Tara and the Canon EOS R

Old mate Tara is another beautiful workmate, until the last shoot I had with a workmate Tara and I where already close prior to the shoot, because it had been some time since we last saw each other the biggest problem we had was that we couldn’t stop talk for a few hours before we started shooting.

I recently upgraded my Canon EOS 70D to a Canon EOS R, so I’m still adjusting to the new system. To prevent future muck ups I must shoot as much as I possibly can with my new camera and really get to know all it’s features. So for this shoot I shot with my Canon EOS R with an adapted 70-200mm f/2.8 II.

Tara was fairly comfortable in front of the camera however her lack of modelling showed during the shoot however I must say it didn’t affect the final product.

I’ve learn’t that I need to summon up the courage to raise the ISO in the future when shooting with my 70-200mm f/2.8 in order to keep my shutter speed over 1/250 to keep my pictures sharp. I was hopeful my lenses image stabilisation would keep my pictures sharp, I was unfortunately wrong.

All up it was a good test run and I got to capture my friends beauty to share with the world.

Miles Jokic My Canon 70D's last job

First of all, I love shooting with men, reason being that I work in childcare and I’m surrounded by women all the time, it is both a blessing and a curse.

This is Miles Jokic we had a shoot a few years ago, he wanted to get pictures sorted for his social media profile. This time he need these picture to sell himself to a creative audience online, so he requested a shoot with a bit of street art. whilst some places in the world one might be hard pressed to not find a decent piece of art on a wall but we just so happen to live in Melbourne where it is not difficult to find street art at all.

It is important to warm up before a shoot, to get the client in the right frame of mind we admittedly chose a poor back drop but for me it was about choosing the right lens for the job. I decide to go with the Canon 24-105mm F/4 because a large separation of depth of field was not required.

The thing I like most about shooting with men is that there are simply just conversations you just can’t have with women, it’s not the end all but all but it is refreshing.

Shooting Miss Talia

I’ve been working in childcare, working in a female dominated industry has given me access to a lot of beautiful women.

Talia is one of those women, these shots were take after work with a Canon 70D with a 40mm F/2.8.

I love shooting with prime lenses as they provide with the bokeh I love at an affordable price. I really love shooting with my 40mm.

It was funny shooting with a workmate, working in childcare there where conversations we had that we could never have in front of the children it was fun getting to know her in a different light.

Kelly Killed it!

I had a photoshoot last year with a beautiful young lady by the name of Kelly, at the time she wanted pictures of her dress for her year 12 formal. She's a year older and a year wiser, she's developed an F what other people think attitude, a photoshoot was booked.

Kelly seemed comfortable in her own skin, a very important quality to have when modelling however, she's not very experienced when it comes to modelling. I fired up Spotify, let her pick a musician to listen too and we were set! Kelly started dancing and popping into some pretty good poses, she just had fun with it.

Kelly mentioned when she booked me in that she wanted some pictures in her lingerie! Naturally I was game and was happy to take on the task.

We tried to get shots in my studio space however for lingerie, it wasn't working as well as I wanted it too, We needed to switch to to a bedroom.

It was during this transition were Kelly thought my previous photoshoots with women were tame! It was at this point that I realised that I could ask Kelly to posed in any position I wanted. I'm normally paranoid that I'll freak out my model if I request some raunchier poses, It was now that I realised that I had nothing to worry about.

I told Kelly that I wanted her to give me the Niki Minaj Anaconda pose.

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I wanted to experiment more with depth of field so I switched to my 50mm F/1.8 and I shot at F/1.8 because I'm a BOKEH whore!

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It was refreshing to shoot with a model that has such confidence and was willing to get into the most uncomfortable of poses without any complaints. We had a really good rapport that instilled trust in her photographer.

This experience has helped me become more comfortable with dealing with models in their lingerie and working with them in regards to directing their poses.

Kelly requested that 8 pictures from the lingerie sets be converted to black and white, here are the results. I like how the black and white treatment adds a touch of class to the photos.

What makes me proud as a photographer, is when I make people feel good about seeing their image, it gives them a world of confidence and makes them feel good about themselves which is why it's important to work in some sexy photoshoots every now and then.

Kelly and I are super proud of the results and we've got another shoot booked in for the near future.

Don't forget to give her a follow on Instagram

Photoshoot at Royal Park

There's been this spot at Royal Park that I've been dying to test out for a photoshoot and luckily I the amazing Jayde Helena wanted to shoot again.

What I like about shooting with Jayde is that she's always puts in 100% into all her shoots. She even brings a variety of outfits to our shoots. One thing I love out her outfits is that they're all from OP shops. I'm too much of a snob to even consider the thought of pay $20 for a complete outfit but credit where credit is due she came up with a killer look for our shoot and some of these shots are amongst some of my favourite shots ever!

