Tag: portrait

Photography: Self-Portraiture.

Every so often I decide to do a new profile picture for myself. After all, it does tend to get boring having the same old picture populate the social networks day in and day out. Well, after getting my make-up done (complete with gorgeous false lashes), I could not resist taking some photos of the result.

Unlike the photos in the previous post, I was able to control the lighting in these ones, which makes (in my opinion) for a far more refined finished product. I absolutely love the way the lighting turned out: soft and subtle across the face, accentuating the doll-like appearance I was trying to achieve.

The thing I love about photography like this is that it really can enhance appearance. In everyday situations, you don’t have perfect lighting or the ability to pose just-so. You don’t have post-processing to make sure that your teeth are just the right shade of white, or to take away that stubborn pimple that popped up out of nowhere. A photo like this is an idealized view of oneself, and honestly, a good ole fashioned ego boost when you’re feeling down.

Although admittedly… it does also make me feel a little depressed that I don’t look like that all the time!

July 16, 2012
Photography: An Elven Maiden.

I was recently fortunate enough to be able to take some pictures of Erin McNamee, after she had been made over with an elven look and prosthetics. Although the lighting in the room was not ideal, I still think they turned out fairly well.

The make-up and prosthetics were created and applied by Kylie Joy Creative Makeup. She was a pleasure to work, and had even gone to the effort of custom-mixing eye-shadows just for the look she wanted to create! The make-up itself was fantastic, but for some reason, adding the pointed ears and the flowing wig just transformed Erin into an incredible creature of fantasy.

I’ll be posting another couple of portraits of her soon. For the second look, I was able to whisk her away to where I could control the lighting a little better, so they’re a bit more refined than this pair!

July 15, 2012
Kat Johnston Sketch: Just a girl with bangs.

It is interesting when I notice the differences between how different people will use the English language. For example, in Australia, we would call ‘bangs’ a ‘fringe’ instead. It would be very rare, I think, to say to someone here, ‘Oh, I love your bangs!’ They’d just look at you funny. The same goes for ‘barrette’ (American English) and ‘hair-clip’ (Australian/British English).

In fact, when I first heard the terms, ‘bangs’ and ‘barrettes’, I had to look them up to understand what was meant by the words. I just hadn’t come across them, at least not until I was 13 or 14 or so. The words had been introduced to me in an American young adult fiction book (I was an avid reader), and I was deadly curious about what was meant by these seemingly foreign words.

In recent years, my perception has shifted a little though. Whereas, when I first encountered ‘bangs’ it was just a weird word that other people used to refer to a fringe, I’ve noticed myself thinking the word instinctively now, instead of ‘fringe’ – especially if I’m thinking of blunt bangs, as in the picture for today.

The language we use changes over time, but some things will probably always stay the same. While I may understand the term ‘barrette’, they’ll always be ‘hair-clips’ to me.

July 11, 2012
Sketch: A little something in progress.

So I’m doing up a portrait… but it isn’t actually going to be shaded, as this image implies. I was just playing around with my wacom and felt the urge to fill in some rough shading!

It’s going to be turned into a vector, if I have my way. Even though it is not yet finished, I thought I’d better pop something up onto the blog for now, since I’ve left it for so long without an update. I’ve gone way too long without putting a sketch up, don’t you think?

I’ll put up the finished product when I’m done!

March 13, 2011
Sketch: Just a quick sketch for today… I’m working on something cute.

I’ve been working on something incredibly cute for the past day, so I’m going to put up this for now, and save the extra cuteness for later!

Here… let me give you a hint. It involves a legendary mythical creature, cuteness, scissors and something I’ve already shown at least once on the site.

Buuuut for today… just a little red scribble-portrait. As I’ve mentioned before, I enjoy playing with different pens and things – a scribble portrait in a traditional ball-point pen is always going to have a different feel from something done in a bright red ink pen. I find it incredible just how much the medium can affect the outcome.

That’s all for today – there’s cute stuff on the horizon!

November 9, 2010