Maxine Avery: Evasive Beauty

Maxine Avery is a very good friend of one Rachel Nicholson
(best friends in fact. Hmph! Whatever... I don't care... *sob*).

Rachel had been talking about getting Maxine in front of the camera for a while. For some reason, I think she was pretty reluctant (Maxine, not Rachel). Must have been the horror of me potentially getting her clothes off as that seems to be what I do lately, but I'm very glad she came 'round if that's the case.

I got Rachel's house in Reading on the 20th November and she was applying Maxine's make-up. Already very uncomfortable as Maxine applies make-up for a living and so having someone else doing it was making her a tad antsy. :D


Simon and I set up the gear, and he made me a big cup of tea. Always a good start to the day. Thanks Simon... Good old Simon.

This calls for more Simon: get a load of Simon!

www.simonamphlett.co.uk

Yay Simon.

(The word 'Simon' is now starting to look funny... have I spelt it right? S-I-M-O-N... :s)

So meanwhile, Maxine is looking very 70's, man. And I think she's thinking it's looking pretty groovy actually. Austin Powers would approve. Yeah Baby.

So here's the start of our first set on white.

Awesome make-up from Rachel. Again.

We agreed that the eyes looked extremely 'Cheryl Cole'.

(Go ahead, try covering up the bottom half, I'll wait)

Lovely shot here in black and white too (oh yes it is).

And then we got some props in!

We stole (correct, stole) Simon’s ‘Lonely Hearts Club Band’ Beatles picture and took it out of it’s solid black frame… (NB: Apparently it's Rachel's picture. Sheesh! Sor-REE!)

I loved these. They were potentially my favourite from the shoot.

Especially that one! ^

I think this one feels a bit ‘Twiggy’ in black and white.

I can’t put my finger on what it is though.

And we also pinched Simon's retro gee-tarr metal canvas… thing which also looked ace, I thought. (NB: Again, apparently Rachel's. Who knew?)

The effect on these wasn’t achieved with any clever lighting. Just a red tone using the Variations feature in Adobe Photoshop. Bam. Job done.

I thought this gave them a cool vintage styling.

Next set, we had Maxine’s jumpsuit which looked wicked. Really pretty.

Loved this outfit.

:D

 

And then finally, we went outside...

I love these so much though. She's a cutie.

So that was Maxine. Whilst stunningly gorgeous and with a figure made of win... she doesn’t seem to think that she is ‘modelling material’.


What do we think folks?

FacetNation: Jewellery by Amy Lee Hubbard

What is FacetNation?

If you haven’t heard of FacetNation, then let me enlighten you:

FacetNation is the place to go when you want contemporary, unique silver jewellery. It is all lovingly hand-crafted by the wonderful (and talented) Miss Amy Lee Hubbard. There are such fantastic designs as the ‘High’Tea’ collection, which is a vintage range inspired by doilies and include lots of lovely freshwater pearls. She is also a big fan of rough-cut gemstones, (Check out the ‘Amulet Range’ for these) which is a bonus for me. I like them. Yum yum. Plus, she has a rather unique fingerprint-inspired range which is really quite pretty!

All her designs are unique and are made completely, from start to finish, by Amy in her home workshop. This apparently includes hammering away at the silver for long periods of time for the purpose of shaping and even soaking her pieces in acid baths for a while in order to get that final etched design on there. Sheesh. George John Haigh, eat your heart out (not a serious suggestion, you crazy bugger).

Now then, obviously a shoot is involved somewhere along the line so I’ll stop playing hard to get. We arranged this shoot a couple of weeks ago and I went and collected a variety of FacetNation pieces from Amy on Wednesday evening (28^th Sept).

Our model today: the ever-popular Ceri Williams. Make-up: by the wonderfully talented Rachel Nicholson. A very exciting line-up. Got started almost right away (after playing with all the jewellery, ooh shiny), got the make up done, Rachel completed a horrendously difficult task of getting all Ceri's hair up into a teeny tiny bun and we got the music on.

And here’s what we got:

The latest: ‘High Tea’ Range

All made with etched sterling silver and freshwater pearls.

Made to size and finished to a professional standard with hallmarking and oxidisation.

Another hair and make-up change.
(kudos for Rach on the hair again aswell!? Is there no end to her talent?):

And then?

The ‘Amulet’ Range

All made with sterling silver and genuine uncut crystals and stones set in resin.

All equally stunning, made to size and customisable.