Allison Nicole, a close personal friend of of Jayde's was kind enough to help us out with Jaydes make up on the day. Allison is by far the best make up artists I've had the pleasure of working with, unfortunately she wasn't there for the shoot, but she took her own time away from her studies to help out a friend, I couldn't be any more greatful for her efforts.

After Dark | Featuring Jayde Helena

I've been experimenting with some night time shoots, I must say it's not an ideal situation but the shot's I was getting certainly look cool.

It's all about balancing the lighting and the ISO so that the fill light wouldn't darken the background. Focussing was also a pain in the butt with my canon 70D, but I found it easier to focus using the live preview function.

Jayde Helena

As you can see Helena looks like like the star of the city.

Helena is one of those models that I'm going to have to shoot with again, we had a great rapport and I'm confident our next shoot will be better than this one. Never the less here are the results.

Melbourne City Batman

So I had a photo shoot with  Batman! It was awesome, I had a grin on my face the whole time and every time the we took a picture each was more amazing than the last!

How did we arrange this shoot? Last year when I came back from my trip from Chile I went for a photo walk around my home town of Melbourne and low and behold there was Batman one of the many random things you'll see if you live here, only the streets of Melbourne could give you such amazing randomness. Coincidentally this picture is also my most liked picture on Instagram. We ran into each other again a few weeks later at Pax (a video came convention in Melbourne), we spoke had a quick chat thanked him for my most liked photo on Instagram he asked me to tag him, he goes by Melbourne City Batman and that was that. At some point this year I wanted to do a shoot with batman so I thought I'd message Melbourne City Batman to try set something up and we arranged a time to shoot! 

I love being back in Melbourne. #batman #dc #dccomics #day #shoot2kill #cosplay #darknight #costume #igersmelbourne #lovemelbourne

1,746 Likes, 15 Comments - Marcelo Silva (@marcelosphotos) on Instagram: "I love being back in Melbourne. #batman #dc #dccomics #day #shoot2kill #cosplay #darknight #costume..."

Arranging shoots like this are as simple as asking the person you'd like to shoot and most of the time in my experiences they say yes. 

The only thing about this shoot is that I don't think the photos will go so well on social media because the dark images wont make for a good thumbnail.

Don't forget to check out Melbourne city batman on all his social media channels, here is his Instagram and  Facebook pages.

Afternoon Photoshoot (Feat. Merinda Dryden)

I had a rare photo shoot at 5pm the other day and it's safe to say that I'm moving all my photo shoots to this time! Using the sun on the horizon as a back light was nothing but perfection.

Merinda is a young up and comer with amazing energy, I had a lot of fun shooting with her. She brought her own clothes to the shoot and it's safe to say she has good tastes.

Shooting Men Feat. Jem King

Long story short, I had a good shoot today.

I shot with Melbourne model Jem King, he's an up and comer so watch out for him.

I don't get to shoot many male models, so naturally when I found out that Jem was casting. The theme was a man in a suit smoking, as a fan of mens fashion I had to put my name down.

I'd like to do a lot more mens fashion, i guess it's the Bond fan in me.

The picture on the left was the brief and the picture on the right is what we got.

Sophie Brandt Cortius

Hey everyone!

I found Sophie on Model Mayhem and proposed a shoot in the city of Melbourne and she accepted.

Sophie's new to modelling, it's something she's wanted to do for a while now so instead of thinking about it she made a model mayhem account to get the ball rolling.

It's important to have a clear idea of what you want out of your model and to pre visualise your shoots or else you'll both have no idea what to do.

It's also important to have a good rapport with your model. Sophie had a european accent so I ask her where she was from, as it turns out she was Dutch, she then asked me about my background so I told her I was born in Santiago Chile, Sophie responds in Spanish and tells me that she went to university in Santiago! As of this moment we began to get on very well.

I also thought I'd throw in a portrait on a Dutch angle for the sake of Sophie's home land.

Sian Holmes

In my eternal boredom I found a Facebook group for photographer, models and hair and make up artists, which is how I came to get in touch with the ever so photogenic Sian.

Sian was looking to get some pictures together for her portfolio and is also fairly new to modelling, or so she claims, she seemed to know what she was doing with her poses.

Towards the end of the shoot I had some problems with my speed light, not ideal but because of this problem we had to resort to available light, we found a good area with amazing soft light coming in, so disaster averted, it also made me think of more creative ways to shoot SIan.

Rachael's Garen

If you've been following this blog you'd know that I'm good friends with a talented cosplayer.

She is know as Alice Shortcake to everyone but me who calls her by her first name Rachael.

Rachael is hard worker and a busy bee at that, she's been working on this cosplay for a year however it's not taken a year because of the fact that it was an epic job to make such an outfit, it's because of her university studies and the fact the she needs a job on top of her studies.

