Guild Print Competition!

As I've mentioned many times before, I really love print competition. It gives me a chance to grow as a photographer and an artist. I can see how my work is being judged, what I could do better, and how I am evolving as an artist. For the Fall Print competition at GPPDV (Guild of Professional Photographers of Delaware Valley -- which includes a lot of the northern east), I was awarded Four out of four blue ribbons and Best of in the Category for Women!

Envision

Model: Jessamyn

Makeup: Darya

Wardrobe: Scarlet Fairy

Hair: Me

Set Design: Me

Assistant: David Star

**Awarded Best of Woman Category**

Blue Butterfly

Model: Amy Schmoldt

Makeup Artist: MRS Beauty

Hair: Me

Cirque Du Lauren

Model/Styling: Lauren WK

Makeup: Me

Sunny Days

Model: Tara Mariea

Makeup Artist: Me

Since I don't think I ever posted about the spring competition, I submitted the same images as I did for PPA(Professional Photographers of America) print competition 

http://serena-star.blogspot.com/2010/06/ppa-print-competition.html

You can view those at the link above, minus the album. Instead of the entire album I submitted one of the images in it!

"Longing" was awarded a Blue Ribbon, "Behind a Dream Like Mind" and "Curtains Please!" scored Red Ribbons (I believe that's what they are called,) they were both 2 points away from Blue Ribbons! 

(You can view them all from the link above!) The image that I submitted instead of the album also Blue Ribboned:

Despair

Model: Christine Von Rose

Makeup Artist: Me

1st Publication in Professional Photographer!

My first publication in Professional Photographer magazine! Super excited! This is an advertisement for the "genNext: Rising Stars Share Ideas & Inspiration" program at Imaging USA that I will be speaking at! Imaging USA is Professional Photographer's of America's National Convention, I've mentioned it bunches in previous posts, so I will let you go find it, hehe!

 

 The actual ad =D If you are a professional photographer 

following my blog, check out this program!!!!!

  

And the image on the top left a little bigger (the rest aren't mine =X) 

Model is Morphine

MUA: Me

And I stumbled upon a photo of Dave getting his portfolio critiqued at the last Imaging USA towards the back of the magazine. I did not take this photo, but Dave and I are in it! hehe

 

Closeup of the image =D

Copyright of all magazine spreads, Professional Photographer Magazine!

If there is any problem in posting these, please just let me know 

and I will remove them immediately=)!

Happy (un)Birthday to me =D!

On September 13th I turned 22! =D (ugh! hehe) Part of my family live in the Atlantic City area so we waited and celebrated on Wednesday the 15th. We never do big parties, just the immediate family, my friend Joanna, and Dave. I'm just finally getting around to uploading the pictures. I didn't really take many photos and my family still have no idea how to use my camera properly, so there are only a few photos that really came out. I'll leave my family out of the mix because I am sure they don't want to be in the blog =X!

Ice cream cake!!!!!! Every cake is ice cream cake!

(My wedding cake will eventually just have to be ice cream)

I blew them all out all in one go! =D I probably should have thought about the fact I might want to post the pictures online before I decided to get a shower right before my "celebration." Bah to wet plastered hair!

See =D!

After the candle blowing we did our traditional singing 

of the Birthday Dirge (Yes we sing the normal version, too! =X)

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/birthday-dirge-faq/

(Thank you to my medieval, SCAdian upbringing. Imagine a room full of drunken people singing this, banging their drinking mugs/horns against the tables at the "thud" part during feasts. Very fun experience =D )

http://www.sca.org

As by Tradition, I get a spoon and get the middle of my cake first... Then I get to grab the biggest knife I can find and cut everyone else pieces. =X Please ignore the messy kitchen x_x;

And then later that night I took a few photos of me and Dave =D You know how hard it is to hold a camera and speed light with one arm far enough that it will focus o_o? I really need a point and shoot!

