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Interview with a model – Lorena Fernandez

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Business, General, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

celebrities, Corpse Bride, entertainment, interview, iPhone, Lorena, media, networking, New York, photography, social, Spain, Valencia

Morning

I have shot with Lorena Fernandez several times during the past few years and she is always the consumate professional and great fun to work with. Back in November last year I asked Lorena for an interview with “The Starving Artist” blog and Lorena took some time out recently from her hectic schedule for that interview. Hopefully this will provide some insight into the life of a professional model.

{The Starving Artist} Good morning Lorena – thanks for coming into the office

{Lorena Fernandez} Hi Colin – great to be here – can’t wait to hear what you have to ask!

{TSA} Haha – ok! Lets crack on then. So Lorena, I know you are from Spain, but tell us a little bit about your origins and why you decided to settle here in the UK

{LF} I was born and raised in Valencia, a sunny coastal town in Spain. My whole family ‘looks’ Spanish but my great grandfather was German and somehow the ‘genes’ were passed on to me, to the point that most people tend to think I’m eastern European! I always like travelling and did my last year of Uni in the United States, by then I had met my now husband (who is from Bristol) and decided to move here with him (my English is better that his Spanish, so I had a better chance of finding a job here!).

{TSA} At what age did you start modelling?

{LF} When I was 4-5 years old, my parents put me in a modelling agency, as a blonde kid in a country where most kids are brunette was quite beneficial for me…I did several TV adverts, kid’s catwalks and children’s catalogues and through my teens continued with the modelling, expanding onto acting (studied Drama for 2 years) and hostessing/promotions too…Moving to the UK meant I had to almost start from scratch, as I did not know anybody in the industry. Fast forward 6 years, and I would say ‘I’m there!’

{TSA} So with all this experience behind you what would your “Dream
Modelling Job” be?

{LF} Well, I have to be realistic…my dream job would be walking the
catwalks of Paris, Milan or New York, but I never grew those extra 2-3
inches, so my next one in the list would be featuring on the likes of Vogue
and Elle…but if I’m completely honest, I enjoy my job so much, that every
photo shoot, catwalk, music video or film I do is part of my ‘living the
dream’! I am very happy with the way my life and my career has turned out.

{TSA} What’s your biggest luxury?

{LF} I find this question a bit ambiguous…if you mean what the luxury
items I spend my money on, you need to know that I’m a bit – a lot – of a
geek, so I always need to have the latest gadget (there is only the two of
us in our house, but we have 3 iPads, 3 iPhones, 5 flat screen TVs, 2
Xbox-360 consoles, a Playstation III, a Wii, 2 latptops and a PC, which is
great for gaming sessions with friends!
If you are talking in a more figuratively way, my biggest luxury is being
healthy and having a supporting family who has always told me that with hard
work and dedication there is nothing I can’t achieve! They always make me
aim for the best, so I was a straight A student, graduated from university
with the highest GPA (I made into the ‘President’s List’, meaning I was one
of the 10 best marks from everybody graduating that summer) and in all my
jobs I tried to give 110% – nothing (and nobody) can ever be perfect, but
it’s fun trying to get there!

{TSA} I did mean figuratively – but great answer anyway! So, how would you
define your own personal modelling style?

{LF} I guess I’m what you call a classic look – long wavy blonde hair, blue
eyes and round face and body contours – so no surprise my favourite shoots
are portraits and I love modelling wedding dresses and ball-gowns on the
catwalk!
And I am a happy person, so I would say my best shots are when I’m smiling!
Of course, sometime I end up being ‘cliched’ into the same styles, so every
now and again I love doing jobs that push the boundaries, like the ‘Corpse
Bride’ shoot we did last year…it’s been great for me in terms of
networking, as everybody remembers those photos and gets surprised to see
that I was the girl under the amazing special effects make-up!

Thunder & lightening, very very frightening !!

Thunder & lightening, very very frightening !!

{TSA} Thanks for the “Corpse Bride” plug! Modelling is tough though how do you stay in shape?

