Hoàng Khánh Ngọc, Fashion Photography Studio Test.

A while back I received a Facebook message from a friend saying that he had given my phone number to a Vietnamese model; that she would be in Sydney soon, and she would contact me…

Cool I thought, and then forgot all about it…

But I did get a call from Hoàng Khánh Ngọc in late March. She dropped by the studio with some very cool tear sheets to show me at which time I found she was 181cm, 5' 11 1/2" tall, Miss Vietnam in 2004 and quite a glamorous model. After a bit of a chat we decided to organise a studio shoot to put some new Australian Fashion Photography work in her book.

For the styling I called up the very talented Seed of Scarlet designer, Fiorella Castro to see if I could borrow a few of the outfits from the new SoS range we shot earlier this year. I chose a few of my favourites from the Look-Book shoot and we were good to go.











Make Up was by Jessica Beazley and Hair by Emma Neilson, it was our first time working together and they did a great job. I decided to continue on with the theme of ‘Studio as Location’ looking for a more open studio feel. After the first couple of shots we veered of into ‘Frankie’s Nightclub’ mode, the shot at the top of the page and finished with the very lovely Layered Orange Maxi Dress in a wild Sphinx like shot.

Thanks to everyones great work on the shoot and special thanks to everyone at ‘The Photo Studio’.


Model, Hoàng Khánh Ngọc
MU, Jessica Beazley
Hair, Emma Neilson
Assistant, Harry Perlich
Fashion by Seed of Scarlet

We don't work we Play.

When asked how he and his design studio managed to remain so innovative, design guru Philippe Starck replied, “We don't work we Play”. I love this quote from Starck, its in perfect alignment with behavioral psychologists beliefs that innovation & creativity is more likely to spring forth from a relaxed state of mind. Its also highly reminiscent of the old saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. And no one wants dull work now do they.

Of course when working on an assignment and delivering to a deadline a relaxed and playful frame of mind may be hard to come by so thank goodness we already know what we are doing!



But what do you do when you want to come up with new ideas?

I can't say I am a big fan of the 'think outside the box' concept. If you ask me, trying to think outside the box just won't work. You need to be outside of it to do that. How do you get there, outside of the box? Better to forget the box altogether and just Play!



A couple of weeks ago I decided I just wanted to play around with the studio lighting. I didn't have a specific outcome in mind. I just wanted to see if I could try some different set-ups & see what I could get. I also had a new Hair & Make-Up (H&MU) artist I wanted to try out; Kate Bonar, so that meant I needed a model too.



Of course once you have a model and a H&MU you start to find yourself in a situation where you have an obligation to deliver. Now there is nothing wrong with that, delivering great photography is my job. But I just wanted to 'Play' (and not worry about delivering too much). I started casting around for someone that might just be happy to spend an afternoon in the studio in like-minded fashion, happy to play with ideas and see what we could come up with. Fortunately an email from another H&MU artist popped into my in-box. Cool; its always nice to find a new H&MU & at the end of the email this H&MU just happens to mention she is also an agency model. I checked her profile (could possibly use some more shots...) & gave her a call. One model booked along with a promise of a H&MU test soon.



We started at three in the afternoon and ran through until a little after eight. Together we played around with three different light set-ups and a few styling changes on the model, Kate gave us two different H&MU looks to go with the styling changes.In the end we had a rather nice clutch of pictures from four distinct shots including a new head/beauty shot for Angela & Kate. And I now had some new lighting set-ups I knew I could safely work with on future projects; a lovely new H&MU who clearly knows her stuff & another H&MU in waiting.

Having been reasonably busy shooting look books of late, the next day at the studio I cheekily remarked that I didn't know I could (still) do four shots in four hours, I thought I could only do 44!

Playing in the studio turned out not only to be a great way to find new lighting set-ups, it also turned out to be a great way to recharge the creative batteries too. And what better way to recharge than doing what you love. Making pictures.

All images shot at 'The Photo Studio' Sydney.
H&MU Kate Bonar
Model, Angela Thomas at Scene
Assisted by Harry Perlich.