Genevieve

I have a photographer friend called Genevieve, or Gen. She has wild hair, big eyes, worships the ocean, and thinks that everything looks better in black and white. She's pretty unique.
When she's talking about something she's really passionate about or is making a sarcastic point in conversation, her eyes get really, really big and quite often when she's talking I just accidentally tune out of what she's saying and just look at her eyes. Not a good habit to have.
Anyway I decided I wanted to try and take a photo of her that sort of shows off her eyes, so she came for a walk with me at the lake opposite my house. We left it pretty late in the day and were also going very slowly because we were talking too much, so we used up every last bit of light from the sun and then when that was gone we used a bit of moonlight. 

On our way home the moon had actually risen so Gen had a little dance underneath it, and then we had a few glasses of red and it was a great day.

I'm pretty happy to know such a beautiful, genuine woman.
x

Eddy

Had a shoot last week with my old friend Eddy.

Ed's a drifter. He's sometimes in Margs, sometimes in Perth and sometimes in Indo.

He always has something to tell you about the world and always leaves you feeling a little bit lighter about life.

The last week or so I kept bumping into him at the dog beach early in the morning with his Yelo coffee in hand and Popeye the Jack Russell at his side, so I managed to lock him in for a shoot.

The weather really turned on for us, easterly winds with the best sunset I've seen in a while.

Throughout the shoot I didn't give Eddy a single direction, he was just telling his stories and I was just taking my photos. Every now and then he'd say "want me to do a headstand on my skateboard?" or "want me to do some ballet in the water?". Cool.

I used my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 II USM for a few of the portraits from this shoot which I don't usually do, but I thought it might suit Ed and his story telling .. I was also trying to get a bit more of a variety of shots within my portraits, as I usually just go straight for the close up photos with my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. I can never resist the beautiful soft feel this lens produces. I just really love faces and the intimacy and cool compositions you can create when you're right up close, which is a bit odd because I'm not like that at all as a human, just as a photographer. Shooting wide angle portraits was refreshing for me though and I'm loving the different feel it gives the images.

Here is a little visual story from my afternoon with Eddy.

Paris x   

Hannah and Shane

Hannah and Shane are having a baby. A little girl, due in one month.
I went to Hannah's baby shower a few weeks ago, and after seeing how amazing she looked I decided I needed to take some maternity photos of her.
Luckily she agreed, so we headed down to Woodman Point on the weekend for a shoot.
So we were having a great time on the shoot and then Shane was kind enough to point out a sign that said we were shooting next to a burial ground (as Woodman Point is the old quarantine centre)... Thanks Shane... Next location guys...

Hannah is simply beautiful at the moment. Well she is beautiful all the time, but just extra, extra beautiful right now as you can see.

Here are some photos from their maternity shoot, thanks so much Hannah and Shane x

Chantelle in the Forest

I recently had a shoot with a natural beauty called Chantelle. We shot in the forest in Margaret River in natural light, no pressure, just taking some pretty photos of a pretty lady in some pretty bush with some pretty light. Bliss. My mum works with Chantelle and has been on at me for about a year now to take some photos of her, and we finally got around to organising it. Mum has a good eye for these things! Thanks Mum. 

Chantelle is beautiful. Naturally beautiful, and the best thing is that once you meet her you realise that her personality is just as beautiful as her looks are. That's pretty special.

And check out that smile!

So we went for a wander in Rails to Trails, brought mum and my little dog along and just had a super chilled afternoon wandering in the bush and chasing the light. I shot a lot of this on my 50mm 1.4 L series lens, golly I love that lens.

Thanks Chantelle and Mum x

Paris x

My First Baby Shoot

On the weekend I had my first baby shoot. Some good friends of ours have recently had little Campbell, who is now four months and very, very handsome. I'll be the first to admit that I know absolutely nothing about babies... I have never really had a lot to do with them, and so was completely jumping in the deep end when I turned up at their house with my camera, a nice selection of blankets and a basket. Campbell was a very good baby and only had one little cry, though I do think that he wasn't entirely convinced that he was being paid enough for the shoot. Here are the photos, I'm very happy with them for my first baby shoot and hope you guys like them too :) thanks to the mum and dad for helping me out with this. 

Paris x

p.s I think he looks a little like he's taking a selfie in the last photo

Aphrodite - Version 1

So last week I wrote a small blog piece about how I had shot my first image (Aphrodite) for my Greek Mythology series, but wasn't going to show it until I decided which direction I was headed in... well this week I have decided to take the series in a completely different direction, so you may as well see last weeks photo! I'm now going to do the series as my research project for my final year of study, and after some thought I decided to just go for a bit of a different look for the series. I hope that Alex my French Aphrodite will stick around in Australia long enough for me to use her again for the new shot! (Less dogs and more wine in the studio next time Alex, I promise). But seriously, how beautiful is this girl. Anyway hope you guys like it, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into this research project! 
Paris x

I have been working in my visual diary for some time now on a Greek Mythology series that I plan to exhibit. It will be comprised of about 15 portraits, each one portraying one of the gods or goddesses of Ancient Greece. Since I was 8 years old I have been obsessed with Greek Mythology (I can actually remember my year 3 teacher Mrs Downing first teaching us about Greek Mythology). It fascinates me, and I'm so excited to be able to bring it to life through my work.

I shot my first image from the series last week, Aphrodite. I used my French friend Alex as my model. Alex has gorgeous copper skin, long, flowing hair, a striking face and the personality to pull off Aphrodite, the goddess of love and passion. She was perfect and got right into the mood of the shoot for me. 

Thanks to another gorgeous friend Mary Parker for helping me out with this shoot.

Here is a simple portrait of Alex, taken after the shoot. I'm going to keep the actual Aphrodite photo under wraps for a while, whilst I keep planning the exhibition.

Paris x