October Festivities

Hi guys!

October has been such a busy month with weddings, photoshoots, and Halloween festivities! I haven't got a chance to blog much but I promise to keep it up! November will be just as busy and I'm very excited about that! Here are a few photos from Halloween night with fun makeup. Hope your Halloween was enjoyable!

Bear, vampire, tiger

The bear & the vampire

The vampire & the devil

Close up of the vampire makeup

Beauty/Lifestyle Photoshoot

Greetings all!

Recently, I got to do a great collaboration with one of my favorite photographers ever, Olga Schleicher. Olga and I have collaborated on many projects before so it's always smooth sailing when it comes to working together. We are on the same page with what we want and the models we choose. For our recent shoot, we decided to go for a beauty and lifestyle concept. Deddeh was our model and she is a sweetheart. Not only is she an experienced model who knew how to pose and take directions well, but she is just too fun to talk to. Here are some of the photos from our collaboration. Enjoy!

Dancesport Challenge

One of my favorite part about doing makeup and hair is being able to converse with people from all over. It's already a given that I do makeup in order to help these women feel more confident about themselves. I love how satisfied they look after the end results. But it's truly fulfilling for me to meet these people and build new friendships. I believe everyone has a different story to tell.

Usually for the past dance competitions, I've always participated as a dancer. If none of you has ever tried any form of ballroom dancing(standard, smooth, rhythm, or latin), you will be in for a treat if you ever decide to pick it up. It's a good form of exercise, challenges you, and will become a quick fulfillment in your life. I specifically dance International Latin because I love the fun, fast movements. Due to high demand of clients, I didn't dance this competition but instead provided my hair and makeup services. I had so much fun! Makeup for dance competitions can be very creative since you want to stand out among the other couples you're competing with and be seen from far away. As for hair, Latin dancers generally keep it in a simple bun since their dress would most likely be very colorful and extravagant, while ballroom dancers opt for architectural  hairstyles to complement their elegant dresses. Regardless of the looks, hair must stay in place since the dancers would be moving at a fast speed. Here are photos of some of my clients from competitions.

I had the pleasure of doing Zhuewing's hair for her smooth dance competition. She came from Minnesota and was just so sweet! Her family came to California for a small vacation and to support her dancing. We were able to chat a second time before she flew out and I am inspired by her hard work and dedication.

This is Jacqui's hair for her standard dance competition. I had a nice time chatting with her and her roommate. She has a great personality and was so bubbly! She texted me after the competition to let me know she won FIRST place! Congratulations Jacqui!

Renee's makeup for her smooth dance competition. I wish I had her energy when I'm 70! Imagine a woman that age dancing. Kudos to her! I love talking to her about her travels. This woman has been all over the place such as Thailand, India, Japan, Czech Republic, Spain, etc and she had so many stories to share.

Anita's makeup for a smooth dance competition. Here she is with her teacher, Tom, which is a dear friend of mine. Anita is such a lovely lady whom I got a chance to work with several times.

I did Ekaterina's hair for her standard dance competition. She came all the way from Russia to compete! She was a bundle of joy and has also traveled the world. She told me stories about being in Vietnam, my home country.

Sophy started out as a ballerina at a young age. As she got older, she decided to explore different styles of dances, which led her to ballroom. She did an amazing job for her first competition! Here I did her makeup.

Yulia K'ay

Recently I got a chance to work with a talented model/actress/singer, Yulia. You name it, she does it. What blew me away is her amazing personality. How many times do you meet a gorgeous model with a personality to match? Our shoot with fashion photographer Olga, whom I've worked with before on various projects, was different than the other shoots we've collaborated on. Usually, we always shoot with a fashion/editorial theme. This time, we wanted to push the boundaries and try something new. We decided to go with a noir/glamour theme with a bit of editorial and pin-up. Here are the results!

International Latin Samba

Lately my schedule has been jam packed with wedding clients, photoshoots, and showcases! In this particular blog, I wanted to step away from makeup for a little bit to share with you a recent showcase I performed at!

My professional partner's friend holds an annual balloom showcase in Anaheim for people to come, dance, enjoy live entertainment, and food. We were asked to perform every year, but never had the time to do so! This year we finally had no event going on that particular day in order for us to come share our love of dancing with everyone.

We chose the lively, rhythmical samba as our dance. International Latin ballroom samba dance is different than Brazilian samba. Ballroom samba, even more than other ballroom dances, is very disconnected from the origins and evolution of the music and dance that gives it its name. Below is an image of us in action. Professional video clip of our performance will be coming soon!

Miss Indonesia 2011

I recently got the chance to do hair and makeup for Miss Indonesia 2011, Bianca Beatrice. I was contacted by my photographer friend, Paul. He needed someone to do makeup and hair for her since he would be shooting her later on in the day. We set up an appointment for her to come to my home studio as I will have several clients after her and could not be on location of the shoot.

