Latest Photoshoot: Harper's Bazaar India @ Zighy Bay, Oman

Living and working in the United Arab Emirates I feel really blessed in terms of beautiful photo shoot locations ... however, driving over to Oman and staying at the incredibly beautiful Six Senses Zighy Bay Resort must rank at the top of my favorites list. I love that place and the Zighy team is amazingly supportive every time we shoot there. It's so beautiful, very versatile in terms of possible shoots and moods ... but moreover it has a really magical feel to it. The resort is set right at the beach but in the midst of the dramatic Omani mountains.

Just after New Years I worked on 2 editorials for Harper's Bazaar India in Zighy Bay together with the amazing photographer Candy Kennedy. We shot a swimwear story with Indian beauty Erika P @ Anima Creatives and a trend story with the lovely Toni C @ bareface.

and here one behind the scenes with Candy Kennedy

Harper's Bazaar India March 2012

Spring Summer Trend Story

Thanks Team Zighy and Harper's Bazaar India!

Latest Photoshoot: L'Officiel - L'Air de Temps for Dior

We have been so lucky recently to welcome model Albe Hamiti to Dubai, what exceptional beauty, rising star and amazing person! Inside and out just beautiful!

Last month I had the pleasure to shoot with the incredibly talented photographer Tina Patni for a L'Officiel Dior editorial with Albe being our model. Having received the brief from L'Officiel's Fashion Director extra-ordinaire Stuart a couple of days before, I was left sleepless the night before the shoot ... a modern interpretation of finger waves was the hair brief ... certainly not the easiest thing in the world ;)

We started at 8am in the morning with Hair & Makeup in L'Officiel's inhouse studio. Of course, the makeup room was packed with a bunch of great hair stylists working on other shoots and there I was, a completely self trained hair stylist, combing finger waves under their watchful eyes. Made me slightly nervous but even more determined to succeed :)-

With Albe's help holding down each combed section carefully with all her strength it turned out fabulous.

To create the eye makeup I used a stunning new eyeshadow palette from Dior's Summer 2012 Collection called Aurora, definitely a new favorite in my kit! It's a mix of yellows, oranges and browns, absolutely gorgeous!
Starting with the orange as a base all around the eye I then started defining the eye with the brown shadow, enhancing Albe's already nostalgic eye shape. The eyebrows were bleached and the lips were kept in soft tones.

Arriving at Jumeirah Beach in Dubai, Stuart magically created this dreamy 1920s Dior set. Some of those chairs are actually his own :)
Despite summer having started in Dubai and battling with temperatures of up to 40 degrees celsius regularly, it was freezing cold and so windy on this day. Most of the time Albe was shaking uncontrollably due to the cold, but like a real pro she did not complain even once.

HAIR NOTES:

I wet the hair completely and then sectioned the hair into 4 sections (2 front and 2 back just behind the ear). Then I pulled the back sections into ponytails finishing off with little buns on each side.

I combed a handful of Redken Hardwear gel into the two front sections and combed ....and combed and combed ... finger waves into the face and down the ear securing the remaining hair into the bun at the back.

Albe's beautiful red hair is only slightly visible because the strong gel used to hold the finger waves in place made it appear darker.

Latest Photoshoot: The Rake Singapore

This is an editorial I shot just before New Years for the Singaporean magazine The Rake ... I am absolutely in love with it!

Our model was the rather handsome Paul F @ Bareface shot by the incredibly gifted photographer Oliver Doran and styled by the beautiful Esther Quek from The Rake.

A snap from behind the scenes

Chilling with his boys :)

Latest Photoshoot: L'Officiel - "Jewel Aspect" January 2012 Coverstory

Live Freestyle Makeup Performance at the Creative Industry Night in Dubai

I love to paint ... that's my history ... I paint ... as long as I can think ... I paint.

When my agent Bareface hosted a "Creative Industry Night" last month, attended by Dubai's creative professionals, photographers, advertising agencies, stylists, artists, etc., I suggested to stage a "live freestyle makeup demonstration" to introduce and showcase my interpretation of the "art of makeup" ... my agent liked the idea and gave me the go-ahead.

It was amazing!
I really enjoyed it!

I had one of my favorite models by my side, the beautiful French Alexandra P, who I have worked with many times over the past years.

