Saturday

A glorious day, nothing better to do than set out and enjoy it. Which we did... from our door, through Strathcona and Chinatown, coffee and Chapters stops downtown, crossing the Viaduct, along Prior Street, through the community gardens, to sitting in Strathcona park (with our new books), back through our neighbourhood, up the elevator, down the hall, and home.

That's what I call a pretty good day.

Super Ubah Hassan

A while back my good neighbours called me over for an impromptu shoot with Ubah Hassan, a supermodel of amazing natural beauty and even more amazing natural inner beauty.

She was being interviewed for Flare Magazine, and the shots were being done to allow options for images (in the end they ran some of her better-known previous campaign images). I was applying her make-up and styling her hair, and she was so excited and animated answering questions about her personal project that I seriously worried about poking an eye or grazing an ear with my straightener, but in a crazy kind of way it all worked out and no-one got hurt! Even when the interview was done, Luisa, Ubah and I had a fun conversation about books we've read and being in Italy... a total joy of an evening.

Here are a couple of the images from the shoot, styled by Luisa Rino and shot by Evaan Kheraj.

Beautiful, inside and out.

Relapse Magazine

Here are the shots recently out in Relapse Magazine.

And a few other shots that I love, but didn't make the magazine cut.

photography - Benjamin Kwan
styling - Wendy Cook
model - Samira @ Liz Bell

hair, make-up, set dec - me

Blow up!

Here's a story with an explosion of colour. Thanks especially to Yvadney and Matthew for another great shoot, Cinder Magazine for publishing, and Emma for being a sweetie.

photos - Matthew Burditt
styling - Yvadney Davis @ Judy Inc
model - Emma @ Liz Bell
Hair and make-up by me, Liz Dungate

Fun in the (faux) sun

It's one way to brighten up a cold spring!

Photography - Trevor Brady
Hairstyling - Kelley Schedewitz
Fashion Styling -Heidi Farnola
Model - Anastasia @ Liz Bell

Make-up and prop styling - me!

Masque to Madness

A fashion story that I was heavily involved in (concept, masks, set, hair & make-up and art direction) just came out in See.7 Magazine. It's always a thrill to see work published, and the extra thrill this time was that they also published my ramblings about my process, as well as some fun behind-the-scenes snaps and a sweet little bts video by James at Spring Advertising.

You can check out the article, or the go to the editorial page to view the story. While See.7 chose to publish the story as separate uncropped images, I had initially submitted it as integrated spreads, which you can see below. :)

Once again, thanks to Fred for beautiful atmospheric images, Joanna for her wonderful styling eye, and to Tess from LizBell and Jesse from Richards for expressing their emotions without the use of facial features!

Poe-etry - Something new and something old.

A little while back Fred and I did a first (and likely last) fashion story using the wetplate process. Because each plate takes so long to do, it was a very long day for 6 simple looks.

The original pieces.

I wanted to document a number of clothes that I had designed and sewn over the years in a fashion spread, and thought it would look cool. I think the results are beautiful, and the collodian process certainly adds an old-world feel to it that wasn't apparent in "real life". In looking at the series after, I felt that the dark, Victorian mood was very "Poe"-ish, so I created a layout that incorporated quotes from Poe's poetry that seemed to go with the images.

I was pleased that Syn Magazine loved the images, and so you can see the published story here (page 137), as well as a lot of other cool stuff in the April issue. And below is the layout I created, just because it was fun to do. :)

photography by Fred Fraser
layout, styling, hair, make-up by me
model Brittany at Next Models