my top 12 photo moments for 2012

2012, what a year!

Moved out and had to start over at a place where i didn’t know anyone; broke my camera & my heart, HAHAHA NO I’M TOTALLY KIDDING! ❤

Anyway, my sister had this idea to make a blog post on her favorite photos for 2012 and i’m being unoriginal and doing the same.    So without further ado:

a countdown of my TOP 12 photo moments for 2012

12.  a candid shot of our makeup artist friend kareen june.   ❤  we met on facebook and this was our first (of many to come!) collabs.

11.  my nephew jaime is “allergic” of my camera! he is just so sick of me pointing it at him all the time! so i was so surprised when he agreed to do this shoot and cooperated! he had to hold this pose for like a few min. but he didn’t mind at all ❤  LOVE!

10.    one of my best friends, toni, got married last may!  she looked so gorgeous & i love this shot :

9.  went on a trip to dumaguete for work and had a shoot with the gorgeous chloe harris!

made some good friends on this trip,too:)))

8.  my first time to shoot a guy!  clyde made it so easy and he’s super nice and as you can see he’s a natural!

7.  the Fetish ad campaign featuring mutya ng pilipinas 2011 vickie rushton! weee!

6.  our shoot with nat malche! ❤  i haven’t finished editing everything yet but this is one of my favorite ones

5.  The lomo bacolod anniversary shoot with patricia torre & keisha martinez.  ahh, 2 beautiful girls…

4.   the shoot with shireen shahmardani! this is def. one of my favorite shoots, in spite of getting half eaten by mosquitoes!  i love setting up and putting lace and flowers on the car was so much fun.

3. he<3rts  no explanation needed, lol 😀  the girls were just lovely!

2.  the shoot with mitty tecson in a bathtub!!!  ❤ ❤ ❤

1.  aaah, my dream shoot ❤  this one has been on my wishlist for a long time and tia has been on my model wishlist for so long & i’m so happy this finally happend!  this is my favorite!

so there you have it!  it was so hard narrowing it down to 12, i had to stop myself from doing 20 haha 😀

HAPPY NEW YEAR LOVES!

thanks for putting up with me all year!

thank you to everyone who has helped me on my shoots, did the makeup, modeled for me, held the reflector, inspired me, and all that.

May 2013 be good to us all!

❤

Old Love Songs

People have been asking me why i do these photoshoots, since no one’s paying me to do them anyway, and I can never answer right away.  Well for one, because they’re fun?haha ❤   My sister says we’re like little kids setting up tea parties and playing dress up.  So true!  But what I love about doing these is that I get to create make believe little worlds, even if they just exist inside my little 3 inch LCD screen.

The little stories that I hope to share are half inspired by my favorite photographers, half inspired by little truths I’ve seen and experienced, both happy and sad.  Some of the concepts are very personal and sometimes quite a huge part of my (pardon the cheesiness) heart & soul.     I know my work is mostly happy looking and child like, and I’d love to explore and make it more mature someday; but they’re mostly based on my personal experiences & growth as well as my personal taste, i’d like to believe that i’ve grown and have come a long way since 2008.

I’m on my last few shoots for 2012 (let’s do this!)

and I can’t wait to find out what’s in store for next year.

anyway:

I did shireen’s makeup since i don’t know anyone in iloilo who could do it for me for free on such short notice and on a weekday?   LOL ❤  It was a little too easy though, because she has great skin and crazy beautiful eyes 😀 😀 😀

Talent : Shireen Shahmardani

Set up & Co Photogs :

Dr.Lucille Detoyato (location scout FTW!)  & Dr. Israel Gonzales (thank you !) and of course to our camera shy reflector holder. ❤

Thank you so much for dropping by guys! ❤  It means so much!

Bright Ideas + Before & After

This is a remake of  THIS photo  that I did last October (and failed miserably because it was already too dark out).   I asked my sister Dianne to shoot this when we were doing silhouettes for a photo project 🙂  Anyway, in case you were wondering how i edited this and how to do the light thingy i’ll share a before and after as well as a little guide on how to do it (no printscreen tho, because i’m lazy).  If you’re a newbie and want to do something like this i can help you with it! just pm me or better yet buy me coffee and we’ll call it even, haha ❤

setup :  backlit with sunset, with a silver reflector

edit :

overall – curves & vignette

bulb –  on a blank layer, trace the wire part inside (sorry i’m  no handyman, don’t know what it’s called)  with a small, hard brush (white) then set it on “screen” and add layer effects (outer glow & inner glow), adjust opacity according to taste.

light around the bulb – make another blank layer set on screen and with a soft yellow brush paint once or twice over the light bulb.  repeat with an even bigger brush but with lesser opacity. adjust opacity according to what looks good to you.  if you know masking, you can mask out some of the colors on the light bulb so it won’t get too hazy.

I don’t know if i’m making any sense? haha but i hope this helps.  PM me if it isn’t clear coz i’d love to help you out!

Here’s my sister dianne, and our cousin nikki:

Thanks for dropping by!

There’s a typhoon (Bopha, known as Pablo here in the Philippines).  Please be safe, guys! ❤

Born to Fly

Yesterday, I came across the Dr. Seuss quote “Why fit in when you were born to stand out” and this photo/edit was inspired by it.    It made me remember that when I was a kid, I was so painfully shy that I wanted to fade in the background all the time.    Thanks to my dad who forced me to develop some self confidence, my family & BFFs for always lifting me up, my job because i am forced to actually approach and talk to strangers, and to everyone who’s left a kind word or two in my inbox or through comments on my work that I finally learned to (occasionally!) get out of my ffff.ing shell.   Since I learned to express myself through photos, i not only got to know myself better but I got to meet a lot of amazing, magical people who keep reminding me that there’s nothing wrong with being different and standing out.

