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With over 10 years as a top model mainly in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan I soon found my self desperately wanting to be on the other side of the camera! I think it is quite natural for a model to know what frames a photo well, to understand all about the lighting, backgrounds, angles and how poses can create a great photo. With many years of experience (and seeing really awful photos of myself that made me want to cry as well as some nice ones!) I found I had a keen eye and was very keen to give it a go.
Please find a summary portfolio of my commercial photography below and the history of how I became a fashion photographer underneath.
It really happened by chance, I knew I had a talent for photography but didn’t think I could compete with all the top photographers especially without having had any technical training, since I had already been working for ten years I didn’t really find the prospect of going back to school appealing, so I opened a model agency in Hong Kong with my best friend instead! That’s when it all started to happen… Most of our models we signed on were new comers, we scouted them, and they had no photos for their portfolios. We started off paying photographers to make their portfolios, but it was expensive and we were never happy with the results, they only shot would they wanted for their own portfolios which was totally unsuitable for a model. So I trotted off to the nearest camera shop and bought myself a Nikon body and a lovely Nikon lens with the advice from a friend. The lens I still have and use today, it’s my “baby”!!! 135mm 2.8 manual focus (I hate using auto focus lenses and I always prefer a fixed lens) I started to shoot head shots for our exclusive models and then body shots and soon more fashion and beauty kind of ones so they had enough variety to make a composite card and a range of photos for their portfolios. It worked really well, and soon our freshly groomed ladies and gentleman were off on castings.
What happened next was totally unexpected! I started getting calls from advertising agencies and fashion brands saying they loved the photos I had taken for our models (our models had told them when they were asked who took the photos) and then even more shocking news came when I got asked to shoot a Worldwide catalogue for a high end lingerie and swim wear company! Wow! I had no idea how much to charge or anything, but I went in head first and they loved the results, I was asked to shoot their next season’s catalogue and also started getting requests to quote on photography campaigns I thought were far out of my reach! I quickly threw together my own portfolio and my photography profession was born! I don’t think any other photographer could have fallen into their career as easily as I did. I like to think my passion for photographing people and my exceptional eye to detail and beauty has a large part to play in it.
I worked hard for the next few years with fashion magazines, improving and experimenting on different lighting and shooting techniques, I rented out every camera available and all the different lenses and all different kind of lighting until I knew what everything did and what affects a photograph. I built swimming pools in my tiny studio in Central, rain machines, everything I could think of to gain as much experience as I could as I was ready to shoot anything if asked to. And I can comfortable say I can shoot anything, except for those shots that require the photographer to hang out of a helicopter. Yes, I have been asked to do that, I had to refuse, sorry I don’t hang out of helicopters! Have been harnessed dangling from a tree on the edge of a cliff to get a shot but that’s as far as it goes!