When Bianca arrived, I was taken back at how gorgeous she is! She well earned her title of Miss Indonesia. Not only that, she was so friendly and nice. It was such a pleasure working with her. She was visiting from Indonesia and would be leaving after the weekend of the photoshoot, but I made her promise we would keep in touch for the next time she comes visit I would love to do an editorial shoot with her where I can play around with different looks! Below are a few behind the scenes photos I've received. Can't wait to see more!



John Hawkins & Yasmin

I've been truly lucky to be able to work with such amazing people lately! Eventually in the future I would like to create some tutorials as well as product reviews to help others learn more about makeup. For now, I am just so excited to share with you my collaborations!

I was booked for a shoot with John Hawkins last weekend. He had a concept in mind and communicated with everyone about his idea. Let me tell you: there is nothing that I love more than someone who communicates with me! It is so much easier when everyone is on the same page and have the same idea prior to coming to the shoot. I appreciate that very much! John was nothing short of that and I was relief. When I arrived, he had 2 settings set up. John is so precise and articulate that I knew instantly the photos would turn out amazing. Photoshop may be a wonderful thing for some people, but it is not a makeup artist's friend. The goal is to showcase the artist's work and sometimes, photoshop completely takes away from that. Well, I was so ecstatic when I saw John's work due to the minimum use of photoshop.

Our model Yasmin is a total sweetheart. I love her bubby and positive personality that she brought to the table. She was great at following directions and had the best smile! I am very happy with the results of our collaboration.

Towards the end of the shoot, John asked me to give his daughter a makeover since she really liked my work. I was more than happy to play some more with makeup. Janei is absolutely gorgeous, which makes my job pretty easy.

 

Yasmin

Natural look

Glamour

 

Janei

 

Behind the Scenes



 

A Great Collaboration

Today, I wanted to share with you one of my recent collaborations. To start off the story, I have to back track a little.

About 4 years ago I participated in an association in college. It was called VSA, otherwise known as Vietnamese Student Association. The organization's goal was to reach out to students about the Vietnamese culture. Every year they would put on a show call Culture Night, where there would be singing, dancing, and a fashion show. Anyone that knows me, knows that I love art, especially performing arts! It would only make sense that I participated. I did everything: singing, dancing, and walking in the fashion show. Now this is where I met a photographer by the name of Paul Le. He was in charge of photographing the night's event. After my days in VSA, I continued to participate in local events. I was a background traditional dancer for Asia Entertainment Production for a period of time and I would perform at Lunar New Year Tet Festival. At all these events, I would always run into Paul. The rest was history. We became friends and collaborate on several photoshoots together. Over the course of 4 years, our busy schedules prohibited us from keeping in contact very often.

Fast forward to the present, I was looking for a photographer that I could trust to photograph my dance partner, friends, and I. The photos were for multiple purposes. I wanted photos I could use for my portfolio and my partner&friends could use for their businesses. It didn't take me long before I decided I can turn to an old photographer friend that I trust, Paul. I contacted him and before I knew it, we had set up a photoshoot! The only problem was looking for a studio...

My friend Petra, who is an amazing professional dancer and owner of Dance Asylum Studio, was sweet enough to offer her dance studio for us to shoot at! The studio isn't open on Sundays and she was willing to come in, along with her partner Petr, to open the studio for us AND model for us. I felt completely blessed for such amazing friends.

Upon arrival, I quickly learned that over the past year Paul has enhance his business by new equipment additions. (I will post some behind the scene photos later for everyone to see.) I also met some of his team: including Dan Pham, Diana Thai, and Thanh Lam. All are exceptional photographers. I am so happy with the final results. This photoshoot would never have been accomplished with the help of so many people. I truly feel blessed. Hope you all enjoy the photos as much as I did. Cheers!



Yiri Kosydar & Wendy Ho

Petr Polak & Petra Chovancova

 

 



Behind the Scenes



Shoot with Kerry & Leolani

Recently I got the chance to shoot with Kerry Loudenback, owner of Light & Sand Studios, and agency represented model Leolani. They were both pleasant to work with. I always prefer to exchange several emails or be in some sort of contact with people I plan to work with in order to be sure everyone is on the same page. It was refreshing to see that Kerry and Leolani are the same way! Kerry sent us both emails several weeks before the shoot to lay out what we will be doing on the day of and we all exchanged some photos for our moodboard. By the time we all arrived on the day of the shoot, we all knew what we were in for, which created a smooth sailing day. Our model Leolani was amazing. She knew exactly what positions and poses she needs to do and never once did we had to direct her. This was a relief for all of us. Yay teamwork! :) The following are a few photos I would like to share with all of you. We went for 3 different looks. The first one was a natural beauty look, which then turned into a dramatic smokey eye/editorial look, and finally I experimented with glitter eyes for our last look.