And another make up change (though this change and set was done before the Amulet range) Rachel again, did the hair and make-up whilst Little Miss Diva entertained herself on her phone rather than converse with the likes of us lowly workers:

Other popular pieces from FacetNation include:

Red Baroque Pearl and Garnet necklace

Caged Zoisite Necklace

Fingerprint Double Brooch

(not usually worn on head ;D)

This, I think, is a beautiful idea. Here is a double brooch that has actually been made using Amy’s ‘custom fingerprint’ design.

The idea of this is to have a bespoke keepsake item which contains a transfer of yours or your loved one’s fingerprint. Each and every piece unique and personal. You can have this on a brooch, a ring, necklace, earrings, etc. The possibilities are endless. (N.B. that could be a bit of hyperbole, right there… possibly not ‘endless’ maybe just extensive. :D )

So if you’ve like what you’ve seen here, why not check out FacetNation’s website here to get your own paws on some of this beautiful jewellery.

http://www.facetnation.co.uk/

AND!

Follow on Twitter @FacetNation where Amy let’s us know when she has any sale pieces or offers and when FacetNation can be seen in magazines and featured in competitions and exhibitions! Phew!

AND!

Come and have a look at the Facebook page! Always an easy way to keep an eye on your favourite smaller businesses! Don’t forget to hit ‘Like’!

http://www.facebook.com/FacetNationJewellery

Don’t forget also, it’s nearly Christmas. Why not order a custom piece for your Mum/Gran/Sister/Daughter/Auntie/Cousin/Friend/Cat? You could get your finger prints all over their jewellery (become a fashion accessory yourself in a way), order something vintage looking from the ‘High Tea’ range based on their favourite doily OR just get their favourite gemstone set into a silver pendant.

This is approximately how happy you could make them:

That's pretty happy.

 Don’t miss out.

Ceri Williams: The Subtle Swan

This one is titled as such due to this being a little bit of an ‘Ugly Ducking’ story, except that Ceri has, by no means, ever been an ugly anything.

I think you might understand the title a little more by the end of this blog. It's more of a transformation reference.

Ceri is, in fact, a rather lovely friend of ours who, throughout all the time that we’ve known her, has been, what can only be described as a ‘cute tomboy’. She rarely ever wears make-up, she’s always wearing jeans and a t-shirt or hoody (often brightly coloured). She has a style of her own and even though she seemingly never tries, there really is just something about her that you can’t quite put your finger on. She has a face (not unlike many other people) but hers is particularly captivating. She’s exciting, funny, and off in her own little world most of the time but whenever she’s in a room, I still think that subconsciously, most people can’t keep their eyes off her. Even the way she speaks is lovely. And she’s just got these big, beautiful eyes.

Before I seem as though I’m caught up on some sort of strange, less than mild crush on her, this is Ceri normally:

See. Cute and tomboy-ish, right? (she's even climbing trees and playing with sticks!!!)

Now Rachel and I have spoken about Ceri before. She’s a model you see, but she has no idea. Another fantastic thing about her. Ceri is an incredible girl. She’s so very talented. She can sing, she can dance, she can act. A good fighter, a good conversationalist, a good writer. She could probably do anything, but possibly the most wonderful thing about her is that she genuinely has no idea how truly talented she is. One of those, ‘Yeah, I can kind of sing but…’ people. Seriously. No clue. It’s quite amazing, really.

When I first started to teach myself about photography, Ceri was one of my first ‘victims’. I asked her to come with me to Waverley Abbey where we went to practise (because I really needed to get the hang of setting up for outside! Too blurry, too bright, I had no idea). Ceri was pretty shy about it but came along all the same and followed instruction whilst I swore at the camera and tried to figure it all out. I thought back then that I would get her back in front of the camera when I was better and knew what I was doing. She had not done anything particularly different that day but I really found it hard not to notice quite how photogenic she was.

So now, you may have heard… somewhere along the line… that I have a Canon 7D now… which is alright, I suppose (;D) plus, I can take pictures a little better, I like to think. And so, Rachel and I have been conspiring…

So, quite late on Sunday (11^th Sept), after another shoot, Ceri was at our place with some of the guys that had come over. We snuck upstairs, approached her from the shadows, hit her over the head with some bars of soap in a pillowcase and dragged her downstairs to the studio. (Note: there was a slight dramatisation in that last sentence somewhere, we may have just picked her up and run downstairs with her).

I grabbed a nice, pretty top combo for her to wear and Rachel did some nice gold and brown make-up that looked rather stunning, as always.