{LF} Ok, to say it clear and loud, anybody who knows me, knows my love for good food! In Spain we have 5 meals a day, so when they see me eating that much in this country, I have to admit it must be down to good genes! But also the fact that I eat healthy food and use olive oil in all my cooking – that is my worst kept secret, I swear by olive oil! Of course every now and then I’m unhealthy, who can say no to bangers and mash or a proper full english breakfast! If I’m feeling too unhealthy, I drop by the gym (I say drop by, as I’m no gym-bunny and this is almost my last resort!). I try to walk for at least 30 mins every day and I’m a true believer that any night I go out clubbing, dancing all night must help too! Oh and retail therapy – good for your health to walk and carry ‘heavy bags’ for a good 4-5 hours and also good for your mind – I love shopping!

{TSA} Who do you admire and would most like to meet?

{LF} I admire people that pursue their dreams, that make the most with what
life throws at them and that enjoy the lives and careers – that’s what I aspire to!
I know it’s not realistic, but I would love to meet Leonardo Da Vinci, it amazes me how intelligent he was to make the most of his work, on a time in history where there were no computers or gadgets to do the thinking for you; I’m fascinated by all those ‘inventors’ who made amazing things – it was all down to their intellect and efficient use of the resources around them! Also, as a most trivial look at people I would like to meet, I would say Claudia Schiffer (my favourite model) and Craig David (my favourite singer).

{TSA} So what’s the best advise you have ever received? 

{LF} From my dad: ‘be the best, work hard, don’t let anybody tell you there
is something you can’t achieve, you have to believe in yourself before anybody else does’ – let’s say I’m trying to make him a proud dad!

{TSA} I think he must be proud! So tell us what you do in your “downtime”?

{LF} As mentioned in previous questions: I eat, shop, dance, play
video-games…and model! I enjoy my job so much, sometimes it does not feel
like a job!

{TSA} What is the most interesting shoot you have ever done?

{LF} I already mentioned the ‘Corpse Bride’ shoot (awesome make up, awesome location, awesome people to work with). Also some of my acting/extra roles can be quite fun, as you turn into a complete different ‘person’ each time – I have ‘been’ a nurse, a kidnap victim (three times, one of them as a vampire hostage), an art thief, a turn-of-the-century lady, an air hostess, a victorian maid, Princess Leia and a psychiatric patient, among others! Finally one of the jobs I enjoy most (for the excitement) is working as a grid girl in Silverstone, the cars are extraordinary (and the are revving,
inches away from you), everybody is in hight spirits and there are cameras
everywhere! My idea of heaven!

Bridal Fashion - Lorena F

Bridal Fashion – Lorena F

{TSA} And finally – Do you have any advice for those just wanting to start
out on a career in modelling?

{LF} This is not an easy world (the past few years have shown a boom in models and photographers) so you need to stand out and prove your worth. You have to be active, especially online where most of the jobs (and key people) are now. So:
– Build your portfolio, to create impactful images so that you can
make a name for yourself (and update it regularly).
– Network: have as many profiles online as you can, you never know where the next opportunity is going to come from. Join groups, forums and discussions; be seen and be heard.
– Show professionalism. You can be the most beautiful model around, but you will still be working with real people who also want the best for their careers, so you need to be polite, adaptable and presentable (take care of your image and health, is your best tool after all!).
– Practice, practice, practice. There is always a first time for every job, but the more you work the best you get at it…sometimes you’ll get offers for low paid or not paid at all jobs, but make sure to choose them carefully: a paid job may be more enticing (nobody likes working for free), but that unpaid job with prospects to publication will probably open more doors for you.
– And finally, enjoy what you do. If you are happy, it shows (and it’s contagious) – who doesn’t want to work with an easy-going, positive person?  And again this benefits you in the long run, as word-of-mouth will describe you as a ‘great model’, the one that offers the whole package.

{TSA} Sound advice there Lorena. That about wraps it up – thanks so much for
your time Lorena!

{LF} Thanks Colin!!

