Thursday, December 27, 2012

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

mara schiavocampo

Monday, December 17, 2012

Vamping it up in a hot pink bikini! Twilight star Judi Shekoni braves the sunlight on rare beach break

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Vamping it up in a hot pink bikini! Twilight star Judi Shekoni braves the sunlight on rare beach break
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UPDATED:
15:58 GMT, 2 December 2012
She has gone from East End vixen to Hollywood vamp and it certainly suits British actress Judi Shekoni.
The Twilight star, 30, took some time out of her now very busty Breaking Dawn 2 promotional schedule to soak up some rays in LA.
And it seems the sea brings the star, who plays an Amazonian vampire, luck as it was on a cruise in the Bahamas a few years ago when she happened on the book that was to change her career.

The next Bond girl! Judi Shekoni looks incredible in a hit pink bikini which shows off her toned figure

She picked up her friend’s copy of Twilight and, like millions around the world, became hooked.
Judi had enjoyed a successful spell as gangster’s moll Precious Hudson in EastEnders, but after moving to Los Angeles to pursue her career, she heard that the producers of the Twilight film franchise were casting for the role of Amazonian vampire Zafrina.
‘I wanted the role really badly, so I got an audition and I landed the part,’ she told The Daily Mail's Linda Das. ‘It was a dream come true’.

Beach beauty: Judi soaks up some rays – a well deserved break after a tiring promotional schedule for Breaking Dawn 2

The Twilight films have raked in more than 1.2 billion at the box office and have transformed Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella Swan, and Robert Pattinson, her vampire lover Edward Cullen, into worldwide stars.
Judi, who does not comment on either R-Patz or K-Stew, does say is that Kristen, far from being the sullen actress of popular depiction, ‘is completely up for a laugh and for taking the mickey, while Rob is very British — self-deprecating and down-to-earth. Kristen set a precedent for having a good time and not taking it too seriously
‘But they both had a massive work ethic — they’d be on set before everyone and would leave after everybody else every single day. They were extremely mature and professional.’

Taking a break: Judi, who was only known for her EastEnder role, is now a Hollywood superstar

Judi spent six months filming Breaking Dawn Part 2 on location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the U.S., and in Vancouver and Squamish in Canada. ‘When I first arrived, there were Twi-hards at the airport, and kids following us around with their mums.’
She has borne witness to the Twilight phenomenon called The Screamer — where fans attend a Twilight event and ‘scream and just keep screaming’. Even so, she is incredibly accommodating of her followers.

Erykah Badu

Tracey Heggins

NEW FACE FRIDAYS~ Tracey Heggins aka Senna (Amazon Coven)

This week New Face Friday's features Tracey Heggins, who plays Senna in The Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn Part 2! Each week a fan site is hosting one of the new vampires from the last film in the saga… We hope you really enjoy reading about Tracey, and her experience playing Senna

from Twilight Series Theories

Interview:

Tracey: Hi! How are you guys?
Great!

Tracey: I am excited to talk to you guys!

Q: We just saw the posters of you and Zafrina. The other actors have talked about what they first thought when they saw themselves. What was your first reaction when you saw the hair and the make up, and the outfit and the eyes?

Tracey: Roar! (sound) That is exactly what I thought! Whoa! This has an earthy, sexy quality to it, so I was all for it. It’s very exciting!

Q: Speaking of what you look like… You are baring a lot in your outfit. I’m wondering if you had to diet or work out? What was your regiment?

Tracey: Yeah! I have to work out. I’m a hippy girl… I have hips and curves. Literally, when I had the fitting, I had a King Size Snicker bar in my purse. After I had seen the outfit, on my way out, I dropped it into the trash can.

(Laughing)

I was, like, oh, no, no, no, no! But yeah, I do a lot of yoga. And, on set it was easy to be disciplined because Kellan Lutz is up there working out all day long, and the rest of them were fighting to get to the gym before shoot time. So, you know, it was a lot of camaraderie at the gym because we were all on camera.

Q: You were a big fan of the books and the franchise before getting cast. When you were cast who was the first person you told, when you were aloud to tell?

Tracey: Oh! My sister! My sister’s my best friend. It literally blew my mind, because I’m such a sic-fi, fantasy, you know, fan. And, I’m in love with love. Stephenie really captured that first love, that first passion. So, it was just an honor, I was jumping over the moon, and yelling! And, she was looking at me, my sister, and asking, “What the heck are you yelling about?” I was like, “I just got the job, it’s an amazing opportunity!”

