Hello hello, welcome to my Unsung creatives – Giselle Provocatrice post!

As a photographer, you spend a lot of time looking for fellow creatives to collaborate with. It’s an extremely fun process and easily one of the biggest perks.

However, I always tried to be prepared, and that often meant scouring the internet for images that I could offer my clients as styles we could attempt… I have a huge collection of my favourite creatives and I thought instead of just sharing my own photos, I could share some of my favourite unsung creatives and explain what I like about them.
This Giselle isn’t a famous model, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t done amazing work.

This is one of my favourite images…

The lighting and studio are fairly simple… allowing the green of the dress to become the focal point. There is a really soft light to the left of the camera… and a much stronger light behind the model to the right. It’s incredible, it creates the shadows that we can see, particularly on Giselle’s arms… and her forehead.
Her lipstick and hair are just spectacular… the whole shot is just so classy.

The colour and vibrancy of the above image is just incredible. The makeup on her face would possibly look so strange in many other photos, but in this shot it fits perfectly. The curve of the pink makeup is highlighted by the upwards tilt of her head.

Again her hair looks super cool, and the background has been flared in photoshop to keep the focus entirely on her face. Even though Giselle has her hands in the photo, they serve purely to draw the eye up towards her face. It’s such a great shot.

I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it is to get Giselle’s skintones to look this milky. When people think of black and white photos, they often think of strong contrast between light and shadow. In the above shot, the light is used to mask everything but the purse, ring and her eyes.

I think this would have been done with a single light above her head and off to the right, and maybe a really soft light near the camera. The hair, the background, the dress are all amazing, and all used to highlight the purse. It’s such a great shot and I’ve never come close to creating something this cool.

Again the light is used to highlight the focal point of the image, which are her bright red lips. To highlight her lips and nose like that but to leave everything else in shadow must have taken so long. I imagine there would have been five or six people buzzing around trying to get this shot exactly right. There must have been an assistant moving the lights millimeter by millimeter to get it exactly right… and then the hair stylist would have contributed as well to contribute to such an interesting shot. The red satin top is incredible, and I love the reflection of the light in the black bangles.
I would guess that it might have taken hours of Giselle standing in this one spot slightly adjusting her movements to get this image… of course there is always the chance they got it in the first take… but I’d guess the chances of that are ten thousand to one.

I love love love this below image (hence using it as the Featured Image for this post). I really love shots with a little light in someone’s eyes… but her skin looks amazing and the detail of her hair is just incredible. I honestly think this would have taken so long to get this exact right image.

I’m so curious about this set… the old fashioned chair, the wall paper in the background. I haven’t seen this set in any other shot, so I’ve love to hear the backstory about it.

The lighting in this shot is great… especially the metal stirrup thing. My favourite thing about this shot is Giselle’s pose.. the arching of the back, the tension in the hand but the stillness in the face… and so much hair.

I love this shot above so much… the full triangle of the shape of the pose…. the complete solid shadow of the left side of her face, and the intensity of her face. The thin line of light on the edge of her cheek that separates her face and her hair is just perfect. The windswept quality of her hair adds the feeling of movement on an otherwise solid shape.
Modelling isn’t easy, this pose would have gotten really uncomfortable really quickly, especially since she doesn’t have a lot on – and there was likely a few people in the studio, but she’s absolutely rocking it with the intensity of her stare.

Do you have a favourite photo of the model Giselle Provocatrice? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.

Thanks for reading my Unsung creatives – Giselle Provocatrice post, I hope to do more of these to honour the photographers, models, makeup artists and creatives that I admire.

If you’re interested in my own photography posts, please check out:

Photography – ideas that didn’t work…
A total photographic mix up
Photography – Gioia in B&W