14 April 2014

Ayaka and Joy – A Japanese and a Kenyan Model, Continuing the Bangkok Shoots

Ayaka was the first model I photographed while in Asia. She comes from Tokyo and lives there, but she is represented by the Apple Model Management agency based in Bangkok. Joy, however, was the last person I took photos of before my February trip to Poland. The session with her, although planned, ended up being quite spontaneous, along the lines of "well, since we're already sitting here, maybe we'll take these photos now?" Two minutes later I was setting up the lamps.

I once posted a description of a session with Natalia Hajduk, who is with Moss Model, but during her stay in Asia she was under the wing of Apple. It was Natalia who introduced me to Ayaka. Before the session, I hadn't even seen her portfolio, only two photos from her cell phone. This was the first time this had happened because I usually go through a portfolio from cover to cover. Well... I've always wanted to meet a Japanese girl :).

I mentioned that this session was the first one here, so it was also a kind of test of the new equipment. I won't describe it now - I did it in the entry "My studio equipment in Bangkok." The whole shipment came from Fripers.pl, and DHL woke me up with the shipment on Sunday morning (I guess that normal shipments are not delivered this way, only some hyper express shipments; I don't remember how many days it took to get to me, but definitely much less than a week). The whole thing was very heavy - it was practically the entire studio packed in cardboard boxes - lamps, backdrops, stands (including a boom with a load), softboxes, a 70 cm beauty dish, etc.

The cost of both the equipment and shipping was covered by Fripers.pl, so I didn't dig deeply into the subject. Besides, the package came to me from China, not Poland, but people ask about prices from time to time, so I decided to ask Fripers how it would work. Therefore, if the whole thing were sent from Poland, it would cost approximately PLN 3,000. Considering so much equipment, it was much cheaper than I expected, because the weight and size of it were really big, sending even a tiny intercontinental parcel by courier is quite expensive. Courier discounts are probably very important here - a person who sends a parcel individually has completely different prices than a company with a signed contract. I don't know what it looks like with such large packages, but when sending a domestic shipment of standard dimensions, the difference in price can be more than six times. I will investigate this topic in more depth and let you know what I find out.

The shipping price was also significantly influenced by the fact that the package included 2.7 m backdrops instead of 1.3 m - the narrow ones would not be of any use to me, because they are definitely not enough to photograph the entire body, and you can shoot beauty with almost anything - a reflector, a piece of fabric, etc. 2.7 m is well above the maximum dimensions. I carried these backdrops up 12 flights of stairs because there was no way I could fit them in the elevator. Anyway, later I carried them down the same stairs and carried them through several streets (they wouldn't fit in a taxi). Of course, there were also more stairs, only this time there were more floors :).

Ayaka

Since it was a shoot shortly after arriving in Asia, I didn't have a makeup artist yet. Theoretically, it was enough to look for one, but first of all, their level here is very different from what I'm used to (it's also very difficult to find good make-up artists who speak English, not just Thai). Secondly, Ayaka was returning to Tokyo within a few days, so I had a choice: to do the session without a make-up artist or not to do it at all. So it was quite easy to make the decision…

We had to settle for very classic make-up. The session was largely saved by the fact that Ayaka's skin naturally looks like after dodge&burn.

Nikon D700 | Nikkor 135mm 2D DC | F/7.1 | 1/160s | ISO 200

This setup has been done to death, so I won't focus on it, I've already described it many times. Beauty dish at the top (centrally in front), a rim light on the hair (strip with grid), and a rim light on the other side (also strip with grid). No lamp on the floor (to illuminate the eyes). A slightly different mood:

Nikon D700 | Nikkor 135mm 2D DC | F/10 | 1/200s | ISO 200

No rim light, no umbrella on the floor - one lamp with a beauty dish and that's it. You can clearly see how it was positioned by the shadow near the nose. I would have taken this photo with a slightly different setup, but it was created as a test photo - I just wanted to check how the light was distributed before I moved on to setting up the lamps. The look on Ayaka's face made me decide to publish this photo anyway. This photo was taken first, before putting on makeup.

Behind the scenes

Joy

Joy and her husband were moving to Australia, and Bangkok was a stopover for a few months. Colin, her husband, had been living here for several months. They were supposed to arrive at the same time, but for a Kenyan citizen, getting a visa anywhere is a huge problem. Joy was not allowed to enter Thailand from Malaysia - she had to return to her home country and wait several months until she finally got a visa. She also couldn't live in England, even though her husband was English. If he were a citizen of any other European Union country, there would be no problem with it (we are still talking about living in England!). However, an Englishman can't do it that easily - he has to get a visa. Once Joy managed to get here, she started applying for a visa to Australia. It was approved only recently.

Nikon D700 | Nikkor 135mm 2D DC | F/6.3 | 1/100 | ISO 200

The session with Joy was planned even before I met her - after all, one reason I moved here was to diversify my portfolio with photos of girls with exotic beauty. When the day of the session came, it turned out that, firstly, Joy couldn't do it that day, and secondly, the make-up artist wouldn't be able to do it either (Damian Black was supposed to do the make-up - the same one who did Kinga Hołownia's make-up for my previous session).

A few days later, I had a rather international meeting at my apartment - the first knock was a Chinese friend who was finally drunk enough to allow himself to have his hair cut into a Mohawk. After several dozen minutes, Colin, Joy, Pro, and others were also at my place (and by the way, they finished creating the hairstyle I started).

No one present was a make-up artist or stylist, so I improvised everything. There was nothing groundbreaking in the lighting here either - dish 70 cm from above, one rim light, and a light creating catchlights in the eyes.

Summary

Mateusz "Pro" Prociak, who has not been here for a long time, assisted in both sessions. I was bothered by the lack of black reflector, which I usually used as a background. I only recently bought one 200 x 150 cm, but it is so wrinkled that I have to straighten it out before I use it. In Poland I used one with dimensions of 180 x 120 cm and it was completely sufficient, but a larger one should be even better. The dark gray background is too light for me - it works great for fashion photos, but not for my beauty work.