Q: I’ve hear Mackenzie and Judi talk a lot about working with you, but I haven’t heard you talk about working with them. Can you talk a little about your relationship on set and off?

Tracey: Wow! They’re both my girls! I’m telling you… That Mackenzie is something beautiful and something special! She was my test student for my children’t books. I would read to her and she would give me her notes. She would come to set with pictures drawn of my characters, which was amazing. She’s just a sweet honest soul, she’s a nice little girl. We’d have walks looking at the ducks and things, we really honestly became friends and, well, I’m that age at heart! So what can I say? It’s not a stretch for me, I think I’m a little girl. And then, Judi, I cannot go shopping with her because we like the same things, and if I have a quarter in my purse we’ll go to the mall and figure out how to spend it. Judi is the best shopping mate of all time! She likes funky items. Even though we are so different, we are so much alike. Like, for instance, she’s got this ‘rocker’ kind of quality, and Iove classic things. But for some reason, we’ll end up buying the same things but putting them on totally different. It was truly a blessing.

Tracey Heggins (aka Senna, pictured at left) plays Senna of the Amazon Coven. She is joined by Zafrina (Judy Shekoni)

Q: I was wondering if when you were preparing did you get a chance to talk with Stephenie about these characters, or was there any pow-wow about how she saw them and how you were going to portray them?

Tracey: Yeah, yeah! It was exciting! Very, very exciting! She was literally on set the whole time we were shooting and she was so available and so kind. So if we had any kind of question she was open to answer them. We’d ask, “What do you think we would do here?” And she was very receptive. That was really a blessing. I mean, I was in awe! I love Stephenie Meyer… I’ve read The Host, and everything. At first I was speechless, and then, she’s so warm and so kind, what can you say, but thank you!

Q: So you had some of your first Twilight experiences with the Breaking Dawn Part 1 Premiere and Comic Con this year. How are you handling it and what are you looking forward to when the movie actually gets in theaters?

Tracey: The Twilight fans, in particular, are just so kind and the reception has been so warm. So I’m just riding the wave. It’s a nice place to be as an actor. You couldn’t have been blessed any more to be able to do this and have the fans support you. So I haven’t seen the movie so I’m curious. I don’t know what I expect. I just know that it was a blessing to work on the project. I met so many friends, like Mackenzie and Judi. Working with them, Toni Trucks, Valerie, all of them, Erik, Noel Fisher. I met so many great people, so hopefully through this, I’ll maintain my friendships.

Q: Your character doesn’t really have a special super power in the movie, but if you could choose any power for your character which one would you like it to be?

Tracey: Oh boy! That is so good! I mean all of them are so awesome! What special power? I mean… I guess she would like to have a shield, but then… Ahhhhh! Oh golly! I mean there are so many I would like a piece of all of them. Um, let me see which power would I want? I guess to electrocute people! I mean, my character’s a fighter, and that would go well with her. (Laughs) That was a good power to have. I think it’s so fun, so I guess that one.

Q: If you had a favorite thing to shoot, was there a moment you were, like, ‘Wow!’?

Tracey: Yeah! My first ‘Wow!’ moment was when I got on set, but pretty much the scenes when we all, it’s in the trailer, when we all said that we want to stand by the Cullens. Just watching everybody in action, I thought that was a good moment. Because, it was something… I don’t want to use the word teaser, but I just think that it was just one of those surreal moments for me. Looking around and watching everybody else and say that we want to help the Cullen’s out, that was a big moment for me. I thought it was awesome.

Q: Looking at your costume, I think you and Judi both have a costume, as you said, a smaller costume, and everyone is always talking about the wolves having to be in the cold with not a lot on. I think you’re the first girls to be in the cold with not a lot on. How did you buck up against all the cold weather wearing what you were wearing?

Tracey: Oh Wow! They provided us with heaters and all kinds of stuff. We had, like, foot warmies on. It still was jarring, as soon as you walk out. We’re deep in Canada, and walk out, and the cold does hit you. But I think that we were so full of adrenaline from being on set, and being in Twilight that it didn’t really effect us much. We moved around so much that I think we were working off adrenaline, but then as soon as your ending the day you realize it’s kind of cold out here… With our little outfits on. Everyone could hear me coming down the hallway because I had all the puka shells, and you’d hear me, like, “clack, clack, clack”. The first two days it was driving me crazy, but then I missed it afterwards. I was like, “Awe man! I have no theme music!”

