Makeup by MaQeup

Tony Chu Photography {Editorial}

I'm always excited to work with my good friend Tony Chu {Tony Chu Photography} since I've always been a fan of his bright bold work. We went ahead and did a shoot with his good friend and amazing model Taylor! She is such a gorgeous girl who was not afraid to do what was needed to get the best photos! True trooper she was!

Tony arranged for the photoshoot to be in an AMAZING location in Fremont! It was my first time there but I was in awe of the beauty once I got there. See this picture I took on my phone! :)

The skies reflected perfectly onto the still waters <3.

Since we were shooting outdoors, we pretty much had to the makeup right out of our cars. I'm pretty used to working on set so anywhere with good lighting is fine with me. :)

Tony even took a few photos of me at work! <3 Thanks Tony!!

I love pictures of me doing makeup without really seeing my face since I normally have a pretty unflattering expression on while I'm concentrating. :P

It was so cold out there, but Taylor is a tough girl and totally pulled off the "I'm here in the wild on a warm summer day" look perfectly!

Here are some behind the scene photos I snapped while everyone else was at work:

Tony and Eric doing their thing :)

Models have a tough job. I salute you!

climbing onto rocks barefoot and posing like it's easy to float

looking warm in barely any clothing

Looking sultry even when you have rocks jutting into your spine :(

While I was collaging this behind the scenes photo together, I decided to get rid of those bags in the back. It literally took 2 seconds with the aid of the spot healing tool from photoshop CS5! <3 I LOVE that program. It has some amazing functions.

I'm also looking forward to this possible function of making blurry photos looking sharp again. It would be such a life saver for people with unsteady hands like me!

Check out this sneak peek of what might be out on CS6 [here]. It's totally mind-blowing.

Anyhow, here are some of the final products we got back :)

Check out those abs! :)

Tony doing what he does best :)

Besides editorial work, Tony also shoots weddings, portraits and even puppies!! He's super fun and easy to work with. I can't wait to see what we get up to next time!

[Happy days]

Bridal Hair and Makeup Trial {Joyce}

Joyce was recommended to me by the wonderful wedding photography couple JeZa {Jeremy + Zabrina}. As Joyce keeps a busy schedule with work, and I ended up getting booked last minute last month, we had to reschedule her trial once. :) I'm so glad we finally got to do it last night before she had to head back to work again!

Here are the inspiration photos she sent over for my reference:

Here's the look we ended up with :)

Soft Smokey eyes layered with grays and browns to give it a more natural feel, along with pink cheeks and lips for a touch of girliness. During the trial, Joyce told me she thinks she has more of a square face and prominent forehead. I told her it honestly wasn't that bad, I've had friends who've botox'd their jaw to shrink the squareness and most people have uneven faces anyways (e.g. me and my one dimple'd face). However, after I finished contouring her face with foundation, she said she felt her face shrink in photos. :) Say Yes to the power of contouring!! It is extremely important to make sure your features are extra defined so you do not end up looking flat in photos. This is especially important for Asian women who may not have very strong features to begin with.

Joyce had also previously expressed her concerns with having fine, limp hair; so for hair, I made sure to tease it lots to give it a nice bump on top and arranging it into a messy bun as she wanted. I hope Joyce enjoyed the trial as much as I did. :) Even though I was a bit sick from working in the cold the past few days she still decided to go through with the trial yesterday night. Thank you again for being such a trooper!

[happy days]

Slow Burn Music Video

I guess I'm slightly restless and enjoy diversity ~so although I do enjoy doing makeup for photoshoots the most~ I am glad to take a break from the girls (brides/models) to work with my film boys once in a while. It's really interesting how most of the time on a film set most of the people working are men (with so many heavy equipments to carry etc, it's no wonder most gaffers, and grip people are men) I cannot imagine a petite framed girl carrying around those super heavy RED cameras...I mean sure, there are still small girls I see lugging around equipment on set and, I too, carry the occasional sandbag around to help them out during clean up~ but I generally come in contact with more guys on set than girls most of the time :)

