Creative Spotlight : Agyness Deyn (Fashion Model)

So this month I wanted to shine my spotlight on Agyness Deyn a 25 year old British model she got her break when she was signed by Models 1 in London, and has since been on the cover of US, British, Italian and even Korean Vogue and worked with a huge list of designers Anna Sui, Blugirl by Blumarine, Burberry, Cacharel, Gianfranco Ferré, Moussy, Maison Gilfy, Shiseido, Giorgio Armani, Mulberry, Paul Smith, Reebok and Vivienne Westwood. The face of Burburry’s “The Beat” fragrance. She been often referenced as the next version of one of my other favourite models Kate Moss. Could be the because she’s British, the love of musicians who knows but shes an amazing model in her own right.

Here is a profile vogue did on her, let me know your opinions.

Seven photographs that changed the fashion

So I just finished watching a BBC show called “Seven Photographs that Changed Fashion”. The show takes us through British fashion photography Rankin recreation of seven of his favourite fashion images. He first does it with the technology of the day and then with the equipment he is currently using when he shoots. Everything from Cecil Beaton’s 1934 “Hat Box” with Sophie Ellis-Bextor, as the model, I’m so in love with Sophie, to more modern images such as Herb Ritt’s “Fred with Tires”.

The behind the scenes stuff is very funny especially he’s banter with David Bailey, Rankin is a fantastic photography but without a doubt you can tell he was just a tad intimidated by David Bailey as we all would be I think. You can see the individual recreations here at the Daily Telegraphs site. If you have access to it I’d highly recommend catching the show, its a nice break from all the fashion reality shows that I deny I watch. Really I dont watch any of them. 😉

Hensel’s portable lighting rig just became a little bit more portable

So Hensel, the brand of lighting I use, just managed to take their portable lighting setup and make it even smaller. I managed to get a Porty 12, which was even harder than getting an iPhone of the first day of sale! This thing is tiny its has the power of its big brother which now seems huge. I threw the pack, all the cables and two heads into a carry for my last time to New York and its was still small enough to fit in the overhead compartment!! Good luck getting your hands on one but once you do you’ll wonder how you survived without it!

Creative Spotlight : Hussein Chalayan (Fashion Designer)

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So without a doubt Hussein Chalayan is one of my favourite designers, Hussein Chalayan marks 15 years in fashion with a solo exhibition at London’s Design Museum. Here, the avant-garde designer reflects on his most memorable moments. Which they of course open four days after I left to come back to the states.

Creative Spotlight : Kate Moss (Fashion Model)

Well Kate hardly need any introduction, she got a lot of stick about being the model that brought us heroin chic but I think that’s really unfair. She’s an amazingly versatile model and absolutely beautiful. Kate was born in London she was discovered by Sarah Doukas, the founder of Storm Model Management at JFK Airport after coming back from a holiday. Probably the best non-stop flight Kate has ever taken I’d dare to say. She became known as the anti-model, probably did a lot to help put the skids under the supermodels of the time. Her first big campain was for Calvin Klein of course. She’s gone on to work with Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Calvin Klein, Roberto Cavalli, Chanel, Missoni, Longchamp, David Yurman, Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Burberry,Stella McCartney and countless others. Had a setback with the cocaine scandal but that appears to be nothing but a slight speed bump. I don’t think anyone wanted to drop her but felt they had to to appear to be doing the right thing. She was part of the Kate Mosh line that appeared at Top Shop, as with a most of Kate’s career this also was surrounded with controversy but all press seems to be good press for her.

Here is the profile Style magazine did on Kate Moss.

iFolio?

We all love Apple products in the fashion industry, we’re a different breed from the corporate world. They have an Thinkpad Laptop we’ll have a Apple MacBook, they have there Blackberries we have our iPhones. But one thing I havent expected to see happen was that print portfolio’s migrate over to iPhones. Of course its so easy to put your family pictures on but to use them to carry our professional portfolios, now that surprised me. Everyone is using them not just the photographers, all the models, designers, stylist and mua’s I meet. Now with portfolio sites suchs as Livebooks and Foliolink becoming iPhone compatible seems everyone is doing it. No excuse not to have your portfolio with you 24×7 now eh?

Creative Spotlight : Francis Hills (Fashion Photography)

So this months spotlight in on fashion/celebrity photography Francis Hills, He is probably what a lot of people would call of the new breed of fashion photographers. He only started shooting in 2002 but has blazed a trail ever since.  Way too many credits to list and regular appearances on the Scandinavian versions of Next Top Model. Not only is he extremely talent but amazingly well grounded. I have to relive a story about my first contact with Francis, just to demonstrate this.

When I first started to take my photography seriously I came across an article on Apple’s site about pro’s who use Apple technology. So I’m reading about this fellow English man who reminds me of a little of myself or at least where I’d like to be. So I shot Francis and email and just told him that the article inspired me to really go for what I loved. We bounce a couple of emails back and forth and he says hey I’m going to be in San Francisco for a tour I’m doing thats sponsored by Hassleblad why don’t you come along and say hi. So I go along watch Francis’ demo the H2D I believe and afterwards I introduce myself and thank him for the encouraging emails and figure we’d be good. He finishes up his work and come back over to me ask if I’d want to ask anymore questions which totally threw me. Francis then proceeded to buy me three beers and answer a million questions from me. I was so amazed at his generosity with his time that I didn’t even think about how I’m not even paying for this man’s beer. After a couple of hours I had to leave I was already late for an appointment, I certainly hadnt planed on Francis giving me so much of his time. It wasn’t until I was driving away, that I realized that I hadnt’ pulled my wallet out once. You’re a good man Francis and I dont just say that because your English!

Back from LA

Well it was a short but sweet trip nice catching up with people I have been missing each time we go to LA. We all ended up at Crash Manson in LA and got to see a great band. If your into Brit-Rock I’d certainly recommend checking them out. There called Oslo and you can find there Myspace page here. Also there home page is www.osloband.com.

944 follow up & 1ds m3 vs D3 shoot out

So we finished up a set we didnt managed to get done last time for 944. 944 also brought us two Nikon D3’s to play with. Which was a lot of fun especially as Mo is a Nikon nut. So it was interesting to pit to the flagship camera’s up against each other. Who won? We’ll that would depend who you ask the Nikon nut or the Canon fan. 🙂

944 (SF)

So we got to work with 944 magazine for a photoshoot for their soon to be launched San Francisco edition. We’ve always loved this magazine since it caught our eye during our first shoot in LA. Keep your eyes peeled for that. We’ll post some images once we get approval,