Q: Did you get to keep anything from set, or from your costumes or anything?

Tracey: I tried, but no! They were checking my bag on the way out! No, I guess they never know if we’re going to be reshooting, or what’s going on, so the set, they keep those just in case.

Q: We saw in the promotional pictures the makeup around your eyes, but in the film we don’t see that. Is that something we will actually see in the movie, or is it just in the promotional shot?

Tracey: No! You’ll see that in the movie, I don’t want to spoil anything, but yeah! You’ll see our makeup… Our special makeup!

Hmmmmm…

Tracey: It was fun! At first when they put it on me, I was like, “Hey! What are you doing? What is this going to look like?” But after we got it on, were like, “Wow! This is super cool!” It goes with the contacts and the hair, because as you can see I have really short hair. Everything, it’s so fun, such a blessing… I cannot complain at all! That is super fun, when they’re experimenting putting makeup on you and making you look fierce. It was just great, even playing in the makeup, I’m such a girl!

Q: In the books, Senna doesn’t talk much. Do you have lines in the movie?

Zafrina plays Senna's Amazon Coven "Sister"

Tracey: Yeah! In the trailer, I have my little line there. In general, yes. I like that you brought that up. Senna is very quiet, you know, she’s watching. She’s there to protect Zafrina, and she’s kind of scared. In my backstory, the last time she’s seen the modern world, they were making a muck of her village and moving things. She is that quiet, kind of watching… And then she meets the Cullen’s and you can’t help but fall in love with them. But yeah, Senna is always constantly checking out, and figuring are these good people or are these bad people? How are they feeling? She doesn’t have a whole lot to say, because she really wants to see what’s going on. Is Zafrina going to be safe, and now is this baby going to be safe? What’s going to happen? She’s very fierce, and she’s almost like a lioness. She’s maternal and visceral.

It’s all about forceful presence!

Tracey: Yeah!

Thank you, Tracey and Twilight Series Theory for this spectacular interview!!!

via source

Pink Panther Cartoon Series

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

It’s Guest Blog Wednesday featuring Brian Smith!

by Brad Moore | 7 comments

Wednesday

Oct
2012

Taye Diggs & Brian Smith
Huge Thanks to Scott, Brad and the entire gang at Kelby Media for kindly allowing me to hijack the Photoshop Insider blog to share a few of my favorite portrait photography tips from my new book Secrets of Great Portrait Photography
I never set out to be a portrait photographer. I started out shooting news and sports photographer but gradually made the move to magazine portrait photography when I realized that I preferred connecting with people face-to-face instead of from the distance of a 600mm lens and I’ve learned a lot along the way.
Here are just a few of my favorite stories from the last two decades photographing celebrities—stories that reveal what really goes on behind the scenes of a high-profile portrait shoot. I learned a lot in the course of these shoots and I hope you will too.

PUSH THE RIGHT BUTTONS

David Hyde Pierce & Kelsey Grammer photographed for Art & Soul
The first key to successful portrait photography is finding a way to connect with your subject. Portrait photography is kind of like mixing psychology and speed-dating. You’ve got to quickly figure the right approach to take with your subject to connect with them and draw out their personality.
I get asked all the time how I pose people or what I say to them to bring out a great expression. There is no magic phrase or pose that works every single time. I’m not trying to be coy or hide any secrets, but there’s simply no formula to this. An approach that works for Donald Trump will likely fail miserably with Bill Gates. The best way I can answer that is to say: It’s Different Every Time!
When I was shot Art & Soul in partnership with The Creative Coalition and Sony as a way for celebrities to show their support for arts education, David Hyde Pierce was one of the first actors I photographed for the book. David has such an amazing face, I didn’t have to do much to come away with a memorable portrait.
That photo of David was enough to convince Kelsey Grammer to pose for the book. After just a dozen frames, I’d only started warming Kelsey up when he turned to leave with the words, “Certainly, you must have what you need.” I only had a split-second to save the shoot, so without pause I replied, “Yes, I suppose I do, though we got a lot more out of David Hyde Pierce.” The sheepish look on Kelsey’s face is his reaction to being upstaged by his Frazier co-star.
Peer pressure can be a wonderful thing.

