Taiseer and her business partner are both lovely makeup artists and hair dressers who contacted me for this opportunity to collaborate with them. They run their online & local business Hairlicious (Spa, Beauty), a studio which specialises in hair extensions including exotic Virgin Russian Hair Extensions.
I was excited as they already had models lined up and ready to go. Of course no shoot ever goes perfectly with out some challenges, the first time we set a date both the model and I arrived at SFU, Surrey as per directions but we were suppose to be in SFU, Burnaby, so there as a mixup in communications and that cancelled that shoot for that day. I was very disappointed as I took the transit that day. On the way home, there was an accident on the bridge, a 2 hour 1 way trip became 5 and the bus driver didn't want to complete his route because he was delayed past his shift. Instead he dumped the remaining passengers at Richmond Centre and had us wait for another bus.
Moving on, we finally got things going on the second appointment, but one of the models cancelled and another was way too far out of town to make it on time. Langley to be exact. So Taiseer's boyfriend Fahmed had to drive all the way out to pick her up while we were working on the models we had(Keely and Sumaysa). Another problem that came up was that the hair extensions we needed that day was not immediately in Taiseer's possession but all the way in Surrey, so we had to go there and pick that up before we head back to Burnaby where we did our shoot. Our effective 12PM shoot started at 130PM. I was getting anxious because it was cutting in to our shoot time and we all know what that means! If a photographer doesn't have enough time and is forced to work in a rush, it is more challenging to produce good work, not that I haven't worked under such scenarios before where I literally only had minutes to complete a shoot. But, I do prefer to work at a comfortable pace in order to produce the best work possible.
Keely with the long black hair was one of the intended models. She arrived at 12PM on location with her friend Sumaysa. Fortunately, Taiseer's business partner also got there on time to keep them company. Keely had to leave by 3PM to work downtown and by the time they finished their hair and makeup on her it was 2:50PM! So, here we go again. I literally had only minutes to shoot Keely in her two out fits and she had to have her hair curled in between! Keely was also relatively new to modelling and had a couple shoots prior so I had to do some posing warmups with her and some directing. She was receptive and cooperated nicely, she picked things up real fast. By the end of the session we're happy to have some pictures to go home with! I was impressed and happy with Keely's performance overall.
Sumaysa, originally from Bangladesh has never modeled before and was purely there to keep Keely company. Since Sumaysa could stick around, I had her model a few shots while we wait for our model Tessa coming from Langley. Sumaysa had glasses, no makeup and had an innocent look, but when they were done with her it was a transformation! WOW! Her pictures got quite the attention from her Facebook friends and so did Keely, so I'm satisfied with the results.
It was great experience at the end of the day as we moved passed our trivial challenges and was a pleasure to have worked with Taiseer and Company!
You can check out their site HERE and show them some support of you like their work.
Models: Keely Sullivan & Sumaysa Tahsin
I'll talk about Tessa and her pics in the next update.
