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Nariese, my shoot collaborator/stylist/make-up artist, requested that we arrange something for a friend of hers, who will be celebrating her debut soon. Something like this would usually be fine with me, but it took awhile before I was shown a picture of the subject. When that time came, it took some time to wipe the grin off of my face. I’ve always trusted Nariese’s taste since we started, I curse myself for leaving room for doubt now.

The pegs I was shown, had a vintage theme, which I was for, but without the apt scene and props, I knew it was hard to be strict with the proposed concept. As expected, I did bring some of my old film cameras, but the Seagull 4A TLR was an easy choice to use. If only we had some more time to prepare, I would’ve convinced some people to lend me any of the following fashionable choices: an Agfa Clack/Click, an Argus C3 (well, not exactly a pretty sight, but Gwyneth pulled it off), a Kodak Brownie (I would’ve really liked this), or even a large format camera rig.

Again, the Chinese TLR won, but before I digress further, let’s meet the debutante:

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There will be drastic life-changes soon, hence things that I have tried and grown to love doing need to be repeated, with tweaks. For example: fashionable model shoots are now modified to be simple portraiture.

Since I loved the output from Pau’s last shoot, I asked her again to spend some time while I hone whatever skill I had at making people still, and look beautiful.

The decision to dress-down was based on the realization that shooting high-brow fashion entails some sensibilities I can’t name nor possess. That’s where my shooting partner/stylist Nariese comes in, but she likes the challenge I proposed. We’ll go white, and we’ll get Pau again.

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This is a blog re-post, and the photos were re-sorted and re-edited as well. Originally published here on June 11, 2010

I think pretty Jill deserves her own blog entry, two weeks late as it is from our photoshoot. There isn’t really much meat to this story, compared to what I wrote two years ago about how my first model photoshoot happened with her and Ayi (found here), but I think it deserves documentation.

My invite for another model shoot with Jill has been open and unrealized for two years, and though I wasn’t all too hopeful, I was still hoping. Call it a matter of personal significance, or it being obvious (as in Facebook photos obvious) that she was still intent on posing in front of cameras. I did make my own attempts at shooting other models, though most of the time, I was disheartened, since I wasn’t getting the output I wanted. There wasn’t any guarantee I’d do any better with Jill, but I had to try again.

Oh, and let me put this out of the way now: no, it was never a matter of attraction that transcended beyond what was necessary between a photographer-model/friends setup, ok?

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