FIND THE PLACE

Jack and Elaine LaLanne photographed in Morro Bay, California
When photographing an environmental portrait on location, the shot is about the person and the place, so I always spend time before the shoot getting to know the location and searching out the most interesting place to shoot.
I grew up in the 60s watching guru Jack LaLanne on TV every morning whip Americans into shape. When I got the chance to photograph Jack and his wife Elaine at their home in Morro Bay, California, I wanted to shoot the couple together at sunset with the Morro Bay Rocks behind them.
It was a landmark suitable for a legend – yet until they struck a pose flexing their biceps, I hadn’t pictured that the Morro Bay Rocks would become a third bicep rising out of the sea. Sometimes you just get lucky.

SEIZE THE MOMENT

Jeff Gordon photographed for Ocean Drive
Reportage and sports action photography are all about anticipating what’s about to happen and putting yourself in the right position to capture it when it unfolds. Portrait photography is more about directing and creating and making something happen. It’s not uncommon to hear photographers loudly debate the merits of one over the other – particularly when cold beers are involved. Honestly, one is not better than the other, they’re simply different. The great thing is that the skills you learn from one can make you better at the other.
The idea for this shoot NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon was to combine the expected with the unexpected. We got approval to shoot Jeff at Homestead racetrack, which is a place you might expect to find him, but gave it a twist by shooting him in a spot he could never be during a race—standing in the middle of the track along the final turn leading to the grandstands.
Anything can happen in the course of a shoot, and embracing these elements of surprise rather than fighting them can result in some unique portraits. In this case, I noticed that the wind kept blowing Jeff’s tie up, but instead of pinning the tie down, I asked the stylist to pin it up to match the sense of motion in the checkered race flag. Even when directing a shoot, keep you eyes out for things that happen naturally.

SELL YOUR IDEAS

Donald Trump photographed for New York Magazine
A great concept is worthless if you can’t convince your subject to do it. Convincing celebrities to take the risks that make great portraits is a bit of an art form in itself.
New York Magazine, assigned me to shoot Donald Trump at his Palm Beach mansion, Mar-a-Lago. I went in the day before to scout the location with the stylist, my wife Fazia. When we spotted a pair of massive poolside swan fountains and pictured the Donald, decked out all in white and sitting on the swan so that it looked like he had angel wings.
Without hesitation, my ballsy wife called the store where she’d reserved Trump’s wardrobe for the shoot, canceled the suits she had lined up and asked for every white suit they had in Trump’s size.
The next day we showed up at Mar-a-Lago with nothing but eight white suits. Trump’s handlers were worried since they’d never seen him wear all white and they were concerned that it might not be the best look for him. But I’ve always found that dealing with people confident egos is actually a piece of cake since we all want the same thing—to make them look good.
When Trump showed up, he took one look at his wardrobe and said, “I’ve always wanted to do a shoot in a white suit. Don’t you think I’ll look good in a white suit?” As it turned out, he did look good in a white suit. And he loved the look so much he even bought the suit!

LESS IS MORE

Don King photographed for Forbes
When Forbes assigned me to shoot Don King, art director Bob Mansfield’s direction consisted of two words: “Think cover.”
I knew I had to bring back a bold, eye-catching image if I wanted to land the cover and figured that nothing could be more eye-catching on the cover of a business magazine than King’s signature hair.
We kept the shot very simple. With King in profile, I backlit him from both sides to rim light his face and make his hair glow, and his face is lit from the front with ring flash. Right before we shot, Don did his part, combing through his hair to make it stand up. Did Don make the cover? Absolutely!

SHOOT LESS – THINK MORE

Simeon Rice photographed for ESPN the Magazine
When you’re shooting pro athletes, it’s virtually a given that your time will be limited. You can either panic or embrace it.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were in the midst of their Super Bowl run when ESPN the Magazine sent me to shoot defensive end Simeon Rice. With only a half hour to do so, my job was to come away with as much variety as I could in the time I had to make my editor happy.
Sure, you can walk in with a high-speed motor drive and machine gun the hell out of the shoot, but often the best approach is to do the opposite. We kept things very simple, shooting outdoors in available light against a plain black background with my vintage Graflex Super D camera and Polaroid Type 665 Positive/Negative film. You shoot, pull the Polaroid to process, wait 15 seconds, peel it apart, drop the negative side into cold water, and look at the positive to see what you got. Out of the 39 frames we shot, five shots ended up in the magazine.
Shoot less. Think more. Make every shot count.

