Pink Magazine - Fashion editorial featuring Sarah Zerafa

Head down to your closest newsagent, grab a coffee and a copy of the Times of Malta and I hope you enjoy my latest fashion editoral shoot for Pink Magazine. It’s probably one of the fashion shoots i enjoyed photographing most this year - the location was really interesting (we were shooting inside a plane hangar in the airport, a plane, a plane engine…) We were also a great team and we got along well - so when there is a good vibe and talented people, good things always follow.

I hope you like the shoot - here are some of my favourite pics. Please leave a comment below :)

The team for the shoot featured: Sarah Zerafa as our model, Fashion styling was done by Marisa Grima. Chris Attard and Josephine Saliba respectively handled Makeup and Hairstyling. We were a great team and we had a lot of fun making this shoot - check out our antics in the Behind the Scenes video:

And now for the geeky stuff, In the hangar we used the lovely soft natural light - The door of the hangar made for the world’s largest softbox so very little else was needed. Inside the plane and when we were shooting outside or against the light, I used a 500w studio light together with a beauty dish to get a nice mix of soft light and texture. Lighting up the cockpit was… interesting since it was quite hard to fit a model, photographer AND a light in there. So we bounced the light through the door, the photographer stayed on the floor and used a 17mm lens and it all worked out. The other shots were shot using a 35mm f1.4L and an 85mm f1.2L. All shot with a Canon 5D mark 4

If you have any questions on how any of the photos were taken please leave me a comment below :)

Elevate - An editorial with Rosemarie Abela & a drone

Lets’s start with the good stuff, and put the text at the bottom this time.

Check out some drone footage in this behind-the-scenes video. All drone footage was shot at Bahar ic caghaq, Malta using a Dji Mavic 2 Pro

And now here are some shots using the ‘traditional’ camera in your hands method :) - A Canon 5D Mk4 if anyone is keeping track

Random Ramblings

One of the first hard decisions DJI forced me to make when buying the drone was - do I get the Mavic 2 Zoom? which would allow all sorts of interesting shots when shooting fashion, or do i go for the larger sensor of the Mavic 2 Pro.

As should be obvious by now, i went for the pro since 1” sensors are pretty much the baseline of what i consider to be acceptable in terms of photo quality (Turns out there might be an issue in video for the Mavic 2 pro but hey lets’s not get into that - the photos are pretty great)

The first thing that you face when using a drone for this kind of thing is that composition becomes much harder - purely because 1. you are fixed at 24 mm, 2. elevated shots are naturally shortening which doesn’t play well with fashion and 3. It’s not a scenario you’re used to and it takes time to adjust

Having said that, the possibilities it opens up are impressive - This was just a little dive to see what is possible and it's going to really open up some locations which would have been impossible to photograph ahem “on foot”

Another BigThing (tm) was the mix of photo and video. Once you’re flying the drone, it becomes a crime not to take some shots (as Andrew Randon once told me - motion = emotion, not sure if they are his words or not but they are definitely true) - and this brings about a new set of skills, a new workflow.. the list goes on.

I don’t feel I am ready to truly explore video yet - i’ll stick with Fashion & Portrait photography for now, but it’s nice to see where the road leads. Hope you like it! If anything crosses your mind please leave a comment below

Credits:

Designer: Rosemarie Abela

Model: Justina Vai

Photography: Kurt Paris

Makeup: Rodianne Caruana

Hair: Dominic Bartolo @ Dreaaaaaaaaaaaaaads

Fabric (1st Dress): Ivory & co

Fierce! - Sunday Circle Magazine Shoot

Released with the Sunday circle magazine on sunday, here is how we shot Fierce! - the fashion editorial which featured a current fashion trend - animal prints.