This is what we got. (Note: There wasn’t a single bad shot of her and we only took about 12 pictures, if that for the sake of variety.)

Stunning, wouldn’t you say?

Next, we did something a little different. A look that blew us away even though we did it to her.

I’d like to mention at this point to any friends or family of Ceri’s, if they are reading, that these upcoming images do not really look like Ceri at all, of which we are aware and I guarantee that you will prefer the above images to these.

But the truth is, Ceri really suits high-fashion as a styling. I’m sure even those who don’t follow fashion can appreciate that the models are often made to look pretty unusual sometimes rather than typically pretty.

And so here’s the next stage of our experiment (again, only 20-25 pictures?):

As I’m sure you can understand. Ceri is a big hit already. I’d say ‘keep your eyes peeled’ but you couldn’t overlook this face.

Melissa Cann: Out Of Office

I finally got my studio equipment on Friday 2nd September.

A set of Elinchrom D-Lite it 4's, two 66x66cm softboxes, another reflector, Arctic White Colorama backdrop, a heavy duty backdrop frame and some other bits and bobs, if anyone's interested... (anyone???)

Naturally, I had to rope someone into guinea-pigging for me whilst I attacked them with my new kit. As it happens, at my new-ish job, there is a (very pretty) young office administrator who happened to mention that she would 'give it a go' if she had the opportunity. So here it was. The opportunity.

Melissa and I met up after work on Thursday 3rd Sept and drove to Frimley where we took a couple of test headshots like this one:

The idea of this was that she wouldn't be a bag of nerves when she got in front of the camera on the coming Sunday. Melissa's plenty confident but I wasn't sure whether being in the 'limelight' would put her way out of her comfort zone. I was very pleased to find, though, that it didn't at all. Melissa was as bubbly and fun as ever and we had a great time messing around and trying different looks.

So we agreed on the Sunday in Basingstoke. Notorious Nicholson was back on the case again and turned up at noon to find that I had (with the help of the resident men) shoved all of the furniture over to one side of the room and set up MY EPIC STUDIO OF EPICNESS in the other half. She also witness the kitten (Leela) attacking the new equipment (very helpful) whilst I was trying to get it set up.

This is Leela in her new collar, by the way. Cute.

Melissa turned up at half past and rolled in with a suitcase of clothes. Moving in, are you? Ah ha ha. Best joke ever... We all had sandwiches, lovingly made by Martin before he was banished from the now studio until we had finished. See. I'm learning to feed the models now. And then we set to work.

Rachel got going with the makeup and we started with something simple and floral. Soft light up front and ever so slightly harshly backlit.

Isn't she lovely?

We did all the dresses at the beginning as they were soft and simple. We got such images as:

 

I liked this little cream dress the most. It was really nice.

Now then. Clearly, we were due for a make-up change by this point as we'd exhausted the more simple and natural look and so Rachel (who was watching the car rally racing at this point) was tasked with something a bit more dramatic.



So here it goes. I whacked the lights up a bit and we went for something a bit more bright and zany to show off Melissa's fun side. Here's what we got:

If you don't know Melissa, this really doesn't look like her, by the way. Great job Rachel. Rachel? Rachel was watching the racing again. :)

So we pestered her again. Rayyy-ch!?

After this make-up change, Rachel went home to sort my pizza out for later whilst Melissa and I finished up with two more outfits. :)

This one was actually taken with the light in shot behind Melissa here. No softbox. Completely nakey. I'm quite pleased with it but would like to try it again a little differently.

Final outfit. Orange and purple. Fab. Very happy, just like Melissa.

And a nice 'over the shoulder' finish:

Ta-da!

 On the whole, I would say Melissa was a huge success. She's got a fantastic face, a beautiful smile and those big brown eyes. I would definitely love working with her again (even though, technically, I 'work with her' every weekday... ) and I hope that she takes this shoot as the start of a fun and fantastic modelling spree! I think she'd do incredibly well in catalogue modelling with a face like that and so I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens from here!

To top this rather fantastic day off, Martin (my partner) and I headed over to Rachel and Simon's for a pretty darn massive pizza and Ace Ventura; When Nature Calls, which contains such memorable quotes as:

"I'm sorry, how... selfish of me... Let's do ALL the things that you wanna do."

"LIKE A GLOVE!"

and of course:

"And YOU must be the Monopoly guy! Hey... Thanks for the free parking..."

We need to get a hobby.