Recently we got the opportunity to work with a few very dope women who are doing their things in the fashion and photography worlds. Angela Mejia is a talented photographer from Chicago with a knack for fashion photography as well as architecture and (my personal favorite) food photography. Once we linked up with her, we also met Estrella Figeuroa who did a fabulous job on our makeup and Vanessa Castillo who got great behind the scenes shots from us getting our makeup done to posing by the Bay in Downtown Miami.
Make sure to check out the dope visuals (below) for all the action!
We acted as our own stylists for the shoot (which makes sense as we are sometimes stylists to others) and made sure to bring our personal vibe to the shoot. With our gold grills, American Apparel basics, name plate necklaces, signature heels and accessories, along with some ANML HSE thrown in for good measure, I think we gave a pretty accurate taste of our day to day style.
Please check out these lovely ladies’ Facebook pages for more info/updates on their work !
AngieStar Photography
Estrella Figeuroa
Vanessa Castillo Visuals
Above: Poptart at 450x Magnification
“There’s so much rhetoric in our culture around food: food science, food journalism, food history, and food how-to. It is my hope that these photographs might transform our food obsession into a newfound closeness with what nourishes us.”
- Caren Alpert
Visit www.CARENALPERTFINEART.com to see more about the artist plus more food photos.
Please take a moment out of your day to admire the beautiful and spellbinding photographs by Lucy Martin. In what looks like a swirling, spinning depiction of the world inside of a powderless snow globe, Lucy Martin encapsulates scenery in a way that I’ve never seen before. Roundography- the full 360 view photo- is categorized in three groups: Planets, Wormholes and Landscapes. They are all trippy to me, as if the photo was in actual 3-D. I love the way that any normal situation like workers checking a chart can look so amazing- just making you appreciate life when you see it in a different light.
Check out Lucy’s website for the full rundown of Roundography !
Make sure you follow Lucy on twitter for 140-character updates on her amazing work
@Roundography
If you’re wondering how these images are created, it takes lots of work and lots of photos.
Below is a Gif of the artist taking said photos (and one of her view.) Pretty cool.
Click HERE to buy a Roundography book or calendar. These would make pretty dope coffee table books and gifts (I’d want one!)
Think you look different with makeup on?
Check out these UH-mazing photos of New York City drag queens in and out of their makeup shot by famed photographer Leland Bobbé. This photo shoot is beautiful. The makeup these guys do is really spectacular! I mean, the shading and blending in their makeup is breath taking. What, do these guys all go though some extensive and fabulous Drag-Queen-Bootcamp to get this stuff down? And the transformations they go through! I literally put my hand up to the screen to cover the “male” side of each and everyone of the photos and damn! They, for the most part, look nothing like the “regular” half. You can see the features and such but the Drag persona definitely takes over. I love this. It’s such a flattering way to showcase Drag Queens- not just another kitchy, cheesy show of feather boas and glitter- this shows pure artistry. Think what you may about Drag, but it’s an artform. I’m all for it!
In his Half-Drag series, New York photographer Leland Bobbé captures the two sides of the city’s drag queens — the extravagantly made-up drag divas and the organic men that lie beneath.
Bobbé tells Huffington Post Gay Voices, “Through the power of hair and makeup these men are able to completely transform themselves and find their female side while simultaneously showing their male side.” Shockingly, the identities are composed in camera and are not separate images joined during editing.
Bobbé posted the first portrait of the Half-Drag series on his blog last March, writing, “I got great feedback on the image so I decided to reach out to other drag queens using Facebook as my main means of communication… I’ve now shot four people with many more on the way. We’ll see where this takes me…”
Five months later, the project has taken the award-winning photographer far: It has been featured in Italian Vogue, fashion site Refinery 29, as well as in other websites and blogs from around the world. Bobbé reflects, “This is what the term ‘gone viral’ is all about.”
View more of Leland’s work on his website HERE
Starting his career as a social psychologist, now photographer Allan I. Teger turned to photography to combine the multiple realities which exist around us into one medium. Wanting to project this idea, he thought of his BODYSCAPE project as a way to portray the universe repeating its shapes – breasts as mountains, the flesh as landscape and BODYSCAPES was born.
Placing miniature toys and scenery on a models body, he’s able to create wonderful photos which bring smiles to any viewer. Many times the photos may not even seem to be of a human body, either way the art is there. A self-taught photographer Teger takes pride in his art giving it a whole other meaning in dimension as well as scope.
The images are amazing as Teger is talented in manipulating the eye and the scene with shadowing and lighting to make these adorable photos. Can you spot the body parts?
Check out more of his work over at www.bodyscapes.com.
Last Wednesday, me and Aja were invited by our good friend Ashley to check out SAPPARO Beer and Complex Magazines Happy Hour at Chalk Lounge on South Beach. Chalk is a relatively new venue which features a pool hall, ping-pong tables, DJs, and other fun stuff. It’s a dope setting and large enough you’re not fighting the bar for a drink (or two). In this case it was free Sapparo beer for a couple of hours and as always us dope chicks are very very very fashionably late. But nonetheless we stocked up before it was too late!