Lorena is a professional actress/model and you can see her work here, Lorena Fernandez and you can follow her on Twitter @lorena__F

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iPhoneography – Part 2

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Colin Crowdey in iPhoneography

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

App Store, art, Glaze, Hipstamatic, iPhone, iPhoneography, Photograph, red brick wall, Shopping, Smartphone, technology, Visual Arts, wrought iron gates

Morning

Since being bitten by the iPhoneography bug and falling in love with “Hipstamatic” I have been filling up my camera roll pretty frequently. But whilst I’ve been having a lot of fun doing so I started to want more – as a photographer and artist I felt that I should be creating art that would not look out of place on my living room wall.

A tall order with just a smartphone and no fancy lenses.

But over the holiday period I decided to go out specifically with the intention of capturing some images that, metaphorically speaking, would look good on my living room wall.

I was pretty happy with my resulting set of images, as photographs, but not as wall art, for that I needed a little bit of post processing to be done, but in the spirit of creating art using just my smartphone I downloaded a smart little (free) app from the app store called, Glaze.

This app turns your photos into actual paintings – pretty apt for what I wanted to do – with a little experimenting some pretty cool results can be achieved. After playing around with different settings and varying degrees of strength I opted for these.

Just a VW

Just a VW

Man in a red jacket

Man in a red jacket

Wrought Iron Gates

Wrought Iron Gates

Parking Bay outside Halfords

Parking Bay outside Halfords

 

Red brick wall with ladder

Red brick wall with ladder

Of course, you actually have to go out and take an image first, and not every image works and some images work better than others

but….

Would I have them hanging on my wall in the lounge – definitely

Is it art – absolutely

 

Best – Colin

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Facebook – to share or not to share.

03 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Colin Crowdey in General, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

blogging, business, content consumption, Facebook, facebook friends, Facebook Timeline, FB, IPad, iPhone, Online Communities, photo sharing, Photograph, photography, photos, social media, Social network, social networking, technology, Uploading and downloading

Morning,

Facebook is big, no, Facebook is HUGE, there are 7 billion people in the world and as of September 2012 there were 1 billion active Facebook accounts!

A staggering 44% of all Internet users are Facebook users and there are 600 million mobile Facebook users.

Facebook is hugely popular for sharing photos, in fact there are reports that we upload 300 million photos a day, every day and some figures are available to suggest that Facebook hosts nearly 230 billion of our photos – truly mind staggering figures.

It’s very easy to see from these figures that content we upload can be seen by a huge amount of people around the world. This can be fantastic for getting content seen by the masses, we are becoming a content consumption society, with our iPads & iPhones we constantly crave content, consuming with an insatiable appetite.

But problems can arise when content is posted that specifically elicits opinions from the masses. A good example if this happened recently, a clothing designer took a photograph of a model wearing one of his new designs, he immediately uploaded the photo to his Facebook timeline and asked for opinions on the photo. As expected there were tens of responses from his Facebook friends all saying things like, “wow, great photo”. But then someone shared that post with a person outside his circle of friends (Facebook security is overly complicated – but that’s another post)

Very soon the post generated slightly less favourable comments – nothing too disparaging – just constructive criticism. As is the way Facebook works I saw this post on another timeline, the picture was of a very well known model, and the clothes looked great on her, but the overall photo could have been significantly improved.

Within 30 minutes of the first “negative post” there were dozens of truly horrible comments made, mostly, believe it or not, by the original poster, the clothing supplier, in response to the negative comments. I watched the thread descend into vitriol and abuse and I finally reported the Facebook user when death threats were made.

The post was swiftly taken down by Facebook and I heard the clothing supplier server a three day Facebook ban.

The point of this story is that art, all forms of art, be it music, paintings, photos etc is very subjective, just because you think it is fantastic, does not mean everyone will think it’s fantastic. With a billion Facebook users you can bet there will be some that don’t like your art. The masses are not qualified to give objective opinion, if you want or need objective opinion find and join one of the many Facebook groups that suits your particular art form.

Best – Colin

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Picture within a Picture

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography, Wildlife

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

be prepared, birds, Carrion Crow, DSLR, Fountain, Handhelds, Hipstamatic, iPhone, nature, opportunism, photography, portraiture, silhouette, Smartphone, Smartphones, Wildlife Photography

Morning.

Some of you will know I actually shoot a lot of wildlife photography as well as my bread and butter portraiture and bridal work. Wildlife photography is much harder than people think, you can’t ask the subject to “pose like this”, or “just move this way a little bit”, you have to take what you can get – usually.

