I am obsessed with commercial studio photography, and often shoot personal creative projects just for fun! We work for ad agencies, corporate clients and entrepreneurs, so I get to shoot people, products, beauty, fashion, food and drinks.
I can never get bored with my job!
Real magic happens when everyone's amazing skills combine to produce something fantastic. Creative directors, producers, models and stylists for clothes, makeup, hair or food. The best days are real team efforts on set, having fun, working hard, bringing our creative best to the final product.
And if you've shot with us before, you'll know the hugely talented and indispensable Maya or Jaliyah who've, through the years, organised everything while I'm behind the camera.
I started off assisting just for fun (see the trend here!) in a commercial photography studio in the heart of Soho, London. I worked my way up from second to first assistant for Angus Thompson, a Grenadian advertising photographer. We shot everything from diamonds for Garrads, men's accessories for Dunhill to hair models for Revlon, dealing with clients and models, following creative briefs, and meeting deadlines. After that I ran my own studio near London's Tower Bridge, shooting hair, beauty, fashion and jewelry for my own clients, before moving back home to T&T to defrost!
We started by shooting transparency film on Hasselblad and Sinar cameras, polaroid proofing everything, running film to the labs, and waiting hours to see if we really got the shots! Then came digital cameras, Photoshop & Affinity, Stopmotion and DaVinci Resolve, and now AI workflows which are changing everything again. The constant is that the creative world always keeps evolving no matter what.
So Learn! Adapt! Pivot!
Now we work out of my own Port of Spain studio which is great for most jobs, but we also sometimes shoot on location or use larger rental studios for bigger productions.
Our digital files easily go up to sharp billboards, and studio lighting means we can create any look we want, day or night, indoors or out! And by always shooting tethered to my laptop, you can see your images on screen in real time as we shoot, and with a a CaptureOne Live webpage, your team can follow along remotely wherever they are in the world. Maya makes sure everything works smoothly!
I do the retouching in house on the non-agency jobs, and some of the images you see on the website are composites, done either by myself or the ad agencies. So when we can't create the image directly in camera, we shoot all the elements separately to make up that perfect final image.
I try my best to keep my Instagram updated with recent commercial and personal work, but shoots take priority and I can't post things until the jobs have been released in public, so there's always a delay. You'll see my social link icons at the bottom of the website page, so follow along.
Send me a whatsapp, email or give me a call anytime so we can chat or meet up for a coffee to talk about all things photography and brainstorm ideas.
What new thing can we create together?
Michele
All Stars . Angostura . AS Brydens . Barbara Jardine . BMobile . Caribbean Bottlers . Carib Brewery . CGA . Cocoyay . Conflict Women . Delmano . Design by Spirit . Exotica . Filmco . First Citizens Bank . Harts The Band . Hilton . Jade Drakes . Janice Derrick . Jasmine Thomas Girvan . J&K Signature Styles . Judy's Bridal . Kez Styles Inc . KFC . Lindas Bakery . LLB . Lonsdale Saatchi & Saatchi . Lucozade . Marios Pizzeria . Massy Stores . McCann Ericsson Trinidad . Melanie Archer Design . Milo . Mount Irvine Beach Resort . NCLB Lotto . Nescafe . Nestle . Oasis Water . Orchard . Payless . Pepsi . Physicians Pharmaceuticals . Powerade . Praktis Design . Prestige Holdings . Publicis Caribbean . Regal Foods . Republic Bank . Revlon . Savant Media . Shandy . Source-It Advertising . Sunshine Cereals . Supligen . TT Film Festival . Trinitario Chocolate Box . Wendy Rahamut . Y Gallery . Universal Foods Ltd .
Occasionally I'll send out updates on what's happening behind the scenes, so if you'd like to take a mini maco, just click the email button here and I'll add you to the mailing list.
