Did You Notice?

Yup--now you can see me.

dB from foodcandy.com and I had a nice chat about Allergic Girl—it will show up as an interview on that site soon, keep an eye out. And he asked for a few pics. Yay! However, I didn’t really have any great picture lying around, certainly not any that would make sense for this site. So, I called upon an old friend, Kenneth Chen.

You might have seen Kenneth’s work in New York Magazine; he’s done many, many food pics for them. When I first met him, he was building his portfolio and doing a lot of portraits: he took my mother’s author photo. Very interested in photography, I worked as his assistant for a summer: being the schlepper, bookkeeper and plugger-in of the strobe connections, all in the right order so the light didn’t explode when turned on. When I told my friend Isabel that he was taking some pictures for me, she mentioned he had done a family album for her about 10 years ago. And then a woman I sat next to at a brunch Sunday [more on that later], Lesley Dormen, said he took her picture, also ages ago, for a contributing editor gig at a woman’s mag. All this is to say he’s done a lot of portraits; I knew I was in fantastic hands.

The morning of the shoot, Michael hooked me up with Wilbert at the Paula Dorff make-up counter at Bendel’s—thank you Wilbert and Michael. Paula’s makeup is nut-free and hypoallergenic and not expensive for a department store brand. The makeup color palette was very natural, soft-looking and not fragrant [e.g. Chanel is great but has a very definite Chanel smell]. I bought my first blush; I might actually use it on a regular basis. Sigh, this is what happens when you mature; you buy blush.

Once made up with wardrobe, Kenneth and I spent the afternoon playing with Jordan almonds, pistachios and a huge bag of Brazil nuts and cashews (which made me a little nervous but I never touched any). And giggling. We ended up with gorgeous shots. So interesting: all digi, no strobe, no fill lights and no film! I still can’t get over that; that no one uses FILM anymore. Did anyone else notice this? Sigh. I liked film. Anyway...

Kenneth is a consummate professional and a lovely person, I hope we can work together again in the near future--Thank you Kenneth! And I hope you like the picture as much as I do.

Comments

Heather said…
The photo is fantastic, and the blue from your shirt and your eyes just pops!

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