Cindy Orantes Makeup and Hair Artist

In keeping with my promise to catch this blog up, here are some pictures from over a year ago.

These were for some portfolio shots for amazing hair and makeup artist, Cindy Orantes.  She did such a beautiful job with these models, and I had such a fun time taking their pics!  We've been in talks to do another shoot soon, as soon as our schedules can line up at least! :)

iNMAAKOi Clothing

A very dear friend of mine and her boyfriend are starting a t-shirt company together called iNMAAKOi.  What does that mean, you say??  'I Need Money And All Kinds Of It'...yea, don't we all??  Something relatable, catchy name...and the positive vibe behind it is more than just hustling to make money - it's about working hard, starting businesses, being creative and motivated, determination, and intelligently driven.

Being the friend with the giant camera, I offered to do the product shots for her tees.  I'm really interested in building my portfolio in this direction though, so this was helping me just as much as her.  I've recently decided that my passion is much more in the realm of photographing adults, and in a creative sense.  Fashion allows a photographer to explore themselves artistically and really develop a 'style'.  I'm still working on narrowing down my style, but for now I'm trying out different looks and feels in my photography to see what I like the most.

So I grabbed a few good-looking friends to be models for the tees (2 of which are working models if you're looking for some talent of your own - the blonde (Maggie Silva) and the dark-skinned stud :) (Christopher Williams)).  Super kind of them to help out and we really appreciated their beautiful/handsome faces and bods being a part of this. :)

Here's a few shots that I've gone through so far.  Haven't had a chance to go through everything yet, but wanted to share a little taste of the shoot. :)

Oh - and become a fan of iNMAAKOi on Facebook: iNMAAKOi

Blog site here: iNMAAKOi Blog

Website coming soon (which will showcase all these pics too!)

BTW - would LOVE your feedback on any and everything about this shoot - good or bad.  I really want to develop myself more in this area and need the constructive criticism to move forward.  So I welcome it all (but preferably written in a respectful way,  I don't want to cry, lol).

To retouch, or not to retouch?

I was doing some photo retouching for a client's headshots as their agent requested it, so I figured I'd share the results here for everyone to see an example of what retouching can do.

Photo retouching isn't for everyone...it can sometimes leave one looking unnatural or unlike themselves....but sometimes just a little touch-up to soften shadows, or enhance colors, can help to beautify the final image.

Below are some before and after samples that I just finished up...if you are interested in retouching your photos, the cost ranges from $5 - $10 per photo depending on how in depth the retouching needs to be.

Seth (continued)

Here's more of Seth's headshots. Great looking kid - I'm wishing him the best of success in whatever he decides to do with his future. :)

Pamela (continued)

I was looking forward to finishing the editing on this session...I love this style of photography and would love to do more like this. I love beauty and art, and so fashion and beauty portraits are my favorite style of photographing. It was definitely the cherry on top that Pamela had some modeling knowledge in her background, so she struck those poses something fierce! (lol I'm a big America's Next Top Model fan and love the "fierce" description!).

I think my favorite out of all of these is probably the one with Pamela's back to the camera standing at the tree, looking out over the ocean....love it. :) What's your favorite???? I'd love to know! :)