Photogrpahy & Photoshop Crash Courses

Yes, it is finally here!

Starting from this month, I have decided to offer 3 crash courses for people whom want to learn about the basics of DSLR and Photoshop. From previous experience, I have spent quite some money to take some courses and realize in the end, you only need no more than 4 sessions to learn all the basics. Here is a brief description of each course.

Photography Crash Course for Beginners
I think the best way to learn photography is learn it in a practical way so I have decided to keep the theory to a minimal level and teach you all the basics without using a lot of "hard to remember" terms or calculations. In this course, I will be teaching how and when to use Aperture mode, Shutter mode and teach you how to set up Manual mode (one of the most important features). I will also teach you how to use on camera flash and speedlight so that you will not take Zombie like photos with them. Lastly, if you have photoshop, I will also teach you the basic editing with this software.

This course will consist of 4 sessions (3 if you want to skip photoshop) and each session will last for 2 hours but trust me, I will likely to go overtime. If you want to see the course outline, please click here.

Photoshop Crash Course For Beginners 
Well, I know some of you have knowledge of how to function a DSLR already but may want to learn the basics of editing images with photoshop. This is the course you will want to take because I will teach you about levels, curves, masking, clones etc. It will be best if you can have a RAW file with you so we can go through the RAW function as well. For more details, please click here.

Photoshop For Portraits Crash Course
Some of you may focus on portrait photography and at some point may get stuck with the editing process. In this crash course, I will teach you all the necessary techniques you need to edit the image. You will even learn a trick or two from me for spicing up the photos. For more details, please click here.

Yeah, that's me if you nee to know who you are dealing with, haha.

I hope you enjoy this brief description and I am look forward hearing from you soon! If you have any questions, feel free to email me at class@fusionofeffects.com.

Icon: Fashion Through Your Eyes - Prelude

Remember the casting call back in February? If not, don't worry, we are about to reveal what we have done in this entry.

On February 21, we have gathered 7 people and done a shoot at 2B1 Studio called Fashion Through Your Eyes. These 7 people are not your average models, they are coming from different backgrounds and because of that, we have asked them to tell us what does fashion mean to them from their point of view. The photos turn out to be amazing and we cannot believe some of them are their first time to be in front of the camera (as a model).

Since we are co-hosting the Fashin with an O photography exhibit with Sleeping Giant Gallery from March 12-18, we have decided to showcase the photos we have done on February 21 starting on March 12 at 4pm. Each day we will feature one person for 7 days. Here are the models that you have been wanting to know who they are since March 1st!

From left to right:

Leslie Gray

Amy Leung

Ryan Joseph Whitehead

Monica Bonczak

Esther Leung

Adam Bonczak

Bailey Russell

Leslie will be our first feature for this online exhibit so make sure you tune in at 4pm EST tomorrow! Don't forget to come to the exhibit on Friday night to chill with us! 

An open invitation from us!

It's a brand new year and a brand new decade so we want to do something new and cool!

First of all we want to thank all the people who have been reading our blog ever since it was first launched. We have been working hard to find the best things we like to share with all of the readers here but we at à la mode want to do move this blog to a next level: We want to interact with you!

In order to do this, we have come up with the following solutions.

1) If you know any new funky products, new trendy clothing, new cool restaurants and whatever you think is up to your trendy standard, send an email to us @ alamode.infos@gmail.com . Once our crew review your material and agree it is trendy, your "discovery" will be on our blog.

2) Become a fan on the Facebook Fanpage and follow us on Twitter! If you are a fan on our Facebook Fanpage, you can leave comment to our wall and trust us, we will reply you when we see it! Also, retweeting our tweets on Twitter will let more people know about trend standards and people will recognize you if we feature your entry on our blog! (Yes, we will put your name on that entry! ) Overall, encourage your friends to become our fan or follow us so that we can build a bigger community!

3) Are you a talented artist? If you are, we are looking for you! Every month, we are constantly looking for new talents that will become tomorrow's super star! If you think you have the talent, send us some of your works (graphic design works, photographs, songs, modeling photos if you are a model.. etc) and give us 2-3 business days to review them. If you are qualified, we will do an Q&A session with you and featured as our [Un]Discovers section! Also, if your works are good, we can refer you to 2B1 (a photography studio where they can hook you up with clients) for photographers or Sleeping Giant Gallery if you are an artist for exhibit. We will also help you promote your arts/ photography after you have become our [Un]Discovers (free of charge too!)! If you need a break, send us an email to alamode.infos@gmail.com now!

