fragrance

It is crazy how much work goes into postproduction and retouching and everything else that follows a shoot! The days just flies away and it just hit me I haven't posted anything for almost a month.

On top of this I am not the most efficient person when it comes to updating things such as my blog, facebook, twitter, linkedin and all these other networks. For me it is a little bit like taking my vitamins....I remember for a few days and then it just seems to skip my mind. :) I get so caught up in everything else I have to do.

But here I am again.

For the past few weeks I have been focusing on finishing up a job I did for Brides magazine, shooting, editing and starting retouching a jewelry look-book and putting the finishing touches on some other beauty images I have shot in the past couple of month.

The Brides images I can't post or show until they have been published which won't be until November/december, the look-book should be done and retouched within the week and hopefully I won't forget to post them :)

But I am finally posting the pretty and fun fragrance shot I did with my friend and makeup artist Sabrina Ziomi and the lovely Magdalena Fuchs from Next.

Cheers!

NEW BEAUTY

It has been a long long time since I last posted on my blog! I have been busy busy shooting, dealing with pre and postproduction, retouching, editing, creating an additional portfolio, printing new work, updating my website and all the good stuff that comes with this photography business!

Some of the stuff that I have been shooting I can't post either here on this blog nor on my website or in my portfolio as the images haven't been published yet and won't see the light of day until November/December. So hard to wait sometimes!! :)

But I do want to share some gorgeous beauty images I shot recently. The crew is the usual: Kim Weber for makeup and Hikari for hair and the girls are from one of my favorite agencies, Wilhelmina.

Enjoy!

Emily

About 3 weeks ago I shot beautiful and sweet Emily from Wilhelmina. The entire day didn't take much more than 4-5 hours but I could have shot her face for ever! Not only is she beautiful and sweet and smart but she has a connection with the camera that is incredible and on top of that we had a lot of fun. Kim Weber, my all time favorite makeup artist, did an incredible job, not only with the makeup (as usual) but also with the hair!
Soft and natural and so so pretty.
I am in between studios right now so we actually ended up shooting in my home in Brooklyn which worked out great! Actually sometimes shooting in a setting like somebody's home creates a more relaxed atmosphere.
A few days after my shoot with Emily I was going to test print a couple of the images to see how they came out and to my despair my printer after years of faithful service (finally) gave up and decided to retire. I obviously needed to get a new printer and after the purchase I spent a good week tweaking and calibrating the printer to match my taste and my computer screen.
I have to admit that I pulled my hair a few times but now it is finally up and running and the result is stunning. So stunning in fact that I spent another week reprinting my entire Beauty Book.
All good.
It was worth it!

Hair, hair, hair

For the past few months I have been focusing my beauty testing on HAIR;
Flying hair, wavy hair, straight hair, bouncy curly hair......and here is some of the results from all those hours spent casting, shooting and retouching.

In beauty, hair is quite a challenge to photograph. It need to look shiny and healthy and smooth and happy all at the same time......Yes, happy hair! It's true. It shows right away if the hair isn't happy and no amount of retouching can make that dullness go away.

But when you get it just right it's such a satisfaction: When the hair is collaborating, moving as you want it to and has that "happy glow" you are looking for.

Ciao for now!

Dominique

And while I was at it......retouching the Gloss images....I also finished retouching a couple of images from my shoot back in January, with Dominique.
She and her agency have been asking about these images for ever! I feel bad because usually I am really good at delivering my test shoot images to the agency shortly after the actual shoot but this time around several things just kept coming in between.
Finally a couple of them are done and delivered and they are also up on my website.

Moving on to the next project......A hair beauty test tomorrow with Kim and Hikari!

white space

Last week on wednesday we shot the trousers story for Gloss magazine in the gloriously white space at Location05.
Call time was 8:30AM and everybody showed up ready and enthusiastic to shoot!
Allison St. Germain, the stylist, had arrived to the studio already at 8AM, to start unpacking a potpourri of pants;
Wide leg, ankle length, slim legs and a variation of materials from linen to jersey to silk and fabulous accessories to match!
We had to accomplish 9 shots that day and Hikari (hair) and Kim (makeup) decided to make hair and makeup changes every third look.
They started with a softer more natural look and ended with a stronger more slick look with a spiky/messy look in the middle.
Very nice!
I had already decided to mix daylight with a couple of strobes. One strobe I gelled with a blue gel (for the ambiance) and on the other a yellow gel (for the skin).
While I was testing the light I felt I wanted to add an additional dreamy effect to the already white spacey room and decided to put a bit of fuzzy white fabric around the lens....Just a tiny piece.
It worked!! It gives a cloudy out of focus effect at the edges of the image.
It was an amazingly well organized and calm day. No hitches which is rare! AND I worked without an assistant that day!
Karolina.B, our model was wonderful to work with. She exceeded my expectations big time!
We even finished ahead of time and around 4PM we could wrap the shoot.....Well, the others finished :).....I had to run back home, download all the images to my main computer and start editing. At 2AM in the morning I sent a layout suggestion to the magazine and low res jpegs for them to see first thing Thursday morning (Irish time).
All this because they needed the story done and ready by Monday February 16th (2 days ago)!!
Needless to say: I spent most of the week-end retouching their selected images and on Sunday night I posted the final images on my ftp site.
Mission accomplished! And we got the cover!!

