Every so often, I get really boring assignments to take corporate photos. Of course corporate photos can be not so boring if the brief allows you to take photos of the subject in a different setting, however more often than not the requests are for “studio”-type passport-ish shots.

Yawn.

However, these snooze-fest assignments are sometimes redeemed, when by some sheer stroke of luck, I get interesting subjects. Some faces are just beautiful and some just scream character.

These are some of my favorite corporate portraits. Simple, maybe. Interesting, definitely.

So it’s “Eid Al Fitr” out here and loosely translated that means, “Hecksyeah, two extra days off!”, which also loosely translates to “I no longer have an excuse to not update this thing”. LOL.

So this is pretty girl Sam and yes if you were wondering she is just as sweet as she looks.

Hair & Makeup by Anna De Leon

Every once in a while, my good friend Anna (who happens to be a fabulous makeup artist) and I would get together for one of those girly weekends where we would eat junk food, watch sappy girly movies and cry until the wee hours of the morning, and of course take photos for our portfolios and also for her blog. We would of course take photos first before crying over sappy movies, goodness knows how the photos would turn out if we did it in reverse.

Anyway, last weekend, Anna said she wanted to do a look inspired by J.Lo’s new single for her blog. And that we did.

Oh and we also took photos of another friend of mine — Sam (whose photos will be uploaded soon).

Anna will be conducting a make-up workshop in October (See flier for more details).

Go visit her blog at http://annadeleonmuastylist.blogspot.com/ and get the lowdown on makeup, styling, and other things of note. :)

When my super awesome friend Jake saw the “character” editorial that Vanity Fair did with some super awesome actors, he said he wanted to try it out just for fun. I, of course, am up for anything fun, which this shoot defo turned out to be. Aside from the “character” shots we also took a few sexy headshots for his portfolio. :)

Jake is such an awesome model. And I’m saying that not just ‘cause I’m his friend, but because it’s true. The camera loves him.

It was also in this shoot that I test-drove my brand new Big Baby, the 60” Westscott umbrella. I’ve been wanting to purchase a softbox for the longest time, but with this umbrella, I don’t think I’ll be needing a softbox anytime soon (or maybe even ever).