Henrik and Eve enter the Fat Tuesday's annual competition

This year we once again entered the Annual Fat Tuesday Gallery, Photo Competition. The brief for this event was Portraits and Poetry, entries had to include a print of a photo at least A4 in size and some text, either an original piece of poetry or some other text quoted from anywhere, a book, song lyrics, whatever. Henrik and I put our heads together and then decided on two entries each.

I chose a picture from a recent shoot with the Fabulous Famous Jana (our favourite model for her bubbly nature, stunning good looks and versatility) Henrik also selected one of his entries from one of the first shoots he did with her quite some time ago.
For my second entry I chose a picture I took of Carrie Michelle Wilson at a test shoot I did with a new make-up artist I hadn't used before, Chrizanne of Chrizaane's Makeup Artistry and Hair Styling.
Henrik used a shot he took of Alternative Model, Shanon, which formed part of his Halloween Serial project last year.

The standard of entries this year was very high and we attended a social evening with snacks to view all the photos and hear the judges decisions.

I was fortunate to be chosen as one of the prizewinners winning one of the first prizes in the category, Best Concept (where the photo and words were looked at as a whole concept rather than individually). Other categories were Best Portrait (for the best portrait overall) and Best Poem (specifically for those who had penned their own original text).

This is the first time I have won anything in this competition so I am very excited that I am growing as a photographer.

Here is my winning entry:

An extraordinary model

Pictures from shoot at studio
Model/s: Jana
Make-Up: Ebony
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon
Focal Length : 24-70 F2.8L 70-200 F2.8L
Aperture : F11 - F13
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 1/160

I would like to start off by thanking all involved.
Thank you Thank you and Thank you.

now to parts that count What has happened to the Blog?
We have been working on the website so sorry Blog is really not getting regular updates
www.htfotography.co.za is where one can see some of our galleries etc.

As for the picures. I was reading a book and in the book ( yes I can Read) it said that to really make a wow picture one should use a good looking model. And its a sound piece of advice. That sound piece of advice does not really extend to the other pitfalls surrounding that piece of advice.
OK so you book a good looking model. Great only problem is the model probably went out partying the night before oh and did I mention she probably has boyfriend/girlfriend issues and a whole lot of other issues and maybe even some more in closet stuff etc. that he/she has to tell someone , that someone is normally you, and this has to be done before we can even get makeup near her or on her. OK OK I admit models are not the most reliable of creatures but every once in a while you get a model that looks great comes pretty well prepared and wants to make great photos. I have been fortunate to work with a few of these models and from a photographers point of view it is a whole lot easier to get great pictures when you work with them. The model that arrives on time and ready will get better photos at the end of the day because the photographer can now concentrate on getting good shots and not worrying about saying something that will cause tears etc. On this shoot another model was supposed to be there but she did not pitch. Jana was on time and prepared etc. When she heard that the other model was not going to be there the attitude was great more time to spend being photographed. As it turned out the extra time spent with her gave me some really great extra looks. Ebony did the makeup on this shoot and Im real happy how the whole thing came out.

Jana was a fantastic model and really easy an fun to work with. She clowned around and we all had fun when a model is at ease the best shots are captured. Even though we shot some sinister looking stuff there is a glint of something in the eyes and that seems to make all the difference in the shots.

The photography side was simple has Zack Arais has a wonderful tutorial on seamless white background check it out. www.zarias.com
I used the tutorials and a bit of experimenting to get the photos to way I wanted them.

As for post just a little bit of correcting here and there added a lighting effect for one and a bit of vignetting across the board. Black and whites where converted using the red channel mostly. The reason being the red filter makes the skin tones look better and lighter in black and white.

And there you have it folks some good solid photos.