60s is the new 20s!!!

31 May 60s is the new 20s!!!

“I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less an issue and what you are is the point.” – Susan Sarandon

I had the absolute honour of taking photos of Ruth, my boyfriend’s mom and my new partner in crime. She has been so supportive of my photography journey so far and I am so grateful to have her in my life. She has helped out behind the scenes with stylized shoots, background set ups, fixing up old furniture and making into props, shopping with me for fun photography props/clothing and making outfits for multiple shoots. So when I say she’s my partner in crime I really mean it.

My main focus in photography this year has been boudoir. It was in January 2018 when I did my first boudoir shoot and I love it so much. Ruth was brave enough to trust me and Carolyn to style and photograph her for a boudoir session. She is gorgeous so it was a no brainer for me to do this. I love photographing women of all ages and motivating women to feel beautiful in their own skin. That was what this shoot was for me.

I reached out to Carolyn because she is an experienced makeup artist and hair stylist. She is a perfectionist and you know what she is going to put together is going to be beautiful and beyond what you can imaged. I didn’t give Carolyn a set look on both hair or makeup. I trust the people I work with to know whats best as they are professionals and know better than I do for this kind of stuff. Of course, if a client wants a specific look we do that but for fun portfolio work I don’t give restrictions. I only give light suggestions. My only suggestion was a natural look because we were doing boudoir. And as you can see Carolyn did that!

For more information on the makeup, I gathered some information from Carolyn. She used Arbonne makeup on Ruth. A link to where you could purchase this makeup is at www.carolynguillen.arbonne.com  To see what exact makeup she used on Ruth’s look you could check out Carolyn’s instagram account @carolynbeautyandstyle and also while you are there check out her other amazing work.

Now for some photography talk. Ruth and I did three looks. We started with the laid back lazy Sunday look where Ruth wore an oversized man’s button up shirt and white lingerie underneath. I used my Canon 6D camera with 24-105mm f/4 lens and 50mm f1.4 lens. I used a reflector to bounce light where I wanted. I had natural light spilling in from the window and used my strobe light Elinchrome BRX 500 with a large octabox attached. Ruth and I found samples of photos before hand as inspiration and used some of them for the poses. But what happens with most samples, the model is not the same size as the subject used. Ruth was smaller and shorter than the model. I use the inspiration photos as a visual mood guide for the subject. Lots of people are visual learners and seeing samples sets them at ease and gives direction they understand.

The second look Ruth had a beautiful rusty rose dress that suited her skin colour beautifully. I wish we could have shot some photos beside a lilac tree. That would have been out of this world. But we shot in my living room which is cool too. Then we noticed it was beautifully overcast so we took our last look outside. You wouldn’t know it but this vine and wooden fence background is behind my house near visitors parking. My secrets is out. hahah But it’s beautiful and I love it so I use it when I want to shoot close to my studio.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this fun session as I did shooting it. Big thanks to Ruth and Carolyn for joining me in this journey.