Sometimes though an opportunity presents itself when you least expect it!

This image of the fountain – there is a lot going on, water splashing, sun poking from behind the centre pillar – but I wasn’t taking a picture of the fountain. Take a close look and you will see a Carrion Crow perching all fluffed up. He was in the middle bowl of the fountain bathing (heaven knows why it was near freezing where I was stood!) and I only had my iPhone on me at the time.

Straight away I saw in my mind this picture, but it had to be a silhouette, behind me were grey buildings so anything other than being backlit would not have worked. I positioned myself so the sun was just poking from behind the pillar to give added interest and waited for him to jump out.

I was lucky that he jumped out the right side AND fluffed his wings – I took several shots using the iPhone and the Hipstamatic App, there are several with him in full silhouette just perching, but I prefer this fluffed up one.

Carrion Crow - taken using Hipstamatic - using Foxy Lens & Kodak XGrizzled Film

Carrion Crow – taken using Hipstamatic – using Foxy Lens & Kodak XGrizzled Film

Sometimes pictures of wildlife can have greater impact on the viewer when they show the environment more than the subject, in this instance the picture only works because of the surroundings, a close up silhouette of the Crow (if I had my DSLR with me) would not have been so appealing.

Best – Colin

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iPhoneography

30 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

App Store, Apple, camera, camera function, Digital single-lens reflex camera, film types, gadgets, glyn evans, Hipstamatic, iPhone, iPhoneography, mobile, Photograph, technology

Afternoon

iPhoneography – taking photos with your iPhone – right?

A brief history lesson first – back in November 2008 a fellow called Glyn Evans launched a Blog onto the unsuspecting world, called iPhoneography.com. Glyn’s Blog bought the phrase iPhoneography to the masses, more so because Apple has Patent rights on the term iPhone and to date have not pursued him for infringement – thus implying tacit approval. 

iPhoneography has become very big business these days. With the explosion of the App store there are literally thousands of Apps for the iPhone and many are specifically related to the Camera function of the phone.

Like most people with an iPhone, I have downloaded my fair share of “Apps” for the camera, I have the usual HDR Apps & Camera Plus, along with the almost mandatory Instagram App, but yesterday I downloaded an App I had only been made aware of via an advert in an online magazine, and its called Hipstamatic.

Hipstamatic uses the iPhone’s camera function to enable you to shoot square photographs, to which it applies a number of software filters to make the images look as though they were taken with an antique film camera. You can then choose among a number of effects which are presented in the application as simulated lenses, films and flashes. 

Its a pretty cool App to play with, you can change lenses and film types with just a swipe of your finger to give you hundreds of different possibilities when shooting – but does it cut the mustard?

One of the great things I learnt pretty quickly is that rather than having to change lenses and film types between shots (which could get very time consuming) you can enable a “shake to randomise” feature. Just shake your iPhone and you will get a random selection of lens and film type. I looked pretty daft shaking my phone vigorously  every few minutes!!

Here are twenty of the best, different subjects, different lens/film combinations.

Would I recommend Hipstamatic? You bet

Would I have taken any of these photos if I had been using my DSLR? Nope

Is it art? I think so 🙂

Foxy Lens - GS0 Film

GSQUAD Lens - Kodak XGrizzled FilmJimmy Lens - Ginas 1962 FilmLibatique 73 Lens - Kodak X Grizzled FilmFoxy Lens - Blanko FilmTejas Lens - Inas 1969 FilmLucas AB2 Lens - GS- 0 FilmFoxy Lens - XGrizzled FilmJimmys Lens - Inas 1969 FilmFoxy Lens - XGrizzled FilmLibatique 73 Lens - Sugar FilmMelodie Lens - Blanko FilmJames M Lens - GS-0 FilmHipstamatic - blog-16GSQUAD Lens - Big Up FilmLucas AB2 Lens - Inas 1969 FilmMelodie Lens - Dream Canvas FilmSusie Lens - Sugar FilmSusie Lens - Rock 11 FilmLucas AB2 - Blanko FilmLibatique 73 Lens - Inas 1982 Film

 

Best – Colin

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