We got to see a couple good friend and Miami scene regulars and had a really good time. After Aja’s never-ending Mexican obsession lead her to her favorite taco spot called CRAZY TACOS. Their bathrooms always out-of-order and some mean guy wouldn’t give me a free cup of water but according to Aja the vegetarian, the Nachos are orgasmic. Couple that with a random bum outside saying he has a blog and that we must be from New York because of our ‘fashion sense’. Nope we just are different. Forgot his website but he gave us his e-mail. South Beach adventure.
Shout out to COMPLEX and ASHLEY OUTRAGEOUS as well as WOMAZING.COM (kas!) , SIN, MARCI, PHOTODAVE and QUEST AND JUST EVERYONE that was out there in general, I see you ASAP HOLLYWOOD and you too SPIFFY!
Check out the gallery below! Holla.
My favorite look from the shoot
The term “boudoir“(French: [bu.dwaʁ], English: /ˈbuːd.wɑːr/) is a woman’s private bedroom, sitting room, or dressing room. Couple that with photography and you have a unique style of photography which implies a private sense of sexually suggestive scenes without the skin. A classy and sophisticated approach to doing lingerie minus the ‘look back at it’ poses and G-String apparel.
I was a bit shy and hesitant to do such a revealing photo shoot as this was one of my first professional shoots plus I had braces at the time which made me insecure but the company and atmosphere the crew provided made me more relaxed and I ended up having such a great experience. Taken in a studio in North Miami, FL, my photographer Stella Hernandez has been a friend of mine for about 4 years. She’s done amazing work for Ocean Drive Magazine and boasts an impressive personal portfolio. She asked if I could be a part of a boudoir photography project and I accepted!
Below is the product and its nothing short of amazing. Special thank you to Stella Hernandez for being an amazing Photographer. Francy Freixas for having the most amazing accessories and looks and of course Lutz Karpf for my wonderful make-up and hair.
German-born photographer Jan von Holleben brings his playful imagination to reality as he continues on his ongoing photography series titled, “Dreams of Flying”. First developed in 2002 – Jan has been creating these wonderful joyous scenes placed on flat surfaces like roads and studio floors along with the help of his team and the children in his Southwest Germany neighborhood.
All it takes a ladder and a lot of imagination, and “Dreams of Flying” brings wonderfully placed objects,props,and of course people into a new perspective.
I absolutely find this adorable and it brings a big smile to my face! This is what art and creativity is all about! Enjoy the images and visit his website here for more inspiring imagery. Also check out the “Making of” these images and the amount of effort and detail which does into these scenes in the video below! (Check out the guy with the dope BAPE tee in the vid ! These guys have taste!)
Wow. The art of photography amazes me. It allows us to see places, people, and things we might not have imagined could be captured or interpreted in a certain way. The Nikon International Small World Competition is no exception to this art as it brings together scientists and hobbyist alike in the art of photo-micrograph photography.
A photomicrograph is a technical document that can be of great significance to science or industry. But a good photomicrograph is also an image whose structure, color, composition, and content is an object of beauty, open to several levels of comprehension and appreciation.
Nikon Small World
Since its start in 1974 , Nikon has engaged the interest of light microscope photography with entries being received from the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The winner photography of the 2011 competetion is pictured above – Igor Siwanowicz, Portrait of a Chrysopa sp. (green lacewing) larva (20X) .
Its especially amazing to look at the many photos of cells, insects, and plants (among other things) and see the incredible amount of detail and color created by the process of the light microscope photography process. This years Winners, Honorable Mentions , and Images of Distinction entries are an exquisite selection of photos and I highly recommend taking a look at the gallery and spacing out in amazement.
I did.
To get more information and see more pictures from the competition, visit Nikon Small World.
- Donna Stolz, Blade of grass (200X)
- John H. Brackenbury, Water droplet containing a pair of mosquito larvae (5X)
- Poulomi Ray, Chick embryo intestine (20X)
- Jose R. Almodovar, Fresh water shrimp eye and head (2X)
- David Maitland, Enormous dorsal (10X)
You truly see the dedication of an artist though the detail of their work. Turning a color painting -complete with fades in color , exaggerated features and mythical creatures - into a real -life photographable image is hard work. Hard work that Manjari Sharma aims to do to a certain level of perfection. Her new project “Darshan” aims to recreate nine classical images of Hindu gods and goddesses all with the use of props , models , sets , and the help of the public. Funded entirely by her and the donations of others (like you!) this project is slowly getting underway. Her first and only complete image is one of Maa Laxmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth and fortune.
Putting together the Set
I admire her attention to detail and her passion in this project. Unfortunately she’s only created one of the nine images and is looking for support of the public to help fund the other images. The story is gaining some publicity by being featured on NPR and several other blogs. She’s interestingly using large-format film , yeah not digital , so that means she only has so many shots to get the image right.
This is the image she aimed at duplicating, what do you think? Did she pull it off? I think so . And if you believe in her and what she’s trying to achieve then why don’t you donate to her art and help fund her future projects?
This woman and her team are incredably talented.
Check out her website and also donate here to her cause here.
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