Melanie: The Actress

When I began taking the Studio Lighting course I wasn't ecstatic about the idea of artificial light over natural light. But of course I put myself in it to learn. As the class progressed I wanted to be inspired, so I did some research. I began to independently study Richard Avedon. The more I see the more I can't get over how beautiful his portraits are. They are near technically perfect and on top of that, almost each one has incredible emotion in it. I want to do that.

For my final portfolio in this class we had to turn in two portraits. What particularly caught my eye was Avedon's ability to get such unique, honest and beautiful shots of actresses. So for my first model I decided to use my lovely friend Melanie Thomason. I know Melanie from a musical we did together years ago. Since then I have seen her in numerous roles and she is beyond talented. I decided to play on this and although she is very pretty(obviously), I wanted to play on the fact that she is an actress. These are a few of my favorite portraits of her. I have a few more that are a little more dramatic in nature that I will put up later.