So ... the event began and The Studio started to fill with people ... I carefully started to place the occasional paintbrush stroke on my model's face and could tell that people were intrigued to see where I was going with this. My freestyle technique is very spontaneous with firm strong brushstrokes ...yet on this evening I could feel and see the hesitation in my strokes ... I was nervous :) ... but I also knew that I had no other choice but to just get on with it ... so I consciously made the decision to forget about all onlookers and just do what I love to do ... to paint.

I love freestyle makeup ... it just happens, there is nothing to think about, it all comes from the heart, your instincts and soul.

I worked in 3 stages building up to the final look. The super talented photographer Mazen Abusrour shot the result of each stage in a make-shift studio set up behind the makeup area in order to give him and our model Alexandra the privacy to work freely.

A huge thank you to the incredible makeup artist Yasmin Heinz, who has encouraged me and given me the strength to pull through and not give up on being different! Thank you Yasmin!

Latest Photoshoot: Velvet magazine editorial ... Get the Cover look

It’s out !!! I have been waiting for this editorial to be published in the new issue of Velvet magazine … I love the result and the fact that we got the cover ... it looks amazing.

Absolutely everything about this shoot was great, our models the beautiful Gemma and incredible Masha (both available through my agent bareface), the fantastic Adam Browning-Hill behind the camera, the stylist extra-ordinaire Guillaume Nallet and the supporting team including photographer Jason Gareth, who I recently shot The Desert Dweller with.

Adam had originally planned to shoot this story in and around some amazing stranded old tankers in Sharjah (near Dubai) for which he had received permits. However, as the whole crew rocked up to start shooting at sunrise the security insisted that we needed a further permit ... after 3 hours of waiting we suspected that the city probably didn't want to be associated with some old stranded tankers in a fancy fashion editorial, which is why it was probably taking so long.

Slightly disappointed but not willing to give up on the shoot, we brainstormed locations and decided on the uninhabited "Ghost Village" in Ras Al Khaimah (about 45min away from where we were).
Check out my blog entry on the Kurv. magazine shoot for more information about this haunted place!

Thank you so much for these beautiful images Adam!

HOW TO: HAIR and MAKEUP

It was another 3am start for Hair & Makeup, curling and setting the hair and getting most of the makeup done before we moved to our location. I had curled and coloured the hair extensions the day before so all that was left for me to do on the morning of the shoot was to curl the models’ own hair and secure the extensions as well as cut them.

In terms of makeup, photographer Adam wanted the girls to have a beautiful golden "Cavalli Model" tan, which meant that I chose my MAC Full Coverage foundations 3-6 shades darker.

I used Illamasqua bronzer both as a blusher and on the arms adding a golden sheen. I then emphasized the eyes with loads of black eyeshadow from Mikyajy in the crease (all the way from the bridge of the nose blended out sideways) as well as underneath the eye. I added highlights on top of the lid using bronzy gold MAC pigment and my fave Illamasqua liquid metal in Solstice for the inner corner of the eyes. The lips were plumbed up using DIOR Lip Maximiser.

I had originally planned a more pewter/copper coloured look for the eyes, but considering the new location it just seemed that a darker eye defined with black eyeshadow worked better. I, however, stuck with the nail colour I had mixed the night before from the original eye shadow pigment and thought that worked beautifully even with the new look.
I do this a lot for shoots, it's so easy. Just get some clear nail polish, scrape some of your eyeshadow pigment off and mix it ... its that easy to get a nail varnish to match your eye look.

HAIR MASCARA to achieve GOLDEN EYEBROWS
My favorite part of this shoot’s makeup must be the golden eyebrows, they worked beautifully in combination with the golden jewelry and the overall feel of the shoot! Rather than bleaching the brows I used Frederic Fekkai Hi-Lights Hair Mascara. It’s amazing, the mascara is so highly pigmented that the brows literally lit up with the flash.

Beware though, the bushier the eyebrows the better this hair mascara works. You can see the difference clearly below, Masha on the left has stronger eyebrows so I was able to work many coats of the Hair Mascara into the brows; Gemma on the right has less strong eyebrows so the effect of the gold eyebrows is not as strong.

BEHIND THE SCENES

... take a peek behind the scenes of our shoot ...

Final shot of a long 14-hour day

About 30 of these jumps and we had the shot ;)