Shooting a Naturalista ft Rache Josey
Most times, when shooting a client, they often start by saying, "Now I’m not a model, inferring that they have no idea what to do or that they won’t appear as beautiful. I believe that as a photographer, its ones job to make every client look and feel good. It's an art to pull something from the average person and make them appear in a whole different light. Such was the case with Rache.
When we first met up for her consultation, the first thing I noticed was her natural hair and I asked if it was all hers to which she replied, “yes” but she seemed not to care too much for it. I was shocked considering it was so much! She took it down and I knew right away that I would focus this shoot around her hair. I had a makeup artist and hairstylist who wanted to work on someone natural not taking away from their skin or hair and Rache was perfect.
She asked about clothing and I didn't want anything too fussy, I kept things simple; a summer dress and I liked the idea of overalls. I wanted a summer theme in a garden photoshoot. My client, Caribbean Landscape graciously lent me their premises to complete the shoot. This was a great shoot, natural, effortless and free.
Enjoy the images and the cinematic BTS video below.
Model: Rache Josey
Photographed + Styled by: Scharad Lightbourne
Hair: Ryen Fox
MUA: Raven Forbes
Grips: Kenton Ferguson
Video: Sherard Campbell (iFocus Films)
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Enchanted Forest Maternity Session
If this beautiful woman looks familiar, you are not seeing things. Gail Clarke was recently shot by my team and I, 5 months ago to announce she and her husband Wenrick were expecting. Gail and Wen without question, just after that shoot, began to discuss the idea of shooting the actual maternity session.
I told Gail, we had to think out of the box, take the session outside of the studio and shoot her in an unexpected place. She has no issues with my ideas nor did she question my thought process. In fact, she told me to run with it. She’d bought a red dress already and she told me she’d fix her natural hair in a particular way.
We took the couple to the Primeval Forest, a protected park on the island of New Providence and I’d photographed numerous people here but never a maternity session! The couple had never seen this location before so they were immediately impressed when presented with the area. The thick foliage, natural trails and rock patterns gave us great backdrops to shoot Gail and her red dress certainly popped when putting into all that green. It was a great contrast!
Gail was a trooper. We fought through humidity, poison oak, mosquitoes, and other flying characters to get the frames we wanted. Oh, we threw Wenrick into a few shots for fun which he was completely ok with! Since I've gotten into maternity portraits, I’ve really just included the male as a prop! We did share a few laughs on set about this statement by the way.
Please enjoy the images below.
MUA: Khandise Bain.
Grip: Tameka Petithomme