The Team:

Model: Giulia @ Supernova Model Management

Make-up was done by Jean Zammit at Inglot Malta

Hair by Toni & Guy Malta

Styling by Caroline Paris

Photography by Kurt Paris

Shot at the Meridiana Wine Estate

Here are some of the shots from the shoot, we used a single Bowens 500w strobe in many of the shots, and then a YongNuo ring LED when the space got a little more restricted. LEDs have become incredibly useful and versatile since they allow you to remain quite portable but also light up pretty tight spaces. The quality of their light is still not as high or accurate as with good studio strobes, however it does produce a punchy/contrasty image that works really well with particular editing or especially in Black and White

Fashion Photoshoot: Thorned Diamonds

The Team

• Model: Blanka @ Models M, Sara & Ada @ SPP Models
• Photography: Kurt Paris
• Make-up: Sandy De Gaetano
• Styling: Caroline Paris

Photography Details

The shoot was done mostly using natural sunset light. This is particularly easy to work with since it is quite soft and very directional - which makes it easy to bring out the details and shadows simply by changing the direction the model is facing. For the black and white portraits, a Bowens strobe was used to add some fill and also to bring out the highlighter. Makeup in general is the first thing to suffer when we take shortcuts with lighting so do keep that in mind

The water shots we lit using a YongNuo YN-360 Wand LED (Credits to Steve Muliett for showing this one to me) which has a stronger, more directional beam than you find on rectangular LED panels

In terms of location, we used the area outside Manikata (Malta) and Ghajn Tuffieha Beach

The Making of - Videos

Are you guys interested in seeing short, 1 minute videos of how the shoot was done? Then please leave a message with what you are most interested in the comments below or by PM

Pink Magazine Malta Fashion Editorial

These are only a couple of my favourite shots - You can check out the full shoot in the magazine, out today with the Sunday Times! As a photographer in Malta, Pink is one of my favourite magazines to work with for editorials.

For this shoot, (which was done in Birgu, Malta) i used a single strobe. I'm still enjoying overpowering the ambient light with the strobe so that's the effect i went for with this shoot. Visually it makes me a happy photographer and i feel it brings out the character and grunge in the location, whilst making the clothes pop.

The Team

• Photography: Kurt Paris
• Styling & Coordination: Marisa Grima
• Hair: Dominic Bartolo @ Dreads Hairdressing
• Makeup: Rachel Borg using Revlon
• Model: Gabriella @ Supernova Model Management

And check out Pink's Facebook Page: here

Malta Fashion Week - Rosemarie Abela Al-Magrib

Another in the series of fashion editorial photo-shoots done as part of Malta Fashion Week - Rosemarie Abela's Al Magrib collection. Valletta's older areas which are still a bit raw provided us with some great backdrops. The maltese limestone tends to really throw a yellow hue on the outfit, thanks to all the sunlight light that bounces off it and onto the clothes. So to add a bit of drama and also to bring out the lovely colours and texture in the clothes - you guessed it - one Bowens 500w strobe with a beauty dish. The main difference this time is that we kept it off angle to give some nice shadows on the models

The team behind the shoot:

• Model: Venla from Models M and Francesca from Supernova Model Management
• Makeup: Elaine Galea
• Designer: Rosemarie Abela
• Hair-styling: Flavia @ dcolorpallet
• Photography: Kurt Paris

Gagliardi SS18 Collection Shoot

If you're somehow living under a rock and have not heard of Gagliardi: the menswear brand from malta - then do yourself (and you or your partner's wardrobe) and check out their website. I really like their designs, and they have a fantastic product, and ooh sale

*few minutes and a full shopping cart later*

So back to the topic at hand, at the end of 2017, a merry group went up to Taormina to shoot the Fashion campaign for the Spring Summer 2018 collection in a lovely Sicilian setting. The brief was built on the cult movie "The Talented Mr Ripley".

Since we were not in the peak of summer, the sun was less harsh and overhead - so in most of the shots we used a natural light with reflectors for some fill. The lights stayed inside the van almost the entire time. For the evening shots, we used a YongNuo YN-608 LED Ring which is my go-to portable light for situations where you don't have a lot of ambient light to fight. One of the reasons I opt for this particular format is that the large surface area of the ring makes for a softer light than the smaller square panels.

