I landed my first professional photography job back when I studying photography on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The job was in a glamour studio, and glamour was the one style of photography that I didn’t want to shoot. I was just starting out my career with every possible career direction in the world available and glamour photography had a stigma of being cheesy.
But photography job opportunities were limited on the Sunny Coast, so I made the most of the position and approached my shoots in a style of my own, infusing my love of fashion and music industry photography (ie. album covers and Rolling Stone style photos). The photos I shot were more edgy than what the studio was used to. But it wasn’t long before I was making record sales to very happy customers.
Much to my surprise, I found that there were often emotion-filled moments in that studio that nearly brought me to tears. It was an environment where women felt safe. They arrived, sipped a glass of bubbly as they had their hair and makeup done, then put on their most beautiful clothes to be photographed. We chatted at got to know each other during the photo shoot which opened up some interesting conversations.
The ladies were nearly always surprised when they saw the photos of themselves – looking just like women they were used to seeing in glossy magazines.
On more than one occasion I would listen as ladies, tears in their eyes, said they had never felt so beautiful in their lives. I couldn’t believe my ears as these were attractive women, even without the hair styling and makeup. I learned how common it is for women to have low self esteem – something foreign to me as a 21 year old. These lovely, kind and pretty women truly believed that they were ugly, and for those few hours in that photography studio, they felt beautiful.
When I finished my studies, I moved to Melbourne (then later Japan and Sydney) to pursue my photography career in cities that excited, thrilled and inspired me. After landing some magazine front covers and seeing my photos in Rolling Stone (a big goal for me), I was hooked on the creativity and excitement of working in music and fashion photography.
Fast forward a few years and I find myself falling in love with a little coastal village called Crescent Head, buying land, getting married and deciding, for the first time in my life, that I could stay put in one place for more than just a couple of years.
Now with 10 years experience shooting around the world, I have returned to that place where I enjoy showing regular women that they are beautiful. The photos on this blog post are from a shoot I did with a collection of young local ladies, who came to me and had their make up done and hair professionally styled. We had hours of fun at this shoot with of laughter, gossip and good old fashioned girl time.
I call this shoot Beauty in Black and White.
Take a behind the scenes look at what went on, on the video below.
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