We haven't shot together since our Iron Lady shoot. This was a long time in the making and here are the results.

The Formal

My Facebook page page got me my first ever client! 

A young woman by the name of Kelly wanted to have a photo shoot in her dress for her year 12 formal before she graduated. Amazingly she found me on Facebook, I had no idea teenagers used Facebook these days!

We chose Carlton gardens as a location and we where all set to create some amazing photos.

Kelly was super professional, surprising given the fact that she's not a model. She took well to instructions making her really easy to work with. It was super windy that day and because we are located in Melbourne the weather changes in the blink of an eye, because of this weather it made it hard to use my one light off camera setup, so I had to go natural light at times.

ALIUS

Sebastian Ivanov aka Alius is a local Melbourne talent whom I had the joy of collaborating with recently.

Sebastian put out a casting call on Model Mayhem and I just having arrived from my trip from Chile was itching to get back into collaborating with local models again. We decided to meet up for coffee to exchange ideas, this made me happy as I was overseas and suffered from the lack of good coffee the rest of this planet has to offer! This meet up was vital to the creative process we sat down and ironed out a solid look for the shoot.  

On the day of the shoot we shot for hours I was in the creative zone as a photographer and the fact that we had a solid idea just kept the shoot fresh with new looks and poses to try out. One thing I like about Sebastian was his enthusiasm you can definitely see it in the jump shots we got.

Sebastian is a talented musician check his Facebook, Soundcoud, and Instagram.

Marcelo in Chile

I went on a holiday a few months ago to the country I was born in, Chile. 

I chose to go there because of the diverse landscapes I'd get the chance to shoot there and as a portrait photographer I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some portraits of all my cousins whom I always have a blast with. To be honest some good times where had but as most of you know family has a habit of driving you crazy.

So this is Santiago, the city I was born in. This particular vantage point is from Cerro Santa Lucia, I found funny that Santiago looks different from every angle, in the pictures below it looks like a city from the 80's, yet from other angles it looks a lot more modern.

My most immediate family just so happen to be located in Santiago, so I wound up spending a lot of time in the capital city. To be honest what I love about Santiago is how similar it is to Melbourne and Sydney, I guess all cities are the same. I have family all over the place in Chile some are well off and other not so well off. I had a lot of fun in the city I was born in it's changed a lot since I was chid, it's for the best but the locals still complain about how horrible it is, nothing could be further from the truth Santiago has become one of my favourite cities in the world.

  

However it wasn't all fun and games with my family, during family functions I'd find my self deep in conversation with my cousins to get told off by someone for not taking pictures. I heard of this happening to photographers, their friends and family consider their photography friend as their personal photographer. The fact of the matter is that I enjoy taking high end portraits and beautiful landscapes and I do not enjoy missing a deep and meaningful conversation with my cousins to take what are essentially are event photos. This is an issue that I've actually never encountered with my friends in Australia. Don't get me wrong I do enjoy taking pictures during my friends events but I don't feel like I'm missing out, I take pictures to remember the experience, I don't sit from a distance and watch other people enjoying themselves.

I found the landscapes in chile to be amazing so much so that I actually prefer the landscapes in Chile over the landscapes in Australia, however the cityscapes in Australia are better than Chile's. My favourite landscapes was located about an hour away from the capital city Santiago, a fact that I find amazing because to best landscapes we have close to Melbourne is four hours drive from my home town of Melbourne. This area was known as el cajon del Maipo it's a mountain and the higher up you go the more the landscapes change, whilst I didn't get to the top I reached a point called el embalse del yeso, I'm not to good at writing so I'll just leave some pictures to show you how amazing it was.

One thing that infuriated me is that I wanted a picture of myself at the location but no one was interested enough to take the time to look at the screen to make sure I was even facing the camera it was one click done and I'd either be on the edge of frame or not even looking at the camera, yet they all expected me to take pictures of them, I was furious.

The next location I wanted to talk about was San Pedro Atacama, the Atacama is know for being one of the driest places of earth. San Pedro was much to my surprise a tourist town, a detail that I failed to capture in my pictures, I found this place amazing because of it's diverse landscapes and amazing wildlife.

This area is also where you can see the most stars on earth, I took an astronomy tour and it was amazing! My biggest regret was not taking my camera and tripod, I just assumed they wouldn't let me take pictures, big mistake on my part.

The next stop from here was Arica, the most northern town in Chile. Arica is a relatively small town that doesn't really have much but I have family there and to be honest I've always enjoyed my time there. I enjoyed my time here, I didn't have to put up with being the family photographer around there. I have treasured childhood memories there and I loved catching up with some cousins whom I hadn't seen in up to 20 years.