SHOOT ONE FOR YOURSELF

Christy Martin photographed for Sports Illustrated
Never leave a shoot without at least one shot that makes you proud. Although some magazine assignments can be very open-ended, others read like a shopping list. You always have to photograph what’s on the list, but you shouldn’t overlook a great shot just because the magazine didn’t think to ask for it.
This Sports Illustrated shoot of boxer Christy Martin read like an endless shopping list of shots. We started early in the day and had knocked out the sixteenth and final shot and everyone was beat. When I told Christy I had an idea for one final photo, she shot me a look like, “You know I could kick your ass.” But she agreed to do it if I made it quick.
I pulled out my 4×5, placed a single flash head on a boom directly overhead to mimic the tungsten spotlights you’d see at a fight, and taped a full CTO warming gel over the reflector. I shot just four frames of 4×5 and sent Christy on her way. When I shipped the take to my editor at SI, I made certain those four frames were on top.
A week later I got a call from my editor; “Congratulations, you got the cover—and it wasn’t even one of the shots we asked for.”
Always shoot one for yourself because there’s often more to the story than just what’s on your shot list. Those four extra sheets of film got me a cover I wouldn’t have had if I’d done only what was asked.

HAVE FUN

Nude Golf photographed for Sports Illustrated
If I had to rank these points, I’d actually put this number one. Never, ever forget that photography should be FUN, both for you and the person on the other side of your lens.
One of the keys to successful portrait photography is having all the technical aspects of the shoot nailed down before the subject walks in front of your lens. Then put all the technical stuff out of your mind so that you can concentrate on the person you’re shooting.
As a photographer, there’s nothing better than getting a call from a photo editor who begins the call with the words, “I’ve got a shoot that’s perfect for you…” unless their next words are “nudist golf.” With those two words, consider my calendar cleared. Our shoot was not only tons of fun – it also resulted in some of my favorite photographs ever.

TELL THE STORY

Richard Branson photographed for Time Magazine
I’ll close with this portrait of Richard Branson from the cover of Secrets of Great Portrait Photography since it encompasses so many of the points I’ve made in this post.
“Richard Branson…on Necker Island…in a spacesuit.” That pitch from TIME magazine photo editor Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz is as good of a pitch as I’ve ever heard, but to be honest, he had me at Branson.
Branson is a photographer’s dream subject: He’s extremely media savvy, and he knows a great concept when he hears one. So when we suggested putting him in a spacesuit for a story about his new Virgin Galactic space flights, he was immediately sold on the idea.
Necker Island had a lot of great locations ranging from palm-lined tropical beaches to red rock cliffs that looked like Mars, but my favorite was a little sandbar just off the island surrounded by nothing but the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean. After discovering that I wanted to shoot on a spit of sand just off the island at sunrise, Branson leaned over to me at dinner and slyly said, “Sunrise is at 5:30 a.m.” Without skipping a beat, he added, “So you and I need to be at the dock at five.”
The next morning, which just happened to be Christmas Eve morning, we were all up before dawn boarding the boat to the sandbar just in time for Branson to don the spacesuit as the sun began to break the horizon. I shot from one knee so that Branson and his spacesuit rose heroically into the sky. We shot for about and hour starting at first light. The resulting portrait, blends conceptual and environment portrait with a touch of the unexpected and boy did we have fun!
You can see more of Brian’s work at BrianSmith.com, keep up with him on his blog, and find him on Facebook and Twitter.
For a limited time, you can also get 35% off Secrets of Great Portrait Photography using the code SMITH at the Peachpit Store!

related: Guest Blogger 7

Posted by Brad Moore

I'm Scott Kelby's photo assistant and studio manager. I also help out with the guest blog series and Free Stuff Thursdays here at ScottKelby.com. When I'm not at the office, I'm probably at a concert or hanging out with friends.

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Photographer David McClain

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Fashion Twins

anya ayoung-chee fashion designer advice

I am so committed to the arts because the arts is a vehicle for self expression, self identification, self esteem, all of these things. You may or may not want to become the Kes or Elle but the opportunity to know you have a voice and its valid and you can shout it loud, it is such and important lesson to learn, especially at an early age.

I 've reconciled so much within myself that people's opinions are their opinions and everyone's entitled to it but I'm happy their opinion is what it is now.

I've learn a lot about human nature and that we very naturally respond to what is in our face.

I think everything in life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. So in that vein, when you look at every experience as a lesson, then you are never the victim and you are always in a position to learn and that's a very powerful place to be.

One thing I always say, risk being yourself fully. There is something very simple about that yet very challenging. It is sort of having this home to go back to within yourself. Come hell or high water, as I am testimony to, there is only one way to be really be successful and that is to only be yourself.