Good job everybody!

casting

Today we had the casting for the upcoming Gloss magazine shoot.
It was a crazy day for many of the models as Fashion week is around the corner and they are holding their castings, fittings etc these days.
I was a little worried about the turnout of our casting but out of my list of close to 20 models that I wanted to see only 5 didn't show up, so all in all it was a good day.
I have to say that all the girls were beautiful but as always, when working on a project, you are looking for that face, that look that fits the idea you have in mind.
I have a tendency of casting very pretty, ethereal looking girls....porcelain skin, long hair....very romantic looking girls.
Kim, my makeup artist and friend knows me by now and can pick out in a wink of an eye the girls she knows I would choose for my shoots.
In this case though we where looking for a girl with a bit more spunk, a little tougher, with tons of camera presence and who moves (stands, walks, runs, jumps etc) really well as the studio will be quite sparsely furnished and there will not always be something to interact with.
We finally saw Karolina.B from Ford models and I had that moment of click in my brain where I could just see her fit into my "story". Hard to explain what that means but that's how it works for me. :)
It's like when you are out shopping clothes sometimes. You are not sure what you are looking for but you know you will know when you see it.
Now, hopefully I am right.......I will know on Wednesday.....and the story will merge together nicely with the images I have in my head....and if I am really lucky; even better!

Locations

Today I have spent all day running around town looking for locations for Gloss magazine.
On Wednesday next week I am shooting a trousers fashion story for spring 09 and I need to find an inexpensive location to shoot at.
After having covered a few friends of friends loft spaces and apartments I finally went down to 200 Hudson street and visited Location05.
Great space! All white on white. White furniture, glossy white walls, floors and ceilings and a ton of light!
This space is perfect for my shoot and although my budget was a bit below what they usually charge they where so nice in working something out for me.
I am very pleased.
This will be a great fashion story and I can't wait to shoot it!

http://www.location05.com

Chocolate

Ok, so some time has past since I last posted on my blog.
I went to Sweden for one week to see my family (images to come) and for the past week I have once again been deeply buried in retouching work.

Last year I got the idea to shoot a chocolate beauty/accessory story. I contacted several chocolate companies around the country asking if they would be interested in sending me samples for my shoot. The response was overwhelming! Almost every company responded and sent me the most gorgeous looking (and tasting:) chocolate.

My friend Kelley Quan; a brilliant makeup artist and the editor of zoozoom.com magazine really liked my idea and decided to not only work with me on this project as the makeup artist but also to publish the story in zoozoom (should be out within the month).

We cast Heide Lindgren from Muse management as our chocolate girl and she was wonderful to work with.
Johnny Laroy did the beautiful hair, Allison Berlin styled our shoot, the manicurist Shamina was absolutely amazing and Mary Arch did a brilliant job with the set-design, giving the shoot a flair of art deco and old money.

The only glitch of the day was that Heide had to leave our shoot at 5PM which we found out about around 2PM and we didn't get as many shots as we would have wanted with her.
These things do happen in our unpredictable world of picture taking so we just had to figure out a way to make our story work regardless.
Mary and Allison came to my rescue and together we created some really amazing still-life shots and the story came together beautifully at the end.

Here is a sneak peak of some of the images from this shoot.

Cheers!

Snow

For as annoying it might be with snow in the city, I still can't help feeling that there is something magical about waking up to a snowy landscape.......There is something cocooning about the muted gray light, while it is still snowing, and the muffled sounds, as the world is turning whiter and whiter and it takes me straight back to my childhood and the memories of hot cocoa and cold Swedish winters and lots and lots of snow :)
Here is what it looked like from my bedroom window this morning.
Brrrrr........

It turned out to be a good day to spend in front of the computer, working on my latest retouching project....and drinking hot cocoa.

Retouching

Today I finally finished retouching the last few details on an image I shot just before the holidays with my usual team: Kim-makeup and Hikari-hair.
The retouching work can sometimes be tedious and very time consuming but when done well it is so worth it!
The concept of this shoot was to create a wet and glossy and slightly unfinished makeup & hair and in my opinion the result is stunning!
The model, Wu-Mei from Race looks beautiful and very sensual!
Another good day in the studio :)

Beauty shoot

Sunday, January 11th, I shot a new beauty test with Kim, my absolute favorite makeup artist and great friend and confidante here in NY!
We been been wanting to shoot a black girl for quite some time; discussing different ideas back and forth (one of the aspects I love the most with this job except for actually being on set and shooting!!!) so when Tahlani at Q model Management sent me an e-card of Dominique; a stunning girl from Tahiti, we couldn't put together our shoot fast enough.
We decided to focus the shoot on gorgeous skin skin skin and beautiful curly and natural hair. The style of the hair and makeup turned out to be slightly 70's and 80's with almost a bit of a resemblance to Donna Summer and her era.
We are quite pleased :)
Here are some images from the shoot: Behind the scenes, so to speak.
I am still editing the actual images from the shoot which will take another day or two as there are soooo many good ones and then the retouching process will start; so it will still be a moment before I can post them on-line but I promise it will be worth the wait!
Ah, dear patience!


Kim and Dominique are viewing the almost final hair and makeup result


Anna-Stina and Sara: 2 great interns from Sweden, helping out.


Gorgeous Dominique: one of the actual images from the shoot as seen in the editing program on the computer

starting out

So you have to start somewhere right? and after spending the afternoon thinking of smart and intelligent things to say in my first ever posting to my own blog I have decided to just "get started".......jump into the cold water, so to speak, and just 'DO IT!

My name is Helena Palazzi and I am a freelance beauty and fashion photographer based in NYC.

I am going to be writing about my life in the photographic world in NYC; My thoughts about what is going on and what isn't and maybe should, my experiences with agencies, models, photo labs, equipment rental places, shoots, crew members etc etc etc........Feel free to come along for the ride, comment or share your own thoughts!

And that was my first post ever and I shall return soon.

Ciao!