Forgotten Moments

Don't you just love it when you're going through your old pictures from photoshoots, reviewing what you've done in the past and seeing what you can bring into the future with you?

Well last week I was looking through a photoshoot I did while working with a talented Make Up Artist - Tanveer Khatri, in Leicester during the beginning of my third and final year at De Montfort University.

You can see the blog posts for these photoshoots here: Armina and Siobhan.

But I was looking through the pictures and I saw these pictures that I felt I hadn't seen before, and it stood out to me, 

I was shocked that I hadn't picked up on these pictures sooner,

I'm so glad that I went back through this folder and found those pictures, It's gone straight into my portfolio!

The lesson I've learned from this is to firstly organise my pictures better and then secondly, review my pictures more often, you never know what you could have missed.

If you have any questions for me, you can contact me on facebook at www.facebook.com/JamilTeja

or you can hit me up on twitter @JamilTeja

Til next time, see you later!

Portrait Session with Armina

This is another portrait session I worked on in collaboration with Tanveer (the make up artist) back in October 2012. I asked my friend Armina, who was also studying photography and video to be a model for us. The concept behind the session was to create a Autumny/Wintery scene for the session and to accentuate this by using brown colours which are the colour of leaves towards the end of Autumn.

We decided to conduct the session in the gardens near the university, thinking that it would be covered in leaves and be very colourful, however the day of the shoot it was very dark and gray, I used 2 flash guns to pour even light onto the model. In hindsight I would have added a third light to illuminate the surroundings, I would have also brought my reflector along to help light up the surroundings.

Behind the Scenes

I am very happy how these pictures have turned out, If I could change anything I would have liked to have more time with the models and experimented with a variety of different locations to achieve a better variety of pictures.

Hair and Make Up by Tanveer Khatri

Want to see how I get blurry backgrounds? take a look at this

Portrait Session with Tammy

Portrait of Tammy

Tammy has been a friend of my sisters' for many years now, a few years ago she started to move into part time modelling so I decided to ask her if she wanted a portrait session, she said yes! 

We were both home from university over the Summer, if I remember correctly it was the Summer of 2012 and I had been inspired to test out some new poses and some off camera flash set ups.

We went out on a beautiful Summers day, the weather was perfect, we took a stroll through Bournemouth Gardens and found a few interesting spots. some brides and benches and some long reeds.

I used a 1 light set up for these images as it was a really sunny day and I just needed to throw a bit of light into her face.

I am really pleased with the images we captured on the day, Tammy was such a pleasure to work with, she was very friendly and took direction well which made my job so much easier!

if you would like to see more of my work check out My Facebook Page

Brazilian Party Fashion Session

Since the football is in Brazil this year, My sister and her friends from university were producing a magazine article on Brazilian Fashion, they had everything sorted out but their photographer cancelled last minute. So Me being a great older brother hoped on a train and came down for the day.

The group decided to use a Brazilian themed restaurant just outside Waterloo Station, this was a great idea as it was covered in greens and yellows and blues and the clothes they had picked out worked well to stand out from the background. 

There was a big window where we were shooting, letting lots of light into the room and I used 2 flashguns to just add a bit of flash to make the subjects just pop.

We had the restaurant booked from 10-1pm and we shot a variety of pictures, here is a small selection.   

See More at www.JamilTeja.co.uk

Portrait Session with Balquis

Portrait Session with Balquis

In my final year of university I started offering portrait sessions for my friends as a way of building up my portfolio; my girlfriend's friend had said she was interested in getting some pictures of her done professionally and when she heard I was offering portrait sessions she jumped at the opportunity. 

When we were putting the shoot together we decided to go for two juxtaposed looks, as you can see from the pictures Balquis in Muslim and she was at a stage in her life where she wanted to strengthen her Faith by wearing the headscarf; she also wanted to a few pictures which showed off her good fashion sense. 

It was Christmas time so I was wearing my Christmas Jumper!

BTS PIcture by Sonia Patel

Lighting: I gave Balquis the choice of shooting outside or in the studio, of course she said studio so I set up the studio with a 4 light set up. 2 softboxes from the front and 2 flash heads with grids attached to them in order to give a nice highlight and separation against the background.

Overall I'm very happy with how these pictures came out, and Balquis was extremely happy with them!

For More check out My Website

My First Ever Make Up Session with Tanveer and Jakia

I think I've told you before, I met Tanveer through my friend and we collaborated on a portrait session and Tanveer asked Jakia to model for us.

Tanveer wanted to try a few different make up looks, we decided from the beginning of the session that we were just going to use a clean white background as she was interested in using the pictures in promotional material for future Make Up Artist jobs. 

Portrait of Shanice

Portrait of Shanice

I surprised my girlfriend with a small portrait session, so I took her to my favourite location, laid down a blanket and set up a flash with a shoot through umbrella. We only captured a few pictures as she was feeling quite shy in front of the camera but from the pictures we took these are the best! 

I plan to do a follow up to this session over the Summer some time so stay tuned!

Portrait Session with Jakia

Portrait Session with Jakia

I met Jakia at the same time as I met Tanveer, she was the model we used for Tanveer's make up session. I found Jakia very easy to work with and we decided after out first session that we should follow up with a second. We experimented with different ideas and just had fun with the session.

See more at My Facebook Page

Portrait Session with Tanveer

I met Tanveer through my friend Amnah, Tanveer who just graduated the previous Summer and was interested in producing a Make Up portfolio. We collaborated on a few portait sessions together including the sessions with Jakia, Siobhan, Armina and Kiran. After a few portrait shoots with different subjects, she wanted a portrait session for herself.

Tanveer wanted the session to be outside, given it was Autumn she wanted to try some Autumn-y colours with her make up, so to compliment this I chose a nice location with lots of greenery and trees.

Camera Settings and Lighting: I utilised off camera flash and used a speedlite with a shoot through umbrella on a lighting stand to add some light to the subject to bring out her feature and used my 24-70mm f2.8 and f2.8 to get some nice separation between the model and the background, another technique I used was to shoot from above, asking my subject to sit for parts of the shoot to experiment with perspective to create some visually pleasing images.

Fashion Photo Session with Siobhan

This is a diptych from a fashion photo session I worked on last year during my studies at university,

I was collaborating with a make up artist to produce a body of work that would be used in marketing their products and services and could use in my portfolio too!

I asked my friend, Siobhan to be the model,  the make up artist and I decided we wanted more of an editorial feel to the pictures we were producing for this series of images and decided to take this photo session out into the open. 

I had done photo sessions in the open before and had a few locations in mind for the shoot, I am a big fan of using flash in my photography as I feel a bit of flash can make an image pop from being boring or dull to full of life. 

I decided to go for a 2 light set up using external flashes either side of the model, using one as a key light and the other as a fill in light.

I had recently added a new lens to my arsenal, the 70-200mm f4 and decided to take it out for a spin, I love the images I captured with this lens and in this shoot! 

Hair and Make Up by Tanveer Khatri

I will be posting more pictures from previous Fashion Sessions soon!

Fashion Photo Session with Kiran

This is a diptych from a fashion photo session I worked on last year during my studies at university, 

I was collaborating with a make up artist to produce a body of work that would be used in marketing their products and services and could 

I asked my friend, Kiran to be the model  the make up artist and I decided we wanted more of a commercial feel to the pictures we were producing and decided to use the photography studio 

and use a variety of lights and lighting set ups. 

Hair and Make Up by Tanveer Khatri

I will be posting more pictures from previous Fashion Sessions soon!