose just one colour, because buying more would just add up to the same amount as a whole setup.

I was kind of thinking about some kind of creative solution with some fabric and some kind of... I don't know. I'll have to think about this some more.

I downloaded the trial version of Apple's Aperture 2.0 in order to try and tether my camera and computer. It took a while to get it to work as I had to figure out the settings for my camera and also that you actually have to put a memory card in the camera for it to work, despite the fact that the pictures will be stored on the computer.

But it worked and it was kind of awesome, haha. Seriously, though, it was a big help to be able to view the picture right away on the computer in terms of exposure and focus. I think it also helped Lone, because we put the screen so she could watch too while we were shooting. It's nice to know what you look like and whether or not one's poses work. Definitely, something I will be using again. Actually, I can't wait to use it again.

Another thing I learned was that while some don't seem to consider the 50mm f/1.4 lens the ideal lens for studio photography, I quite liked how it allowed me to turn down the flash a bit which not only saves the batteries, but also I liked how the reflection of the flash in Lone's eyes was more understated than it would have been had I not been able to use such a low f-stop.

That's all for now.

Ps. How much do you love the curls on Lone? Hot damn :D