I got an entire set of Alice in wonderland mugs as one of my gifts from my family =D The necklace I am wearing is another from Dave. It is amber with a hand carved unicorn in it and hand wrapped by the designer =D! My brother gave me another Spyro game for my game boy advanced (Oh boy, here's to more falling off the side of the world! hehe) Overall nice day =)

Tara: South Jersey Boudoir Photography

A little while ago I photographed Tara -- She had latex dresses and I was super excited! Walking into the studio, I noticed she had a really bubbly personality right off the bat. She was sweet and genuine, very pretty, with a very girl next door feel. We started doing some simple cute pinup images, but as we photographed, the vixen started to show through! She told me no one had wanted to photograph her silver sparkly dress -- as soon as I saw it, I fell in love! The latex was completely forgotten, but we got some amazing stuff! Makeup done by Me =D

I wanted to show some before and afters of my color vs bw photographs!

Christina Aguilera

Ok, so I know coming from a girl who has a background in Metal, Rock, and Underground Industrial music, this may be odd, but I have always loved Christina (among many other pop singers) -- she won me over with Genie in a bottle (in which I still enjoy belly dancing to, to this day!)  She recently (sorta) did a music video I fell in love with instantly. It's really fun to see the mainstream industry bringing in influences from the Alternative industry. This is something I've been doing in my work for years. I've slowly been seeing it integrated more and more over the years. It really shows in this video! For some reason, I can't embed the video, but you can watch it on her website.  I would probably suggest not watching it at your place of work -- it's a little sexy and fetish oriented! It's pretty sad when I can recognize latex designers that made some of her wardrobe =X  http://www.christinaaguilera.com/us/videos/not-myself-tonight


 Anyway, so even more respect -- She has a movie apparently coming out soon and I can't wait to see it in the theater!!! It's about burlesque dancers! With my acting experience, i've always had a secret passion for the thrill of the stage and the art of the performance, so I am excited to see how well this movie takes off!

The Mantis

A few days ago I looked out on the deck of my Patio and saw the largest Pray Mantis I have ever seen. As I watched it, it started walking up towards me. I bent down to take a better look at it (through the patio door). It was such a beautiful creature. It stood there, watching me, almost face to face, inches from one and another with nothing but the glass separating us. As I stood there, I felt my breath taken away. I just wanted to stand there in silence and watch it. The wind was blowing so hard that day and it swayed gently as it held onto the wood below it. It nodded it's head at me as I watched it. Suddenly, I watched it reach over and grab a spider between it's strong legs and eat it in front of me. It was a wondrous sight to behold.

I've always been interested in the secret meanings of Animal totems and I felt this was a sign from the Universe. It had to be. I've always felt as though spider was a totem for me -- I was raised in a very open minded family, I have part cherokee in me and was influenced by a lot of Native American friends. When I was younger, spiders kept finding me- I would constantly find them everywhere, in and on everything I was working on. Mind you, I'm not exactly fond of spiders. Then these huge blue and red weird spider's started to make webs outside the window of my patio door at my old house. I started dreaming of spiders every night. My friends and family warned me to read up on what spider totem meant because I was just going to keep running into spiders unless I listened to the message they had to teach me. One day I was laying in bed with my sky window open and one lone huge red and blue spider fell straight down from the window on a single line of web and stopped inches from my face.

That day I took out the Animal Speak by Ted Andrews book and read what spider meant. Spider means so much I would highly recommend reading about them. I won't go to much into detail because I feel a lot of the message is personal for me to look at within myself. In general though, spider is about teaching you to maintain a balance in your life -- your past and your future. It's about "weaving your web" to create your future. The web also symbolizes creative energies circling around you (the center point of a web). Spider in myths is known as the guardian of Languages -- another message is about using your creative energies to inspire others.

The Pray mantis teaches you about calming (stilling) the mind and going into your soul, being patient and waiting for the right moment to strike.

The following day after the first Pray mantis, I sat down to have dinner, and sitting on a piece of mail my mother had brought it was a little tiny baby Pray Mantis. How it got there, I have no idea - We carefully took it back outside, but to me it was  another sign to look deep inside myself.                                                                        

Are you "weaving your own web" and creating the kind of life you want for yourself? Change is upon us, I see it everywhere in every aspect of everyone's lives right now. Everything seems to be turning upside down - for better and for worse! Let's focus more on the earlier - take a step back and think about everything going on in your life; contemplate it -- and you'll see no matter what is going on right now, the universe won't throw more at you than you can handle and you will come out of it a much stronger individual!

