Friday, January 31, 2014

Janurary 2014

On December 31st I decided to take a self-portrait. 2013 was, without over-sharing, a horrendous year. It started badly and it kicked me down for the rest of it. The only highlight to this parade of doom was photography. I won't wax poetic about how it makes my life worth living (who's got time for that), but I will say it kept me afloat. I've found my "photo" stride over the past two years and I'm consistently producing images that I can look back on and feel proud about. My style is actually coming through and my directing and producing is improving with each shoot. Yay for me, right? Pat on the back.

So, back to the self-portrait. I stopped taking many of those after my 365 ended and I discovered how much fun it is to photograph other people. In the interim I also ate a lot of my feelings (bad year, guys) and I started to hate the way I looked. As is usual on New Year's Eve one is full of the best intentions and daring plans. I decided to start taking care of myself, physically and emotionally, and to document that journey with photos. I'd like to be able to see myself in a photo and love what I see.

Ella happened to be around during this time and I bullied her into my journey of self-portraits. The rest, well, is history. Below is the photo the started it all and became the first theme for Let's Get Creative 2014. I've added a couple of out takes, which is rare for me. I've also gone back and re-edited as I felt the first one wasn't really in keeping with my style. Onwards!


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Oh Red week, how I loathe you. A classic case of me trying to be conceptual and failing miserably. Simple, pretty things, that's more my thing. I've managed to salvage two out takes as well for the heck of it. Let's just move on, shall we?

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Books! I like books. Like, a lot. And I've taken many a self-portrait with them. This photo evolved as it went along, including wardrobe and over-all theme. It was meant to be a really simple photo of me holding books (as you do) and I just couldn't resist a bit of tulle and a crown. Because I'm human.

3/51 Books

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I'm outside! At a cemetery no less. In the company of my mother and a few grave diggers. I also did that to my hair, which was amazing until I tried to wash it out and failed. I do like being on location, and I hope more of my photos are outside. Also, I seem to be hitting my stride with the self-portrait game, feeling more confident in front of the camera.

4/52 "flowers"

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Horse! And boy does that photo look a million times better on my blog than teeny on Facebook and Flickr. Hat week is a small tribute to the awesome dude who's hat that was, my dad, the real-life cowboy. I'm rather annoyed my hair is that mint color and fully expect it to be gone before street week, which I am dreading. I am also dreading sky week. Why did I come up with these themes? Blame Ella....  Also, KITTEN PHOTO! Kittens are the best.

5/52

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All images are MINE you hear?! ©Nathalie Donado

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The Wanderers

Another wondrously improvised shoot with stylist Luiza Pino, which was slapped together in a couple of hours with about zero prep. Quickly becoming on of my all-time favourite shoots. Big thanks to the genetically blessed cousins who modeled for me: Maria Jose Mccausland, Isabela Mccausland and Diana Echeverry. And big thanks to Luiz for letting us play with his awesome Jeep and assisting (flying a kite).


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All images ©Nathalie Donado