This "doppleganger" music video has been an ongoing project for director Drew Sandoval :) and every time he calls me up to tell me that he's working on this project again I'm pretty happy as the crew is awesome to work with (super nice and relaxed boys) the song is great (I could listen to it all day long and STILL want to sing along with it hehe) and not to mention the craft service is OUT OF THIS WORLD (coz food is all that really matters right? LMAO)

*check out the brunch that was served on Sunday*

we had tomato cobble and grilled goods and fresh cherry tomato curry salad as well MMMMmm

soooOOOo delicious and all made from scratch by Melissa!

the first day she even brought us FATAPPLE Bakery's famous Cheesepuffs even our DP who doesn't really eat pastry or dairy had 2! (UNHEARD of!) HAHA

Anyhow, here are some behind the scenes photos I took this time while working with the boys~ we were out in the countryside at Fairfield ~ I saw walnuts in the tree and locusts for the first time! haha

We shot a few stunt scenes with Nick the first day ~ jumped onto the cushion mat and smeared his "make-up face" onto it hahaha! it was a perfect imprint of his face!!

I was in my puffy outfit the whole day coz we had a 7:30 call time and it was unusually chilly and foggy that day~~* but I kept it on even when it hit 80F hahaha everyone thought it was crazy hahaha

another stunt scene was done on Nick's broken trampoline haha the boys were jumping around and having fun but that thing was rather dangerous with quite a lot of the springs broken!

there goes Nick~~* FLYYYYYYying through the air~~

we had to do some green screen shots so Nick had to wear his the green screen outfit so all that would be left would be his "head" hahaha

it..was quite a funny look as the green screen outfit had been rather small hahaha

but he was the greenscreen hero nonetheless hehe :)

The early morning fog cleared up and it turned out to be a beautiful day in Fairfield :)

day 2 we hiked up to the hills where there were cow poo everywhere haha and locusts flew every step I made~ haha it was a pretty hot day and the boys stripped down if they could but poor Warren had to stay in his woolen suit the whole day while running up and down the hill too!

we also went to another location to do another jumping sequence hehe :)

we finally finished at about 8 pm~as the sun was about to set

Martini shot of the day and that's a WRAP!!!! me and Warren enjoying the golden glow from the beautiful sunset! <3 then we all got to enjoy some pizza and home made chicken salad with beetroot Mmmmm so good!

and since it was Director Drew's birthday that day ~ Melissa baked us some almond cake with marinated strawberries (OMG SO GOOD)

:) always stuffing myself on set aha

can't wait till another great day on set!

[peace]

Ryan Chua Shoot No. 2

Model: Hanna. MUA: Christina Chen. Hair: Noelle Lynne. Stylist: Angel Phillips.
Photography Assistant: Mike Polce. Jewelry courtesy of the Jody Humes Collection

Ryan contacted me previously about working on a magazine shoot with him last weekend, I told him I had a wedding earlier that day and that if it were in the afternoon I could help him out.

anyways here are some of the photos from behind the scenes~*

The concept was edgy jewelry (supplied by Jody who's got amazing taste in jewelry and funnily enough she's a school teacher! ^_^) matched with vintage nightgowns that Angel had been collecting since highschool!! they're all authentic stuff! :D loved them~*

The model was super cute and fun to work with :) and Noelle did an awesome job with making her hair airy and softly waved!

As far as makeup goes, Angel wanted SUPER fresh faced minimalistic angelic makeup~* which I did by just making her skin flawless with Graphtobian's HD foundations and giving her a fresh rosey glow with the Makeupforever HD creme blushes :) She had quite a bit of breakout from her skin reacting to the change in Climate from moving to SF~ but after applying the foundation it looked perfect!!

I layered on some light pink lipstick with a Chanel lipgloss ~* and powdered her with the Cover F/X loose powder I just bought from Sephora! (it is rather shimmery so you have to watch the usage for photographs)

We shot 5 outfits I believe~* here are some pics I took during the shoot:
we started indoors at Angel's awesome studio ~ :)

ahh such bedroom eyes~

we kept playing with Angel's doggy Bandit! soo adorable!

went out side her window and took soe more shots~ hehe it was quite chilly in SF and the poor girl was wearing that thin nightgown haha but it was sexy though~! :)