Blog Archives - STREETFASHION MAGZZINE

balancing model's soft beauty to urban backgrounds

16/3/2015

... is the challenge of photographer Kevin Walker

Kevin Walker is a lifestyle and fashion photographer located in Birmingham, Alabama.

He didn’t set out to become a photographer. Photography basically fell into his lap. He’s usually not a very talkative person, and one day he realized that a single photo could allow him to tell an entire story without even opening his mouth. He was a sold after that.

A Sony A100 was Kevin’s first DSLR, and he now uses a Canon 5D Mark III and a Canon 1DX. He prefers to work with natural light in urban environments. The challenge of balancing the soft beauty of a model and the gritty textures of an urban background is something that drives him.

Kevin is always looking for new models to help create something special. Don’t hesitate to contact him.

focused on portraits ...

15/3/2015

... is well equipped photographer Ethan Han from Hsinchu in Taiwan

Photographer Ethan Han was born in 1984 in Taiwan. Photography is a hobby for him. Ethan’s real job is a protocol engineer of Mediatk, which is one of the leading companies of mobile communication solution.

Due to a life of an engineer is sometimes boring, Ethan started with photography in 2013. His first camera was an Sony NEX-5N. The image quality is somehow okay, but the AF speed is so frustrating, that he started to learn to use the manual focusing system. Then Ethan just happened to buy a Leica M6 and a 50mm summicron as his daily life camera. From this very moment he only uses manual lens. After one year he got used to the Range-Finder system and he really wanted to upgrade his digital camera, so Ethan bought the Sony A7R.

The reason, Ethan loves the RF system is, that it is mirrorless. So it is compact and there’s no vibration from the mirror, which can improve the image quality when the shutter speed is too slow. That is the major reason, he choose the A7R as his digital camera.

Ethan really enjoys the vintage lens, not only the atmosphere regard to the image, but also the mechanism and design and the feeling in hands. He likes to stroll to the second hand camera stores in his vacation and now has 24 vintage lenses. Thanks to the short flange length of A7R, all his collection can be used on A7R through a corresponding adapt ring.

As an amateur photographer Ethan learned photography in his company’s photography club from 2013 on. The whole activity of the club is focused on portrait. So most of Ethan’s works are mainly focused on portrait. He also likes to take pictures about other topics, but rarely publishes these photos.

Shooting portraits Ethan still loves most. Cause it is not his main profession, photography is an entertainment to take a break from his job. He doesn’t need tomake any profit out of it, so the process of shooting a portrait could be slow and relaxed. In this way it is really enjoyable and it is more likely to shoot a good portrait in Ethan’s opinion, cause „people then feel interested about you and you will get chances to meet more interesting people including photographers and models (paid or amateur). Then you could make better pictures possible“.

Regarding the shooting style Ethan likes available light, because he likes to shoot film. The negatives are very powerful to capture light transition even in low light. For digital cameras you can not shoot like the way you shoot film, so Ethan started to learn how to use flashlights to help improve the image quality recently. He has 4 YN560III flash and 2 wireless triggers from the same company to practice and plans to buy the elinchrom ELB400 or profoto B2 as his real light solution. Ethan has some super-fast primes like 50mm F0.95/35mm F1.2, but actually he will not use the largest aperture unless it is too dark. His favorite focal length is 50mm „ because i’m too lazy to change lens and zoom“. The 50mm is suitable for portrait and landscape with a balanced size and weight even when it got F1.4 aperture. And yes, most of his vintage lenses are 50mm.

In 2015 Ethan became the leader of his photography club, which means, that he got more chances to meet kinds of photographers due to his need to arrange the classes of the club. Consequently he got lots of ideas to shoot portrait from the discussions with the other photographers. So Ethan is full of energy and eager to create more of his beautiful works.

grime and glamour ...

14/3/2015

... photographer Chris Harrison is shooting glamour, but with a fashion edge

Chris started his photography journey by accident. He never was into photography from a making his own images point of view, until he saw a work college with a Canon Ixus V and fell in love with the idea of being able to see images as they happened. That was in 2005.

Chris bought his camera and very quickly moved to various bigger and better cameras until he finally got a Canon 300D. That changed everything. Before then Chris didn't really have any kind of direction and just made images of anything and everything.

In January 2007 Chris did his first model shoot, and knew, that's what he wanted to do. He pretty much exclusively shoot women, with the occasional male model. Chris was very much a glamour photographer for quite a few years and only really feels, he has found his direction with street/grunge fashion since 2013. Chris still thinks, he is shooting glamour but with a fashion edge. He prefers to call his work "glamourfashion"

Chris also shoots erotica, but again he wants to give it an 'edge' and always wants it to look classy.

