11/21/09 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | Comments Off
Shot these impromptu photos of a friend while at a birthday party in Wudaokou district of Beijing, China. My friend had stepped out to take a breather and myself as well. Shot off a few in front of her while she wasn’t looking then she caught on and started to ham it up. Wasn’t hard to figure out that she liked being in front of the camera so we did another mini shoot which I’ll post pics of later.
This district is where Tsinghua University, Beijing University and Beijing Cultural and Language University are located. In addition to the local Chinese there are also many foreigners from abroad in this district; finding a cozy cafe or bar where locals speak English isn’t hard (if you can find these precious “hole-in-the-walls”). Often times students will hangout or study at them, nothing different from other countries. In fact, some of the cafes had the ambiance of ones I’ve visited in London and France. The subway stop is “Wudaokou”. When you get out of the stop you’ll be at the main intersection of the district. On the north west corner there’s a pizza hut as well as a nice bakery/cafe called “Tour Les Jours”. If you walk to the south west corner and continue south past the bookstore, you’ll find two cafes on the 2nd and 3rd floors of two buildings. These two cafe are common hangouts for students and foreigners.
11/06/09 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | Comments Off
Justin and Chloe are both good friends of mine, I’ve known both since our high school days. They’ve been dating for quite a while and Justin just loves being in front of the camera, more so than Chloe I think. They wanted some nice portraits done of them so I said sure. We did the first shoot in just over an hour at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver.
Most people don’t like walking around so I made sure to work with what I had around me. You need to be considerate of your client and know what type of person they are. Some are more adventurous and don’t mind doing anything to get that perfect shot, for example running into water and getting soaked or lying down on a beach and getting all muddy. Justin and Chloe are clean freaks (don’t like grass for example) so I had to be mindful of this. I actually had them sit on one of my reflector covers for one of the below shots.
The other two photos were taken at Granville Island. I like how the background suggests a European atmosphere and the boat just adds to it. I had a great time photographing the two of them. They’re emotions for each other just radiate when you’re around them. I think the photos do a good job of capturing this as well.
11/06/09 by Michael Lee | Portrait Photography | Comments Off
Emily and I have been friends since university. We met in one of our communication classes but I can’t quite remember how. She was quite a chatterbox and me the same (once you get me talking). She can talk about random stuff and just keep going on, it’s great to just talk about anything with her. One of my school design classes involved creating magazine spreads and also photographing it. I had just the person in mind, Emily! Her outgoing personality and fashion sense made it a no brainer. The first few photos below are back from our university days. The one at the beach was taken in the past year. She’s also into photography! Sorry guys, she’s taken, lol.
I like the images below as they show how versatile she can be in her looks, and no she’s never taken modeling school.