Anyway, here’s today’s photo + a before and after.

If you’re wondering how I did away with the yellow-green toned grass – there might be other ways but here’s how i did it :   In Photoshop, make a hue/saturation adjustment layer (or if you’re not familiar with layers you might want to go directly to image>adjustments>hue/saturation) then from the drop down list click on the yellow channel then decrease the saturation as well as lightness.  I think everything is a matter of personal taste and it’s really up to you how much!

I hope this helps.  Enjoy ❤

Have a great weekend, friends!

Credits:

Talent: Mariella Tecson

Styled by : my sister Dianne

Team:  Kareen, Mark, Nikki (thank you!)

a different world

pink locks, pale blue skies, fluffy white clouds, flowers in your tub, sunlight, and sweet green grass 

So by now you know that i’m a sucker for set up shoots.

Just seeing that we’ve created a different world, even if it’s just a few square feet gives me such a high that i can’t explain.  i don’t know if i’m making any sense but argh!

as always, i wish i took a bazillion more photos! but i’m pretty happy with this set.  🙂 Mariella was so inspiring to shoot and so gorgeous!

Please visit my sister’s site soon for her film version of this shoot! Her set is ahhh-mazing! can’t wait for her to post!

Credits:

Talent : Mariella Tecson

Makeup:  Kareen June Bataican

Team:  Dianne Acaso, Nick Villar, Mark de Guzman, & Elvis de Jose (thank you so much guys!<3)

Click here for the Behind the Scenes photos! 🙂

Dia de los muertos / Day of the Dead

The Movement : Soundcheck + BTS

I like these colored ones as well :

Talent is Vadim Nabivanets

Thank you so much Clyde Harris for the time & for hooking us up!   Also to Anthony Castel of Dugout for having us.

******BTW let’s help Clyde get a chance to open David Guetta’s (!!!!!!) party this October 2012 by clicking on this link and hitting play! It will only take a sec but it will help him out a lot!  go on! 😀   If you have a mixcrate account please click on the ♥ button as well!  Thank you!********

The gorgeous Catarina Hodel (DJ Blondie):

BTS:

Soundcheck:

Dianne & her film camera :

gaaah, blurred! lol

ok so as always i’m not in the photos, lol 😀

here are a few photos from later that night:

Had so much fun, can’t wait to do it again!

credits:

Co-photog – Dianne Acaso (www.thedsides.com)

Lightman – Nick Villar

independent women + before & after

(L-r:  me, my sister strawberry, and other sister dianne : check out her photos @ thedsides.com)

In June 12, 1898, the Philippines had its Declaration of Independence from the colonial rule of Spain.   A few weeks before this year’s Independence Day, I’ve been thinking of doing a shoot in honor of the occasion.

So i thought – today’s Filipina women are confident, strong, and  empowered women- and for me self portrait beauty shots (& wearing our flag’s colors)  spell CONFIDENCE, STRENGTH & EMPOWERMENT.  So we decided to do just  that and use the Flag lip tatoos (well in our case, “lipstick”!)  that we saw on ANTM’s British Invasion because i thought it was so cool!    :D

For the lips we used clown makeup  (Php 90 from National Bookstore)  and a lipbrush to get the effect.  It was surprisingly easy to put on and one wipe was enough to get it off!

Check out the before & after below (lol, so many pimples & blemishes!)

For all the shots I used 2 Lights : 1 silver umbrella 45 degrees camera right, and 1 bare flash for the hair
Canon 550d & 18-55mm kit lens

sweet disposition: a self portrait project

My bouquet from Toni’s wedding had all these beauties that me and my sister Dianne decided to do self portraits using them the day after.   We had very little time to shoot as it was getting dark  and then it started to rain!

To make the flower crown,  i used an old metal headband wrapped in black ribbon, and used SCOTCH TAPE to hold the flowers.   not very glamorous, but it worked!:D  The carnations lasted for many days after, but the roses started wilting as we were doing the shoot. Please visit my sister’s blog thedsides.com to see her photos.  they’re amazing!  and a hundred times better than mine! 😀  unlike me, she’s comfortable in front of the camera.  Here’s the link to the actual set:  http://thedsides.com/2012/05/22/playtime/ Thank you!:)

All photos (mine & dianne’s) were taken using a Canon 550d and it’s 18-55mm kit lens.

toni & siote’s peaches & cream wedding

My friends Toni & Siote got married last saturday, and it was amazing! 🙂  don’t even get me started on how gorgeous Toni was (or her dress!!!!) or how Siote looked at her with hearts in his eyes when she started walking down the aisle.

Please bear with me on my longest post yet!  I am pretty happy with my photos, considering i had bridesmaid duty and all 😀   So without further ado….

peaches & cream motif = adorable!

 

and because i think this looks good in classic black & white too.

toni’s bridesmaid favors♥

Toni’s sister & maid of honor Fidji with her fiance

the other  maid of honor, mae anne very much looking like a bride herself (!!!) 😀

my battery died during the reception but just a little after this :  

and this :

P.S.  feel free to right click and save! 🙂

canon 550d with 50mm 1.8 lens, 18-55mm kit lens.

Wedding Gown : Edward Teng http://www.edwardteng.com
HMUA : Benjie Borja
Coordinator : Beng Villanueva
Official Photog: Jesse Narrazo of Jesse Photoworks
Video: Metroclick

I’d also like to thank my tita/cousin Janet Palmares for hooking me up with the amazing eric de los santos who made my beautiful dress. 🙂

Please come back soon because I’ll be posting their Alice in Wonderland inspired engagement shoot. 🙂 love!