He’s very much a hobby photographer and does it purely for the love of it. Chris doesn't make money and pays models neither. He loves to collaborate with models and especially like to find one or two girls, he can shoot regularly with. They need to be open minded and so they can shoot everything from nudes to fashion.

His influences are far reaching. Mostly the amazing photographers, that he follows (way too many to mention here) and also rock'n'roll and metal music, and of course movies.

female beauty ...

13/3/2015

... in natural light is the main focus of photographer Peter Heuts

Photographer Peter Heuts is born in 1961 in Roermond, Netherlands. Currently he lives in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Peter started with photography around 1980. His first camera was an Olympus OM-10, upgraded to the very nice OM-2n, which was also used by German photographer Uwe Ommer in those days.

He later had to change the brand, because Olympus didn’t got in the new AF-cameras in those days. So Peter switched to Minolta, the inventors of the AF SLR. Today he’s using the Sony A99 and A6000.

Peter Heuts is an amateur photographer. He started with simple pictures of the area, he lived in, some concerts and - of course - holidays. In the beginning he used normal film, later changed to slide-films ‚because then you really get impressed by the results’ (Peter Heuts). He really loved the Fuji Velvia colours.

In 2003 Peter changed to digital photography. His first digital camera was a Canon S50. He wasn’t convinced about digital at the start, so that’s why he didn’t bought a big DSLR, just to try it. During his holiday in New Zealand and Australia in 2003/2004 he took both, the small S50 and his non-digital Minolta (for the slides). It must have been in 2005, as he bought his first Konica Minolta Dynax 7D.

For a long time Peter’s photography was mainly focused on nature, cities, architecture and concerts. These subjects still interest him very much. In rare occasions he was able to do a bit of portrait photography, nothing special though. But there he realized, that he really likes making photographs of people. So Peter attended some workshops (natural light and studio) and became even more enthusiastic. One of the things, that he wasn’t very comfortable with, is getting in contact with models, as he was obviously not very experienced as a model photographer at that time. He started going to events, where it was easy to ask girls to pose, which they - almost no exception - were very eager to do. The results became better, and Peter started to feel a bit more confident (also because he got good responses).

Peter probably likes making portraits of models in natural light the most as he thinks, nothing beats natural light. Quite recently he has been buying all kinds of stuff to be able to use flashes outside too, but he still has to learn about that. He just ordered a few German books about strobist photography. Reading books and articles in magazines and on the internet helps him a lot to extend his knowledge about issues regarding photography, that are new to him. Peter always likes to learn new things. That takes time, patience, money and experiments.

He will travel to Budapest in a few weeks to experiment with strobist photography. He met a nice model, that invited him to come over and wanted to work with him. He’s very much looking forward to being able to experiment and make great photos of her.

Peter still likes to do other forms of photography: architecture, concerts, cities and streetphotography. Some he is doing on regular basis, some only from time to time. However, there’s one thing, he knows ... photography will always be a hobby, that excites him and will keep on challenging.

Low light sets ...

12/3/2015

... are the passion of photographer Rafael Balbás

Rafael is an amateur photographer. He was interested in photography from his childhood on, but it was not before the late 70s, when he started looking through his first SLR camera. This was the seed, out of which his hobby grew to passion.

Always looking for a personal and creative angle, Rafael is attentive to details and unusual view profiles.

He is self-taught, started reading some books about photography, did many tests in the photo lab, comparable to today's development of an image into photoshop.

For Rafael photography is not just a moment of life. There are pictures, that can be repeated a thousand times. Rafael instead tries to see something more in a picture ... a feeling, an emotion, a mood ... just something, that affects him in any way.

He likes low light environments, in which he has control of it, hence his tendency to night photography, indoor and studios, where he can shape the light to my taste, after all this is the key to a good photography.

He likes low-light conditions, in which he has control of the light. So he tends towards night, indoor and studio shots, where he can arrange the light in a way, he likes it. After all, this is for him the key to good photography.

See more of his photos or contact him.

Hai Tuoi ... a photographing couple

11/3/2015

Danny Huynh and Van Anh Le are Vietnamese Americans,
living in Orange County, California.

