2019 Aubriel and Hien Vo
Aubriel and I became roommates while in college at VCU and luckily grew to become the best of friends. She’s always been the most fashion forward of our friend group, so much so that my other roommate, Maria Camia, and I used to go in Aubriel’s closet (with her supervision of course lol) and play “dress up” to help elevate our looks before we went out for the night.
Today she’s a successful Mortgage Loan Consultant and her Husband Hien is a New Home Advisor in Richmond, VA. Along side having crazy admirable work ethics, this power couple is passionate about educating their community on navigating the journey to home ownership and financial freedom.
Living room shoot set up at the Vo household
As you can see in the image above, we set up in their living room. We had a decent footprint to work with, but unfortunately since I am still limited with using a long range lens, I wasn’t able to get any full body shots. I was at least able to work in some 3/4 shots. However, you’ll notice that there is a slight gradient near the bottom of her the images so in the future I need to remember to adjust the angle and position of the background lights in order to get a more evenly lit backdrop. One thing that was very useful to have in addition to shooting with a tethered setup was the full length mirror. I would love to hire Aubriel to be a stylist for any my future shoots, but it was especially helpful to have the mirror so that she could make adjustments on her own as well.
We took a couple of shots with her blazer just for the sake of it, but being that fashion is built into her brand, of course the dress ended up being the favorite look. Thinking back on it now, I’m not sure if we had originally planned on shooting Hien’s photos, but being that he’s a fellow entrepreneur and that we already had everything set up we figured why not. I vaguely remember us trying to convince him to get changed as soon as we walked though the door haha. There weren’t very many edits needed so I was able to turn the images around the same day.
2018 Brianeisha Eure
Headshot of Brianeisha Eure
My close friend and fellow sand flag football teammate, Neisha, works in the field of cyber security and received the 2018 Technology Rising Star Award for helping shape technology for the future. She was going to be featured on a slideshow at the Women of Color Science, Technology and Engineering and Math (STEM) Conference held in Detroit, Michigan and was asked to provide a professional headshot.
At that time I was frequently booking private study rooms at the local library. Each room had at least one glass wall, or if you were lucky two, with a bit of exposure to natural light. I rented a white seamless backdrop from my friend, Chris Paulmino of CpixAperture, but since she was wearing a white shirt we held off on fully lighting the backdrop so that we could get a grey tone. Rather than bouncing light with the umbrella modifier, I used it like a soft box to diffuse the light and placed a bounce card behind her and parallel to the strobe to help fill the right side of her face. Unfortunately, I don’t think I thought to bring any mirrors on set, but fortunately Neisha came ready with a polished look. Neisha was later recognized in the Spring 2019 edition of The Chronicle and her headshot was featured on page 17.
2016 Marvin Joi Robinson
My sister MJ loves fashion and now photography as well. At this time she was in the process of switching careers from the medical to the art and design field. So we figured it was time for her to get some new headshots as well. She also styled her daughters for another photo shoot we had this same day.
2016 Nikko Mendoza
Studio set up at TMSSR
Nikko and I had mutual friends growing up and worked together organizing large-scale conferences for the Filipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue, Inc. Currently, he works as a product manager in the Bay Area, but before he made his trip out west he mentioned that his mom had been asking him to take graduation photos. Mind you, we took these photos in 2016 and he graduated in 2014, but better late than never! Since he was already dressed up, we decided to take some business headshots as well.
At the time, I was a Production Manager for Glenn Fajota Photography and his office located inside The Makeup School by Sarah Rillon. This was my first time shooting headshots on my own with a full gear setup. I didn’t have much gear for the setup other than my camera and my laptop so I’m thankful that Glenn and Sarah let me use their space and set up.
I’ve always known Nikko to have a passion for art and design. Today he’s proven to be an extremely talented natural light photographer himself.