 

It was in Arica where I learn't about Tomas (aka shanty towns). According to Chilean law if a group of homeless people get organised and build a shanty town on unoccupied land the Chilean government will build them a house and relocate them onto their new property. Whilst I was in Arica I also got to take a look at the oldest mummies in the world.

After all my family obligations ended I was able to visit all my favourite spots such as Val Paraiso and Viña Del Mar. Given that they're neighbouring costal towns I thought I'd check them out over the time period of a few days. I chose to stop by Val Paraiso first to visit my cousin Diego.

Melbourne coffee culture is something I take for granted the coffee in Chile was truly horrible, it wasn't until I went to this coffee shop in Val Paraiso, which was ironically named of Melbourne where I found satisfaction in some coffee.

Finally I went to visit my childhood friend Leandro in Viña Del Mar we went hiking and then he took me all over town. At one point while we where hiking I heard the sound of a didgeridoo, at this point I thought I was pretty out of it, I brought it up with Leandro and he said 'dude I thought I was going crazy I hear it too'. Further up the mountain we where hiking we ran into a group of young men one of which (much to my surprise) had a didgeridoo on him! 

I had a lot of fun during my time in Chile and I hope to travel more in the future to find more amazing places to photograph.

Photoshoot with Jessica

It's been a while since I've had a shoot and I felt as if I needed to get creative again, so I gave my friend Jessica a call and we worked something out.

Jessica is not a model like the other women that I've been shooting with but given that we're friends it actually makes it easy for us to get good shots in a good time frame.

Jessica has been a test subject of mine ever since I started in photography so she's developed a bit of a modelling portfolio over our time as friends.

I wanted to practice some high key photography so we mainly worked on that, I was having troubles with flaring early on but I managed to work that out by the end of the shoot.

Photoshoot at Carlton gardens featuring Angela Galisteo

If you've been following this blog you'd know that I've been networking with models from Model Mayhem and these connections sometimes turn into professional relationships and even friendships. 

Angela is a Spaniard whom has found herself in Australia, I'm Chilean born so she and both speak spanish and I've joked about the bilingual bond in the past but this defiantly wont be the last time we'll be shooting together.

I've had the urge to shoot around parks recently so we chose to shoot at Carlton gardens. So I made a mood board on Pinterest and I gave Angela creative freedom on what to wear. 

We chose to shoot in the morning so that we wouldn't have so many poeple looking at us or showing up in the background of our shots. Given the lack of clothes Angela was wearing we where worried that people where taking pictures on their phones but I couldn't help but notice the people around us where playing Pokemon Go!

We had a great shoot together and these are the shots we came up with. 

High/low key photography feat. Belle Follie

I wanted to practice some High key photography so I called up Belle Follie (given that we got on so well last time) for a shoot. 

I wanted to put more of a focus on her shoulder tattoo so I instructed her to bring a collection of sleeveless tops. 

This set up involved two speedlites and a white back drop for high key pictures. for the low key pictures we used a black backdrop.

Photoshoot with Belle Folie

Belle Folie put up a casting call on Model Mayhem and I responded.

I put together a mood board over on Pinterest to show her some ideas of what I wanted. Check it out here  She said 'Anyone who has different ideas other than big hair and corsetry would be a plus'. So I wanted to go for more of a street/ urban type of shoot.

Belle was pretty street but really easy going at the same time and she had 24 years of modelling experience to bring to the table!

I really enjoyed my shoot with Belle and I hope to shoot with her again in the future as we teamed up to create some amazing shots.

Here are all the shots we came up with, check them out!

Don't forget to check out all of Belle's social media channels.  Facebook Instagram 

Dj Vicky Vanna

I've arranged a few shoots on Model Mayhem recently and here is another result of responding to a casting call. 

I had the pleasure of meeting an amazing young woman the other day by the name of Vicky. I went on to discover that Vicky is one of the most photogenic people I've ever met. 

Our shoot went well Vicky had a really clear vision of what she wanted to get out of the shoot and that clear vision made my job much easier. The only thing I would say is that maybe as a result of us two teaming up was that we became overly ambitious. Vicky brought a lot of outfits for the shoot and you'll notice all the wardrobe changes in these pictures. Unfortunately we weren't able to use all the items of clothing that she brought.

Vicky and I didn't have a lot in common but by an astonishing coincidence we shared the bilingual bond (as you know it's important a commonality with your subject to build a good rapport, this will translate to a positive mood that will lead to good pictures). When bilinguals who speak the same language meet up it automatically makes them best friends (we're both fluent in English and Spanish).

For this shoot Vicky wanted an edgy/sexy shoot and to be honest I knew I was up for it and here are the results!

Vicky's a Dj check her out her Facebook page here, her Soundcloud and her website.