Black-N-White Project with Aliana
I have to say, Aliana is one of the most high fashion models I have had a chance to shoot with. I met Aliana in 2019 at a car shoot I was doing. A fellow photographer invited her to the shoot. During that time, her style of modeling was more of an urban style of modeling. But felt she had more of a fashion/runway look. But during that shoot, lowkey, I really didn’t like most of the images with her. But I seen a lot of potential in her. So, I asked her to do a shoot at my studio.
Our second shoot
For the second shoot, I want to do something fashionable with Aliana. So, after messaging her back and forth. We had a wardrobe concept together for the shoot.
On the day of the shoot, she had brought her mother with her. Note: for any model working with a photographer for the first time. Always bring someone with you, like a family member or a friend, to the shoot. Okay, back to Aliana, this was a good idea. Because she was not 21 yet, I talked with her mom directly about how I shoot, my processes, and what the images would be used for. And because Alaina's mom was excellent and concerned. She asked me questions. I love what I do, so I enjoyed talking with her mom about my processes.
See in Black and White
My photos have always been in color. I’m not talking about doing color selection. This is when you have your photo in black and white but only have one color in the picture, like red or blue. Come to think of it. The only time my photos were in black and white was because it didn’t like good in color. As of recently, I have been getting into black and white images.
I have been admiring a couple of photographers' work that I have been seeing on YouTube, like Nathan Elson and Peter Coulson, just to name a few. Their photos have so much life to them. Almost real to life.
Years ago, my editing style would be, just slide my saturation down to zero, and that would be my black-and-white image. But after following Nathan and Peter, I became interested in having amazing black-and-white imagery.
The Black -N- White project
After getting a mood board together, I asked a couple of models I thought would be amazing for this shoot, and Aliana was one of them. Aliana had returned from New York, and I was glad she was interested in the project.
I had some challenges because I never purposely set up a black-and-white shoot. Plus, I had some challenges with lighting in my new studio space. I don’t like turning up the power of my lights for light and color control. The overhead lights are about 4000 kelvins and my strobe are about 5300 kelvins. I know this sounds stupid if I’m shooting in black and white. But I would be shooting in color and turning the images to black and white in post-processing and keeping some images in color and some in black and white. So, my color balance needed to be right.
Well, as you can guess, the shoot and images turn out amazing. See the photos below.
Special thanks
Aliana is one of the most successful fashion models I know. She has been modeling for tons of Runway fashion shows, in cities like New York, California, Vegas, and other cities. I can’t wait to see her face with big brands designers, and products like Apple.