Not long ago, a friend invited Van Anh to model for a photography club. She enjoyed her time and met many talented photographers. They appreciated her and invited her back several times. Van Anh has a professional modeling background; and while spending time at the club she found that she had talent setting up scenes and creating moods for photoshoots. Additionally, teaching other models how to pose and helping women to look beautiful was something she enjoyed doing. Thus, she wanted to try her hands behind the camera.

Danny at the time was not interested in photography. But just to see what the ruckus was about, he took a few artistic photographs of Van Anh, using only an old point and shoot camera. It was done for fun, but surprisingly the photos received many compliments from experienced photographers. Suddenly, the husband and wife team discovered a talent they never knew they had.

Their first DSLR was a Nikon D5100, and they continued to use Nikon cameras with various lenses. Their style is to take beautiful pictures of women in natural settings. Van Anh often works with the models weeks in advance, planning and discussing theme, clothing, accessories… while Danny scouts for locations that best fits the theme. During the photoshoot, Van Anh works closely with the models. As a photographer and artistic director, she takes a more direct approach, while Danny usually stands at a distant and takes longer shots from different angles.

Together they are a husband and wife team. They prefer taking photos of people rather than landscape, because with people every second and angle presents a different look and mood. Their motto is “We don’t just take pictures, we capture souls”; and the challenge of capturing the right moment is the excitement that they find in photography.

Danny and Van Anh appreciate the models they work with and consider them friends and family. Their biggest reward is to see the bright eyed, smiley faces of their models when the finished pictures are presented. Hearing praises of pride and joy coming from families and friends of these models makes it all worthwhile. They take pride in creating beautiful pictures; and the ability to deliver joy and happiness to others through photography is what truly inspires them.

They are always on the lookout for new faces. If you’re interested in modeling for them, please feel free to contact them.

capturing the beauty of everday's moment ...

10/3/2015

... became a hobby to photographer Martin van der Veen, that got bigger and bigger ...

Martin started with photography in 2006. He is an autodidact. Landscapes and architecture photography were his first love.

Capturing the beauty in everyday’s moment became a hobby… this hobby just grew bigger and bigger…

Landscapes changed to portraiture photography, retouching became more important and more assignments kept coming.

Nowadays Martin only pick the assignments, he likes or is interested in (national / international)… the models, he works with, are mostly local although he gets numerous requests via social media every week.

The way, he works, is normally very simple: “First you have the idea or inspiration. This can be anything … from a movie to a certain location, where you capture a model. Second is the search for a model, who fits this theme or concept and the correct location. Last but not least, look for the correct light and shoot”

Martin loves to work with available light. His flashunits mostly remain in their covers… and yeah… he’s a fullframe Nikonian.

Capturing Dance ...

9/3/2015

... photographer Diego Nuñez

Our portrait is dedicated to photographer Diego Nuñez.

Diego is a Chilean photographer. Mostly he’s working with musicians, actors and dancers.

As main camera Diega has chosen a Canon 5D Mark III and as favorite lens the Canon 85mm f1.2L v2.

Only a year ago he ended his career as an engineer to become a full-time photographer. The road, he took to become a professional, was based on practicing, learning from experienced people and taking attractive portfolios as an example.

To find out, what is expected, he reviewed many portfolios of other photographers. Recently he’s trying to develop an own style in an area, he doesn’t have much experience in, but which attracts him most ... the fashion editorial photography.

Diego is inspired mainly by elegance and interesting poses.

See more of his amazing work on Flickr and Facebook

upcoming photographer

8/3/2015

DARIA MIKHALEVICH

Daria Mikhalevich, the photographer of our model picture of the day on March 7th, is a Russian female portrait and wedding photographer, currently based in Paris, France.

Daria shoots with Canon 30D and iPhone 5s (instagram @bobby_dee) most of the time.

She don't like to call herself "a professional photographer". When Daria started taking pictures, she just wanted to have beautiful photos of herself and her family and friends. Just for the memory! But then this passion has become much more than "just taking beautiful pictures". And since June 2013 Daria is a photographer at Daria Mikhalevich Photography.

Daria is a completely self-taught photographer. She has never attended the lessons or any courses of photography. She considers ‚you should develop your own style. You should trust to your own imagination. You should learn more and more and do it just for yourself. And of course, never give up!’

With the help of her photos she can show us her mood. She tries to shoot bright, colorful and light photos. Maybe you note, that she hasn't got lots of BW photos ;)

Daria tries to find inspiration in everything. ‚Just look around yourself!’ Cities, nature, people, animals, cute things... That is her inspiration!

Follow Daria on her Flickr or Facebook stream