Inspired in Valletta - Ritienne Zammit

Last week as part of my wife's general craziness, we spent a few days living in Valletta. We stayed at the lovely Cumberland Boutique Hotel, used the Ferry to get to work, and ate pretty much EVERYTHING. You can check out the article by The Wife(tm) about living in Valletta on her blog. 

Apart from the sights, smells (food, oh so much different interesting food) and sounds (you can literally walk around Valletta at night and bounce from one live music act to another without hearing any silence - it's lovely) - there is a huge sense of drama to the place that just makes my creative side wake up.

So we had to do a fashion shoot - and since the light in Valletta is perfect very early in the morning, I passed on the amazing breakfast (food :() and convinced everyone to wake up early (I got coffee and fresh croissants to make up... yes more food)

So without further ado here's a shoot inspired by Ritienne Zammit's Past & Present collections

• Model: Rebecca @ Supernova Model Managment
• Photography: Kurt Paris
• Make-up: Jean Zammit using Inglot
• Styling: Caroline Paris
• Designer: Ritienne Zammit
• Hair Styling: Christian Galea @ Michael & Guy

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