ANTM Season 2 Winner Yoanna House for LMHL Magazine

I had the opportunity to work with the lovely and talented Yoanna House from America's Next Top Model this past December for Lake Mary Healthy Living Magazine. She posed as our fashion model for magazine's fashion section, called The Look. We created this fantastical concept to photograph in a studio environment and make it snow. The magazine is a Florida based and distributed magazine, and we were playing on the fact that it does not snow that far south. (Being a Floridian, I do sometimes wish that the natural landscape would change a little bit throughout the year.)

Photographing on a darker background gave the concept a "moodier" look on top of giving the snow that pop of contrast needed to stand out. The images were tinted a little bit warm in post to give that comforting glow. I played around with a cooler tone to go with the snow theme, but it just didn't look inviting. The color play in the clothing was also important. I'm extremely happy with how the red in each image plays off each other in the second spread!

Yoanna did an amazing job "playing in the snow", and her expressions were spot on! We rocked through the shoot quickly because of her experience on set. She is a pro in front of the camera.

Sending out a big congratulations to her for just picking up her newest role as the Fashion and Entertainment Correspondent for First Coast Living.

Photographer: Betsy Hansen
Hair & Makeup: Rali Koleva
Clothing: Steinmart, Marie Jenkins

Nfinity Behind the Scenes

This is a behind-the-scenes image taken by Bernard Brzezinski at a recent shoot with Nfinity Athletics Corporation. It is an over the shoulder shot and a view of exactly what I was seeing. Yes, that is me on the right. I like to call this image the cheerleader stampede.  Not sure if you can tell from this angle, but I was definitely smiling...

This was the last shot of the day. We asked all of the 30+ cheerleaders to run directly towards the camera just for fun. They had an awesome time, and no I luckily did not get tackled! The camera is still in one piece. :)

This second shot is myself plus one of two videographers they hired to film the project.  I was shooting accross the water to a beach where all of the 30+ cheerleaders were dressed in 50's swim attire and having a good old time!  I had to use my cell phone to give direction to my assistant and my client, who was on the side with the cheerleaders.  It was a little bit of chaos, but at least I was on the quiet side.

A fun day.

Slenderbread Model Bootcamp Video

This is a video from the recent Slenderbread Runway Boot camp held at Orlando Photography Studio. We had America's Next Top Model winner Yoanna House as our guest judge. She talked to all of the girls about her career, and reviewed their portfolios. Best improved of the day was Ray, a model with BMG, who will be featured in the next issue of Slenderbread. It was a fun day, and all models who attended walked away with tons of information. Bernard Brzezinski and I created the video for the workshop.

Susan Miner

Vogue Cover Model & Peace of Mind Mentor

I had the wonderful opportunity to photograph Susan Miner, a lovely woman who had a very fulfilled career as a fashion model beginning in the mid 80's. She has graced the covers of Mirabella, Elle, Marie Claire, Bazaar, Self and Vogue to name a few. She is now working as a mentor and councelor helping women and models raise their inner confidence and peace.

As much as you would think that modeling boosts confidence and builds self-esteem, it does quite the opposite! The young girls and boys are thrown into an industry where their every flaw is critiqued and criticized. Over time, even the very confident models can get worn down and quite self-conscious. Susan works with models to reverse this process and build confidence from the inside out.  She uses her past experiences to connect with her mentees and bring them to a higher level.

The cover to the right is for the first issue of Slenderbread magazine from Feb/Mar 2013. Susan added to her list of covers by doing an intimate interview about her career journey.  Read more at her website here: http://susanminerbeauty.com/about/.

She does have a meditation workshop coming up Mid May 2013 in Orlando at the price of $20/person (& bring a friend for free!).  There is more information about this workshop on her website under the "Offerings" tab: http://susanminerbeauty.com/offerings/model-confidence-workshop/.

Hunter & Courtney for Slenderbread Magazine

This fun little spread was published in the April/May 2013 issue of a magazine called Slenderbread.  The cool thing is that there is a behind the scenes write up from the photographer or crew at the end of each fashion editorial about the shoot. Posted below is the write up about the shoot that appeared along side the spread in the magazine.

BTS OF JUMELLES

BY BETSY HANSEN

Hunter and Courtney, the two lovely models for Jumelles, both approached me about doing a joint photo shoot. This was definitely a casual and relaxed shoot, a little more than what I am used to with my usual clients.  We didn’t have a huge crew on set, just the models, one model mom, the makeup artist, and myself. The location, hair, and makeup style was preplanned. As far as wardrobe, I simply told Hunter and Courtney to bring clothing with them, and we would figure out wardrobe day of.

They brought so many more options for clothing than I was expecting.  They even brought a clothing rack, which I loved. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to bring a clothing rack and a steamer to a photo shoot. I noticed when we were going through the options that there was a ton of lace, and that it would be extremely easy to pair. 

Thus came Jumelles, French for twins. I purposefully played on this concept; as far as posing was concerned, my thoughts and ideas leaned more along the lines of “Siamese twins”. I wanted them to be the type of twins who never separate because they are joined at the hip. In this case being joined at the hip was figurative, not literal. Thus, as you can see in each shot, the girls are next to each other and touching in some way. I also played with the idea of the characters needing support from the other for stability. I love that the viewer can see the emotion on the models’ faces that reflects that need for stability and strength for the other twin.

We photographed in Baldwin Park in Orlando, Florida in the late afternoon. I knew I wanted to play with lens flares and get some shots during sunset. I did just that. We got our first couple shots in with no problem, but once that sun started going down, it went down fast. In one image, which was our second to last shot, you can see the shadow line creeping up the model. The shadow changed from frame to frame, and honestly only lasted a few minutes. I loved capturing that!

In hopes to not lose the golden sunset completely, I had the models literally running to the locations before and after their final clothing change. The last location was on top of a small hill, which was covered with green clovers. I needed the height to help catch as much of the sunset as possible. It was a cloudless day, and I didn’t want to waste a second of that amazing golden light. We were able to shoot some standing and sitting images. We even snuck in some fun stuff at the very end to celebrate. We nailed it! The girls were fantastic, my makeup artist was right there by my side helping with the fly-aways, and my model mom even helped hold a reflector. Thank you to my team for being so amazing!