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Mariell Guzman for Advocate Magazine

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I am incredibly proud of the images I got on this shoot.

Why?

For the longest time, I was only comfortable shooting natural light, or using strobes in a studio, but never both at the same time. On this shoot, I combined the sun and strobes, and it didn’t end up a complete shit show! I’m also really proud of myself for going above and beyond with the propping.

So what was the process?

To get inspired, I did a few things:

1) Scrolled through her IG, read through the captions. This helped me get to know the artist.
2) Brain dump, i.e. write out all the words that pop into my mind that are related to this person and their medium.
3) Find inspiration photos/go-bys

All of these things helped me hone in my concept. At the end of the day, I decided I would get a few safe shots of Mariell in front of one of her murals; but how was I going to push it and add a little something extra to make things more interesting? I wondered how I could give viewers a different perspective of the artist’s process, and landed on having her draw/paint on a clear canvas, then shooting through the other side. I was feeling pretty good about myself for coming up with that idea, but soon after came across this portrait by the incomparable Chris Buck and saw he’d already done the same thing, haha.

Photo of Jomny Sun shot by Chris Buck

Photo of Jomny Sun shot by Chris Buck

Nevertheless I went to Home Depot and bought a sheet of plexiglass, and a few oil based Sharpies. Side note, editorials don’t pay much AT ALL. And while the publisher isn’t asking me to, I’m buying supplies out of pocket, so I didn’t really make any money on this shoot. That’s not the purpose though; I had the opportunity to photograph a really interesting subject, and add a few strong portraits to my portfolio which would hopefully lead to more work down the road. Here are a few of my favorite images. I usually prefer moody images, but I love how bright and happy these turned out. The perfect summer shoot.

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