Men’s Shirt Refashion 1: Summertime Dress (Part Two – Photo Shoot)

Concept: Frolicking Among the Flowers

Photographer: Wayne Vanderkuil
Location: Sunnyvale,CA

Model and Styling: Doris Cheung

It’s been far too long since I’ve made a concerted effort to put together any kind of photo shoot.  To think I used to do this all the time for school!  Back then I often used myself as a model  because I far too shy to ask anyone else to be my unpaid model for a school project. 

Modeling is quite hard!  I am not much for being a fashion model – there’s definitely a way to stand and pose that looks really weird in real life (and probably feels very awkward), but ends up looking great in photos.  Before we went out I reviewed the sketch notes that Wei-ling drew from her modeling session.  The sketches are fantastic, but I unfortunately wasn’t able to put much into practice – practicing in front of a mirror would have been very helpful.  There’s definitely fashion posing, and then there’s me.  Usually I end up liking things that look more natural.

This particular shoot I knew I wanted to be in among fields of mustard.  I can see the bright yellow flowers all along the freeway on my drive home, and thought they would be a perfect match with the yellow on the dress.  I had originally selected Heritage Orchard Park in Sunnyvale as the location for the shoot based off photos I’d found – only to discover on the day of that the fields have been plowed!  Well.  The potentially disastrous lack of research was averted when a field down the street turned out to be a perfect substitute.  

For outdoor shoots I highly recommend overcast days.  The lighting is much more even (no harsh shadows) and flattering for people and the colors will tend to be a little more saturated.  I tried the fashion thing, but these photos here I was just walking and moving around aside from the more posed “is it going to rain” one.  I wanted to focus on the dress and not myself as a model, so I like the ones with less of my face showing.  Incidentally, I’m wearing makeup practically applied with a trowel because I’m currently suffering through a very bad spell of allergies/eczema around my eyes, and much more eyeliner  than I would wear, say, to work.  However, it doesn’t actually show up that much in the photos so I am really pleased with the more natural look.  

Photo post processing didn't include a super amount of retouching (hm, due to my laziness?)  I popped out the saturation and contrast, and brightened up the whites with a slight glow.

Lastly, I guess I went a little nuts and made a parasol to go with the shoot.  I had stumbled across this wonderful tutorial - crafts from the dollar store!  Lo and behold written by the same blogger I've been following for tutorials recently. (Yup, my blog is not going to be about crafts I've invented, but lots of links to tutorials I've found!)  This parasol probably wouldn't hold up to an real rain...or sun...but the intention was to use it as a diffuser in case of harsh sunlight.  A very fashionable diffuser.


I think I can call this project done - except, I'm still waiting for warm weather to wear it!  I'm looking forward to spring and summer. :)

Lastly - a HUGE thank you to my friend and co-worker Wayne (check out his Flickr site here), who shot all these photos for me.  Not everyone would go along with "hey. You wanna shoot some pictures of me in a field of flowers?" with such an immediate "Sure!"  Many, many thanks.