I love ballet. I love all things soft, delicate, and feminine. I recently watched a video by Sue Bryce about shooting dance style portraits, and wanted to try it myself. I wanted to see if I can pose girls who aren’t dancers in a way that would make them look like they are. Because really, what…
Back in December, Hasselblad sent me a camera to try. I had the H5D-50C, and two lenses: HC 50II MM and HC 80MM. It was absolutely amazing to use. The sound of the shutter alone is just.. ahhh. Okay I won’t gush too much. I planned out a series of images specifically to create with that…
If tomorrow never comes, would I feel like I’ve lived my life the best way I can? Did I do enough? Did I tell people how much I love them, did I change someone’s life to the better, did I influence anyone. Did I make a difference? Today is one of those days where I…
We don’t have to be in a negative state of mind to be able to create. Over the past few weeks, I struggled so much with that. I didn’t want to create something that doesn’t feel genuine or isn’t a part of me, but at the same time I was dying to create. I used…
Read more You don’t have to live the life of a tortured artist
I read a beautiful quote the other day, but I can’t seem to find it. I’m paraphrasing but it was something like “if we weren’t cracked or broken, the light wouldn’t be able to shine through”. I think that we all have a light inside of us, and it shines so bright but there are times…
Lately I’ve been revisiting old files and going through photoshoots that, I thought, failed. Oftentimes, I would give up on an image way too soon. Sometimes, I know for sure that it’s just not going to work (like when I do an entire shoot completely out of focus >_<), and sometimes it doesn’t turn out…
It feels like I’ve been waiting forever to share this image. This is probably the one I’m most excited about because I’ve dreamed of it for ages. It’s one of the ideas I have in my book that I kept putting off, I’m not sure why. I never got less excited about the idea, I…
I mentioned in my last blog post that I did a couple of shoots with my friend Natalia. After we shot some portraits, we started doing more conceptual work. We got to create an image that I dreamed about for a long time, inspired by a music video I saw when I was around 12 or…
Read more On shooting Natalia: Seven Days A Week of Truth and Fantasy
During the Restart The Art exhibition a couple of weeks ago, I got to chat with the lovely Fiona Hepher, who’s a part of The Sameness Project team (if you guys are interested in seeing pictures from the exhibition, check out my Facebook page). I decided to ask her if she’d be interested in modeling…
Sometimes it feels like there are two sides of us, constantly at war. One wants to be saved and is fighting for freedom and release, and one wants to stay down, and drag everything with it. Because it’s easy, because it’s safe, because the pain is familiar. Because it’s constant. That dark, self-deprecating, self-loathing side…
Amani AlShaali 