Photography: Shavonne Wong/ Zhiffy Photography
HMUA: Andrea Claire
Stylist: Kovit Ang
Model: Victoria T
Assistant: Vincent
Dresses: Frederick Lee
How does that saying go? All that glitters ain’t gold? That is certainly a great lesson to approach life with but in the case of this shoot, all that glitters was very gold and that’s exactly how I wanted it!
This shoot was inspired by a recent picture I saw from the story of King Midas where all he touched was turned to gold.
With that in mind I jumped in and tried to put my own spin on things.
I knew I wanted the end result to look very decadent and opulent but unfortunately I did not have a golden budget to match my golden theme so I hoped my creativity would shine through instead!
My creativity took me the DIY route and that route led to the Salvation Army $2 store for a whole bunch of random props. With props in hand it was then off to the paint store where I grabbed two sets of gold paint and as it turns out “all that glitters aint gold” is not just metaphorical but quite literal as well since one of the cans was a really terrible version of gold. Back for one more trip to the paint shop and I was ready to put my props together!
The dresses that the stylist provided for the shoot were from a local couture company called Frederik Lee. Apart from the dresses being amazing pieces and really great fits for the theme, its always such a pleasure to have this stylist on set! So much energy, so entertaining and quite the creative one as well! One of my favourite people to collaborate with, Andrea Claire, was back on set as well dazzling up my models with all sorts of makeup. The center piece for the shoot? Model Victoria from Ave Management!
On a more technical level I needed some insight into what would be a nice complement for the gold theme in terms of colour choice. I recently came across a great tutorial here which was a huge help!
According to the colour scheme designer the colour that would best complement gold is blue so that’s why I decided to add a hint of blue light to push the image. I find that it makes the photo look stronger, sharper and carry a bit more of a mystical type feel. I really wanted Victoria to look regal and dare I say arrogant in her characters belief of superiority. She did an amazing job throughout the shoot and playing with the colours really helped in pushing that idea forward.
Colour complements are so critical to really capturing that final feel that you have in mind so I can definitely see myself coming back to this tutorial in the future.
This is the lighting diagram. As you can see, the main light is just basically a softbox while the blue is added by a blue gel on a strobe from the corner.
Incredibly enjoyable shoot! Thank you as always to the amazing people I am fortunate enough to work with. Big budget or no budget, go find an idea that inspires you and go chase it! Im already looking forward to my next one! (: