An Afternoon with Feven

My creativity in post titles has gone to the dogs these days. Sigh. What’s good people? First off, due to many many many instances of theft, I’m trying out a new watermark on my images. Do tell me what you think about it on the comments section.

Now, I had the absolute honor of shooting with Feven yesterday afternoon. Needless to say, I was in shock and awe the whole time because she was so easy to work with and the images were so great one after the other. Below is a montage of my favorite 2 images of them all.

But enough talk now. Enjoy gallery 😀

The Missing Lady?

I had the priviledge of shooting in a beautiful location in the middle of a tea farm in Tigoni last weekend. As I hustled the models to get their last outfit changes done quickly, I came across the situation above. One of the models had left her shoes at the verge where the verandah met the grass. I thought it would do for a creepy photo. It felt as if a ghost was walking up the steps of the verandah 😀

That aside, you should definitely look forward to the photos from that shoot. I will have them up soon as I can bring myself to sorting through the 13 or so GB worth of RAW files I created there.

Two beautiful women in B/W

As the title says, today I will feature one of the shots that never made it to the original blog post about a shoot I did with 3 beautiful women, Julia, Cynthia and Annette. I love black and white shots 😀

This week we will have another special Flashback Friday post so do look out for that. Till then, domo arigato gozaimasu 😀

Picture of the Day – Baby Becca

SO, yesterday I had the priviledge of spending some time with my niece Rebecca. Her parents brought her over to my backyard so I could give her the celebrity treatment and that I did 😀

This was actually the first shot I took of her. It seemed to me at the time that this baby sure knew how to hold a pose. Looking through pics from the rest of the shoot, she sure does 😀

Coming up later in the week, we will have more of those Delectable Delights y’all absolutely love as well as Flashback Fridays might be making a come back this Friday. Be sure to look forward to those…

Just To Know

I know you know my big little secret

I know you know this sweet open secret

I love yous and secret looks at you

quite the big little secret.

I know you know what I know

I know I make you smile

like you know you make me happy

ooh such a loud little secret

I know you know everything there is to know

that concerns this little thing I feel for you

and

I know that you know what I know

about that little thing too that warms you

I love you.

 

Quick note; featured in today’s post was @tindilicious and her boyfriend Mulwa. The poetry is by her as well.

Picture of the Day – Silhouette

What’s up y’all? This is me hoping everyone had a most interesting Eid ul Fitr. I also took a short holiday, thus the reason why I didn’t post yesterday.

Today’s image is from the set I did at Kinanda Arts Festival 6. For all of you who haven’t seen that awesomeness, head on over to this link to see what you missed. This photo struck me because it tells so much without saying anything at all. Plus it’s absolutely fierce 😀

That marks the end of today’s blog post. Coming up for you tomorrow is a double post of the week’s Delectable Delight as well as Flashback Friday making a come back. Look out for that 😀 Have fun y’all!!

Person of The Day – Amina

Allow me to introduce you to Ami. She works as a communications officer for an education initiative called Uwezo.

She is also proud MD of her own company called The Workshop Company. I believe that the name says everything about what they do 😀

Her likes are food. She likes looking at it, making it and lastly but most definitely best, she likes eating it.

When I asked her 3 interesting things about herself, she said that first, her nickname sounds like Chinese noodles. Second, She loves watching Korean horror movies, they apparently make her happy.

And finally, she will one day create her own country, aptly named Aminirica or she’ll just move planets. And I quote “watch out now!”

If you want to know more about her please follow her Tumblelog and her twitter.

 

Picture of the Day – Lady in a red scarf

So, first picture of the day in a long while. How I chose these pics is a story for another day. Today’s picture of the day comes from a shoot I did with Rachel. I had shot her and featured her on the blog a while ago. We had a 20 minute session some time last month and this picture called out to me from that lot, wanting to be posted.

I don’t remember what the inspiration for this picture was. I just loved it once I took it 😀

Check out more about Rachel here, and keep it locked to the blog because the week isn’t over yet. There’s lots more in store for you…

There was a story…

What’s good people?! I know y’all didn’t miss me. I missed posting though. But I am now back FULLY. Finally done from my undergraduate studies in USIU. Soon to be a jobless university graduate 😀

Anyhu, there was a story that was to be told. It hasn’t been told for such a long time because the ones to tell the story took so long coming up with the story that I have decided to just tell it myself.

It’s a story about a man

His woman

And his girlfriend.

So, this is what I am gonna do. I wanna challenge your creativity readers. I am putting the images in sequence and best story posted in the comments section wins the writer a chance to feature as a person of the day on this blog. Kazi kwenu sasa. 

Ready…set….GO!!!

Person of the Day – Christine Njeri

Allow me to introduce you to Christine. She is an IT student at JKUAT in her final year.

I met Christine this past sunday. She heeded to the call I had sent out last week for people to shoot and shoot with at the Ngong hills on sunday and she’d offered to help shoot. She ended up posing for quite a few photos herself apart from doing lighting. She is seriously all about fashion and maintains a  a facebook page entitled “the fashionista mansion” which is all about fashion trends and styles. She is currently working on a blog which will be about my personal style and fashion news and styles. I will link to it as soon as it is up.

In the near future she wants to be “an amazing stylist for an awesome magazine” (her words, not mine). She also wants to own her own fashion store like Mr. Price or Truworths. She is also working on her own fashion website which will cover all that there is to know about the fashion industry in Kenya. She really wishes we had Vogue Magazine in East Africa (I am not an ardent Vogue reader but I must concur).

Christine says that she is all about fashion and she really wishes that she will get a nice job in fashion and get to go Paris, Milan and all the major fashion cities around the world. Fun facts about her, she thinks she’s the craziest person about fashion, and she thinks she’s a major shopaholic but  down to earth kinda person.

More stories about the shoot can be found here. I do have to make special mention of Christine’s agility. She was able to climb a gigantic crane, in heels. That’s some skill, I tell you.

 

Till later this week, enjoy!!!

 

P.S

I did a bit of photoshop to some of the images. If only to show those punks who were deriding my work that I was working with photoshop while they were still wearing shorts in primary school. As @MutuaMatheka said, photoshop is supposed to enhance the image.

Lyra Aoko

You can find the Person of the Day post I did on Ms. Lyra here and more poetry by Robert Mahebo here.

by Robert Mahebo

She is a beauty so real

Voice so sweet

Face so sleek

My ultimate dream

 

Woke up to a sight of her

Painted my world all white

Made my life feel right

She doesn’t know me I’m sure

But when she’ll know me she’ll like

The ultimate challenge of her life

A walking parade I’m like

 

Let her stardom shine

Let her smile fly

Let her life be nice

Coz a superstar she’ll rise

Lyra this is my dedication to thou

 

Click Click the Shutters Click

Click of the shutter ushered our depature

From the land of forgotten to this new jungle of fun

Click she emerged a memory forever

Her liking of the sun made the smile a mile

She wore the rainbow

Face so sweet oooh

Laughter so fresh. This is who she is with her rainbow face

 

 

The jungle was her domain

As she sat on the domain

Looking into the camera shy

Shy that the man behind it will find

A softness in her

As the green emerged

The color so nice

New surfaces we explore

 

 

In the car they went

For a night out they should

Niceness defined in the photo

Screaming reumac shot this

A sweet domain of photographic epicness

A pictuere today tomorrow’s memories

 

 

 

Model’s name is Faith. Poetry by Robert Mahebo.

Person of the Day – Sheila Maingi

Allow me to introduce you to Sheila. I forgot which year she is in, but she’s a Psychology and Literature major at the University of Nairobi.

I met Sheila at an event in town sometime in March this year. She’d appeared a lot on my timeline before and I think I had read her blog a few times. But when I met her, I IMMEDIATELY followed her and we’ve tweeted each other since. I think @marcusolang, who was with me at the time, had the exact same reaction. From then, I have always wanted to do a shoot with her and last week, I got the golden opportunity.

Her interests include blogging and travelling. I tend to meet her a lot at events so I can also tell she’s a big fan of poetry and live music. She mentioned that her writing is on a whim a.k.a she writes with a muse. Which I thought was cool 😀

Coolest thing she told me while we were shooting was that her ancestral home is somewhere in Kijabe and that the town there is named Maingi after her grandad. How cool is that?! I wish I had a town named after me…

The lighting was something special during the shoot. I know some people will notice I blew out the highlights in most of  the photos but there was reason to that. Which I don’t remember 😀

You can find her on Twitter here.

 

Till later this week, have fun y’all 😀

Person of the Day – Lyra Aoko

Allow me to introduce you to Lyra. She is the winner of the inaugural Samsung Zikistar competition

 

I met Lyra at a launch that was held for her at the Galileo lounge mid June. I was covering the launch for Vibe weekly and I remember that when the press was done having a karaoke competition, Lyra was called on to do a rendition of Beyonce’s Listen. When she started singing, I remember remarking to @kevdanative that if she was taking part in the competition, the rest of us had no chance at winning it, only to find out a few minutes later that she was actually the Zikistar 😀

To cut a long story short, Lyra followed me on Twitter shortly after the images from that launch went up (view them here) and I was starstruck (for a short while anyway) She’s most recognized for her attractive smile and bubbly personality. As a performing artist, she has already collaborated with Wyre on a single called Happy that was launched that night at Galileo lounge and has gotten quite a bit of airplay on FM stations across the country.

She’s looking forward to studying communications in the near future. I might not be able to say where and exactly when without express permission 😀 She loves music quite a lot and would like to study it too.

The shoot was a lot of fun. It was very relaxed because she was scared that she couldn’t model. But the images came out really well. Especially the B/W images. It was a challenge choosing the few images I have put up. There were so many fantastic shots.

For more about Lyra, there’s an article on her by One FM available here, you can find her on Facebook here and her SoundCloud is here.

 

P.S

I have been feeling lens flares for a while now. Like the one in that last pic. Not the easiest things to pull off though.

Later gators :-]

What to look out for this week…

So, later this week we will have 2 persons of the day featuring on the blog. First will be the lovely Ms. Sheila (pictured above) then the lovely Ms. Lyra (pictured below)

Keep checking back for those. In the meanwhile, I have quit teasing *hides*

 

Picture of the Day – Color in a Black and White World

Before I begin, have you seen the competition I put up on yesterday’s post? If not, go have a look. You might just win yourself a free photoshoot with me 😀

Today’s one of those days I am totally lacking inspiration. So nothing really quirky to say in this post

The photo is part of a shoot I did last weekend that I have been hinting towards since the beginning of the week. I wasn’t too sure it would make it into the story, so it’s coming up here instead. @vuyanzi93 is slowly becoming my favorite person to shoot.

And yes, it is photoshopped albeit slightly. I wanted to bring out the colour in her eyes. Hat tip to @cooxie02 a.k.a the creative director for seeing this image and alerting me to change lenses in time to catch it 😀

Picture of the Day – The Ark

What’s happening people?! Today’s photo is sort of a re-post. I posted it among a large number of photos in one of my first blog posts so I don’t think it got noticed. Me thinks this is one of my favorite images. The photo depicts The Ark, which is a hotel deep inside the Aberdares National park, in the late evening twilight after the sun has set. I am now craving a stay there.

Till later this week, have fun y’all 😀

 

Person of the Day – Cynthia Kimola

Allow me to introduce you to Cynthia. She is a fourth year Communications major at Daystar university.

She is a woman of many talents so she wears many hats at the same time. She is the programming manager for 103.1 Shine FM (daystar’s campus radio station) and she presents a gospel hiphop show on the same station. I can tell she’s a film enthusiast because I met her 2 months ago at a Lola Kenya Screen forum that was showing Organs, a movie shot and produced by a couple of my friends.

According to her, music is a very big part of her life. She is in love with gospel hiphop so you can imagine how close to her heart her show is. Also, she loves her voice, loves to smile, and she derives joy from motivating people (cough, conceited much?, cough)

In a few years she wants to be working for herself at the head of a creative think tank. Sounds cool, right? Fun facts about her: She doesn’t eat cake, milk, oreggs and she would secretly love to be a DJ. Just for the fun of it.

The shoot happened this past Sunday afternoon. Cynthia and her friend Julia (her ‘screen name’) were gracious enough to come to my backyard for the shoot. I will do a post with pics of both of them some time soon, so look out for that. In the meanwhile, that marks the end of today’s post. I have a lot lined up for you this week so bookmark the blog and put a reminder on your phone to check it out every day from now on 😀

*does low bow in Japanese fashion* Domo arigato gozaimasu

 

P.S

Doesn’t that last photo just look interesting. She was channeling her inner shepherdess *hides*

 

The 4 phases of Crystal

Allow me to introduce you to Crystal a.k.a @crystalolisa. She is a second year student at the East African School of Media Studies majoring in Video Production. I came to know of her a few weeks ago when she responded to one of my random calls for people to shoot for the Person of the Day segment on this blog. I like to think that she was keenly watching her timeline because shortly after I tweeted about it, she had replied.

The shoot took place mid afternoon yesterday and it was refreshing. Believe me that. Let me prove it.

Presenting the 4 phases of Crystal

This is sultry Crystal

That is the very feisty Crystal

A very relaxed Crystal

And finally, a beaming Crystal. A nice smile that one.

Now that is what I call an afternoon well spent 😀

I now bid you farewell. I will try to post again over Independence day weekend. If I don’t blame it on the Americans 😀

P.S
There is a pun in this post. Post your guess in the comments section below and you might just win yourself a chance to appear in the Person of the Day segment…

Person of the Day – Anne Moraa

Allow me to introduce you to the very talented Anne Moraa a.k.a @queenmoraa. She is a holder of an LLB from Nottingham University. How we met is another long story for another day.

As I got to know more about Anne I discovered the depth of talent she posesses. This is one girl who is going places for sure. Despite her qualification in Law, she is a gifted writer (samples of her work can be seen here) and she had a deep passion for helping the underprivileged young writers . To this end, she is running a training project at the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy to aid the girls attain their full potential. Anne is also involved in the Kibera Mpiira Mtaani project run by @visionafrica where she, @wamathai and others train young kids creative writing skills every Sunday afternoon. Yet another very inspiring project that I would recommend you find out about. I would also recommend you join them and help make that difference to the less priviledged in society.

Enough biographical material about Anne for now. What I should mention about that shoot is that it was done in my former studio using @misteralbie‘s Nikon D90 as part of a training session with him to show him the ropes of shooting with that fantasic camera. It was with 2 Prolite D300 strobes set to continous light. I like shooting with continuous lighting in studio most times because you can easily predict how your lighting set up will look like in the shots. Plus, you get such beautiful eye lights with the continuous lighting 😀

This last pic will probably earn me a tongue lashing from Anne, but I think it’s totally worth it. We called this one her ‘Mom look’. Apparently, this is the same look her mother gives her. And as they say, like mother, like daughter.

That marks the end of today’s post. To find out more about Anne, you can follow her on twitter here, and also please feel free to view her work here and here.

P.S

Hat tip goes to @akellove for introducing me to Anne earlier this year.

Person of the Day – Faith Njeri

Allow me to introduce Faith Njeri. She’s a holder of a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from USIU and a very good friend of mine. We’ve shared many a bad and good class over the years.

A few weeks ago when I randomly put it on twitter that I wanted someone to shoot for this segment, she was among the first people to holla back at me for details. We set up the shoot and she somehow managed to make it through the rough Nairobi traffic to my backyard on the appointed day. Then the magic began happening.

She did a very good job working the poses and the results truly were fantastic…

For more info about this lovely lady, send her a follow request on her twitter or talk to me nicely 😀

 

Till later this week, deuces!!

Picture of the Day – Emma and Friends

This year’s Easter weekend was meant to be different. I had planned to help my friends drive down to Malindi and afterwards enjoy a quiet holiday in the picturesque town. That never happened. I had to stay home for the holidays like every year in the past decade. Thankfully, my friend Emma sent me an invite for a barbecue at her place just in time to beat the holiday blues. She was very specific that I should carry along my camera. That I did. And got some beautiful portraits while I was at it 😀 The image above is just one of the many. It stood out for me because it just makes me wanna smile back. Emma (right) had been bugging me to do photos with her for a while so it was a great opportunity for the both of us to interact “photographically” in preparation for a future shoot.

That marks the end of today’s post. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

A Real Woman

Psssst! Here’s the beginning of a new segment on this blog 😀 

I am searching for a real woman

One who knows her worth

Not defined by the likes of

Tyra banks or other hopeless hearts

I am searching for a real woman

One who knows her real features

Not depressed by stretch mark

That I can’t even see

If I wanted you before the stretch marks

I will still want you after them

I am searching for a real woman

One who knows what a real man’s worth

I am a rare kind one who will hold you tight

Sing you a lullaby, make you smile

Take you places,

I will be yours only

And never leave you lonely

Your time, is my time

My time is your time

Mi casa a su casa

I am searching for a real woman

One who knows what is golden

Holds her esteem up high

For the real reasons. Not lies

One who loves as much as she’s loved

Gives as much as she receives

One who will dedicate her time

Her worth and life to anew future

A future of you and I

A woman worth all these

I know you might be somewhere there

Saying in your heart,

Wish my man would say that.

If you are a woman of worth

Smile to yourself and say

Here I am

By Laconics

******************************************************************************************************

Hat tip to the girl in the photo, Nadia.

Picture of the Day – Looking up to the heavens

What’s good people? I sure hope this week is going well for everybody. So I spent the whole of today wondering where I would be getting inspiration to do today’s post. I took out my camera and took photos of the people I met and places I went in the morning. None of the photos appealed to me. I racked my brain and scanned my archives when I got home in the afternoon. Nothing felt right. Then I took a moment to look up to the heavens. And this happened…

Kadryn has made a previous appearance on this blog and this photo of her was taken in my backyard as part of our first shoot. This photo spoke to me. Really loud.

Be inspired y’all 😀

Persons of the Day – Abi and Kylie

Allow me to introduce Abi and Kylie. So, apparently the Person of the Day segment on this blog has been making some waves on Twirra. And Abi couldn’t have it that she had not been featured on this segment (narcissistic much?) so yesterday she turned up in my backyard with Kylie and magic was created.

Abi is arguably the best writer I know. She maintains a blog and also writes for a site on the interwebs, among many other wonderful things she somehow finds time to do all at once. Abi is one of the best friends I have 😀

Kylie used to be an enigma. She was that chick dressed in black hanging out with Abi when I would meet her. As I got to know her, I learnt that she is one of the most interesting people I know. She’s really cool 😀 Follow her now on twitter.

I am mad exhausted so I can’t say much more (will explain my exhaustion later this week) Enjoy a taste of pics from the rest of the shoot below 🙂

This last picture will get me into A LOT of trouble, but hey, trouble’s my middle name 😉 Later cool peeps!

Person of the Day – Rachel

Allow me to introduce Rachel. She says she isn’t a model but she sure does pose like one (and dress better than most 🙂 We met on the set of a photoshoot for a magazine a few years ago and ever since, she has been asking me when i would do a shoot with her. So last week I decided to do her headshots. The one thing I enjoyed most about this shoot was that it took such a short time. Each shot was taken once. Well, most shots anyway. A few had to be re-shot after we previewed them on a computer because we both knew she could do better.

That, dear friends, marks the end of this post. If you would like to see more of Rachel, find her here. Till later this week, have fun y’all!

The “Tet”

In my defense, that was the name we were using in jest to refer to this shoot.  I felt that it would suit for the title of this post. So without much further ado: Introducing Nanjira And Kadryn. There’s a long story as to how I came to know these two but let me save that for another day. The shoot was Kadryn’s idea after I had done another shoot with her. I count is as one of my best shoots this year. These two worked well together in coming up with poses and utilizing the location (my backyard and my front yard at home). The results are as follows… I don’t know about you but that shot speaks volumes to me about the bond of friendship between the two girls. Plus they do have some great smiles 😀 This shot struck me as a throwback to the time when 504 was the manager’s car and it was fashionable to be seen wearing bellbottoms and large afros. The 504 in the shot is my lovely one and only (nameless) car. As Kadryn said, this shot is all about the details. See what quirky details you can spot 😀 This one still strikes me speechless. So let me not say a thing. This last shot will most definitely get me into trouble but at this point I am too bothered showing it off to care 🙂 It’s one of the last shots we did that day.  I think it’s one of the most serene shots I have ever taken. And with that, the ‘tet’ was over. You can find Nanjira on twitter and you can also find Kadryn on twitter. Hit me up in the comments section below and tell me if this should classify as the best shoot on my blog so far. Have a great Labor Day weekend y’all!

Nelly in black and white (and colour :-)

What’s happening my good people? Thanks for the blog love y’all have been giving me over the past few weeks. Hopefully, we shall hit a thousand hits within the week.

Today I wanna share a few images from a shoot I had with the beautiful Nelly (pictured above) I have been feeling the need to remove the color from my world so I can focus on the little things for once, so I have generally been shooting in black and white for the past few weeks. With a little color here and there to spice things up 😀

For all of you wondering who Nelly is, she’s a student, a photography enthusiast and generally quite a nice person. Check her out on twitter. Enough talk for now. Enjoy the photographs….