Being that today is 9/11 I just wanted to add in -  Always Remember! RIP all those who passed on this day, years ago.. Look to the past for reminder and keep your chin up to the future. Even one person can make a change in our world for the better! 

Halloween Specials!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of all time! In days passed I would dress up the week before and the week of halloween, just because I could get away with wearing all the fun and outrageous costumes i'd collected over the years! 

I remember my first year of college -- it was a bit before halloween and I was driving 76 in Philadelphia under that tunnel sort of thing-- I got into my first accident. Those big huge airbags blew up into my face and bam, I was out of it -- seeing stars, chemical burns on my arms, completely loopy. So I start getting out of the car, big poofy tooling blue gown, bright blue makeup, and a huge white and gray fur cloak... out into the middle of the road on 76. Long story short, Can you imagine a blueberry cupcake wandering around in the middle of the road  in the middle of the day -- not on halloween? It was an interesting experience. 

This is what I looked like =X

Photo to the left by Randy Davis

Makeup/Styling/Model: Me.

Is Halloween your favorite Holiday? Do you have tons of costumes you are just itching to have photographed? Most people buy a new costume every year and only wear it once! Now is your chance to get to try them all back on! Whether your that  girl next door or an experienced model looking to build her portfolio, these are the perfect packages for a new sexy FB avatar, a pocketbook sized portfolio, or a private album for your honey! 

If you don't have costumes because you are one of those people that end up getting rid of them every year after halloween, don't fret! I have tons of pieces at the studio so we can mix and match =) Check out these fun images mixing cat eats and witch hats with a vintage lingerie!

Basic Halloween Pinup Session

- 1-2 hours shooting time

- 1 outfit change/look on solid colored background

- Consultation session to discuss look in studio, Skype, or on the phone

- Access to select costuming and props including but not limited to

Cat, Bunny, and Dalmatian ears, Nurse, Demon, Angel, Witch, Sexy Faerie, maid, Flapper, Belly dancer, and more Assortment of props, lingerie, and a few costumes!

- Select proofs in private web gallery for you to view or session at the studio to choose final images 

- 3 fully retouched 8x12 portraits on metallic or e-surface paper and web files emailed to you.

 $149  ($61 in savings) 
$139/ea for groups of 3 or more in the same day (So grab two or more friends and make it a fun day out!)

Makeup is additional $75 and is paid separately to artist
*Discounted Makeup for 3 or more in the same day : $60/ea

Deluxe Halloween Pinup "Little Black Book"

Half day Session

- 4-5 hours of shooting time 

- up to 3 outfit changes/ looks on variety of colored backdrops, faux fur, curtains, etc.

- Consultation session to discuss look in studio, Skype, or on the phone

- Access to select costuming and props including but not limited to

Cat, Bunny, and Dalmatian ears, Nurse, Demon, Angel, Witch, Sexy Faerie, maid, Vampire, Flapper, Belly dancer, and more Assortment of props, lingerie, and a few costumes!

- Select proofs in private web gallery for you to view or session at the studio to choose final images 

- The "Little Black Book" - 10 spread, 15 picture e-surface 4x6 custom designed album with Leather cover and web files for all images in the book

$449  ($96 in savings!)

Makeup is additional $125 and is paid separately to artist
(Only one booking per day as these are long days!)

*Must be halloween inspired looks!

*Custom Packages can be created upon request. Feel free to send me an email!

*Don't want prints? Just need web files? As about my discounted rate on the first package!

*add-ons and s/h fees additional

*Does not reflect final price after tax

Book now as slots are limited and October is already beginning to fill up! Sale ends October 29th!

www.Serena-Star.com > Fashion Side> Contact > and fill out the form!

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I wanted to leave you off with some inspirational cat girl images that i've found over the years online! I'm a huge anime fan =X I know it's a little dorky, but I made this little video clip thingy years ago for my personal myspace (back when I used the silly thing) -- Sorry about all the advertisements and the silly borders and everything =(!