The Team:

• Male Models: Gary Greenwood & Karl Andrew Borg (Supernova Model Management)
• Female Model: Felicia Cigorescu (Prysma production)
• Gagliardi Team: Leo, Nadia, Petra, Sarah, Sam & Keith

This shoot was one of the most fun ones I've done in a while - and apart from the great team spirit, there were a lot of things done right that made the whole experience a breeze.

Firstly, everything was planned down to a tee - we had a great visual cue, and each setting (together with the scene) was pre-planned. That made logistics as well as the actual shoot much much easier and ordered. Secondly, we had a great team of models - and in my mind, the model is key to a great shoot, not only from a visual aspect - but also from an energy and attitude point of view. We spend days literally shooting from morning to evening - the right energy and attitude is a essential for this to work out.

Going back to the Gagliardi team - they put immaculate attention to detail and made sure that each outfit was styled correctly and fit well. This made my life much easier both when shooting, and especially during post production. 

Malta Fashion Week - Marco Parascandalo

The third in the series of Malta fashion week editorial fashion shoots was the one we did with Parascandalo for their 2018 collection: Star.

In this shoot we decided to use an urban setting, specifically a car-park which had a monotonous, grungy look & feel (kudos to Marco for this great idea for a location). This almost boring setting is a mix of empty space and clutter, a place where there is actually a lot of stuff lying around but it's the kind of stuff that our sub conscious has gotten used to tuning out. In this setting the outfits felt at home, but their vibrant colours & designs shone brightly

Without further ado:

Photographer's Talk

Since we were in an urban setting, one of the ways to make the subject stand out (and bring out all the detail in the clothes & make-up) is to overpower the sun as we did in the shoot for Ritienne Zammit's _Atronymic collection. Only this time, since we had more depth behind the model, it allows us darken the whole scene and increase the lighting on the model. One 500w Bowens studio light provided the lighting for the scene, coupled with the Bowens beauty dish. As you might have noticed by now, this is really my favourite lighting setup since it provides a good mix of soft and hard light.

The team behind the shoot:

• Model: Julia from Models M
• Makeup: Jennifer Dimech
• Designer & Stylist: Marco Parascandalo
• Photography: Kurt Paris

Malta Fashion Week - Ritienne Zammit

The second in the series of post-show Malta fashion week shoots was the one we did with Ritienne Zammit. Ritienne is one of my favourite designers and every year I look forward to her new collections. The fact that she is also a fun, humble and generally awesome human being simply adds to the fun :)

This shoot caused a bit of a stir since we did it right in front of the new parliment building in Valletta. We set up, started shooting and promptly a crowd gathered behind us - and started shooting us, the models, Ritienne, everything. Fun times.

Without further ado:

I'm not a big fan of shooting under our scorching Maltese sun. In general the makeup is lost and the harsh shadows destroy or distort the lines of the clothes as well as their texture. Since the clothes are quite bright and distinctive, i wanted a simple plain background to let the outfit speak for itself. Thank you Mr Piano for the great outdoor studio you provided us :). The only caveat is the aforementioned sun... and this was fixed by overpowering the sun using a Bowens 500w strobe. If you've never used this technique before check out this really easy video from fstoppers.

The team behind the shoot:

• Model: Beatrice from Models M and Francesca from Supernova Model Management
• Makeup: Elaine Galea
• Designer: Ritienne Zammit
• Hair-styling: Chris Galea @ Michael & Guy
• Photography: Kurt Paris

Malta Fashion Week - Yana's Jewellery

This year, to add to the events and general fashion-craziness happening during Malta Fashion Week, designers (with the help of photographers, models, make-up artists, hairstylists, model agencies, venues) got together to do shoots with the collections showcased during the week. 

Here is the shoot we did for Yana's Jewellery:

Since we were shooting in natural light heaven (under the arches in front of the National Library) we had super soft but directional light. By changing the direction the model was facing I could adjust the angle at which the light hit her face - from fully frontal in the first image, to slightly off centre in the later images. A Bowens 500W strobe was used for a bit of fill and to even things out. 

The team behind the shoot:

• Model: Katrina from Models M
• Makeup: Jennifer Dimech
• Designer: Yana's Jewellery
• Photography: Kurt Paris