4) Leave comment to our entries on the blog. We constantly need constructive feedback and want to see what we can improve. Your input is our motivation to keep working on this blog!

5) Also, if you are a model or actor and needs portfolio shots, we can help! All you have to do is check out our package deal and pick which one suits you the most! Once we do the shoot, we will promote you as our Knight of Dusk or Dame of Virtue so people will notice you!  Contact us for more information and pricing!

We are looking forward to hear from you soon and we want you to be known by the public, so you should act now! Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any problems, we promise you we will reply you as soon as we see your question/comment. Remember, we only want the best and showcase the best things to you!

What we have in store for you before 2009 is over!

We are here to give you some ideas what we have in store for you before 2009 is over. Tomorrow we will be featuring another knight. This knight is also a photographer so if you want to arrange a shoot with him, you better stick to our blog.

We are also in talks with an illustrationist right now and soon we will feature this artist as our second [Un]Disovers. You will not want to miss this because this artist artworks are unique and Marcus is lucky enough to be able to collaborate with this person before.

Last but not least, we are are discussing some details with a gallery right now and soon we will be releasing information about the end of year party. If you have no where to go on that night and live in Downtown Toronto, keep checking out our blog for updates!

If you haven't read the entries about feature knight and dame, click on the images below and get to know them!

Jesse

 
Ashley

How to get started

When you are trying to get into an industry such as modelling or acting. The first thing you need is looks, this NOT to be interpeted as are you attractive or not. Your look is based on what you do with your style. Take the time to find out what complements your best features. Try new hair styles, make up, clothes, and accessories. Then ask your friends and co-workers opinions on your new style. Once you have a good look that complements you, you are ready to move on the second step.

Next step is to get experience under your belt. There is one of two ways to do this. 1. Trial and error. I would not suggest this method for many reasons. The last thing a director or photographer wants to hear is "What do you want me to do". Another reason is this industry is based on networking, so if you make a mistake it could cost your career. 2. Education. The best place for experience is getting lessons for modelling or going to school for acting. Want to know why it is the best place for experience because you are allowed to experiment and get constructive critizism, then at the end of lessons you can put it on resume.

Model Packages

As you have read so many posts about trends and inspirations, you might have forgotten what we actually do, which is helping models to develop their portfolio. We provide various package deals for the models each package has a lot of things to offer. Even though you will pay us to do the shoot, we can guarantee you that the photos will meet your expectation. Once the shoot is over, we will promote you on our blog for FREE so that more people will get to know you and that's part of our mission.

Further more, Once you have done a shoot with us, you will be on our record.  When we have a concept shoots in mind and believe you can fit into one of the characters, we will invite you for the shoot and you will keep the photos for your portfolio for free. If any of the concept leads to real commercial deals/ some projects, we will contact your agency and pay you for the shoot. Down the road, we just want you to succeed and become one of the main players in this industry.

The following are the different types of packages. If you are interested, feel free to send us an email to alamode.infos@gmail.com and ask us about the price.

Model Package "A"
3 hours of shoot (include makeup time)
2 outfit change
1- 2 make up looks (natural and glamour)
5 photos will be retouched. You will get all the retouch and non-retouch photos (medium resolution) in a disc/server P.S There will have an extra charge for one extra retouch photo

Model Package "B"
2 hours of shoot
2 outfit change
5 photos will be retouched. You will get all the retouch and non-retouch photos (medium resolution) in a disc/server. P.S There will have an extra charge for one extra retouch photo

Actor Package "A"
1-1.5 hour of shoot (include makeup time)
1 outfit
1 make up
2 retouched photos in high resolution. Retouch photos and non retouch photos in a disc/server. P.S There will have an extra charge for one extra retouch photo

Actor Package "B"
1 hour of shoot (include makeup time)
1 outfit
2 retouched photos in high resolution. Retouch photos and non retouch photos in a disc/server. P.S There will have an extra charge for one extra retouch photo

We guarantee the money you pay will worth every penny. If you think you are ready for this, then let's shoot some nice photos and start your modeling/actor journey!

Aurora and Evolution

You may know that Aurora means northern and southern lights. It is one of the most beautiful things in nature. To us, Aurora means dream of fantasy. What it means is the result of graphic design meets modeling photos. When these two things blend together, the outcome is usually STUNNING and full of EXCITEMENT. We do not have a guideline for this kind of creation, it is all about how the graphic designer feels about the photo. Of course, you can request what you hope to see in the image and we will try our best to fulfill your wish. In the end, all we are trying to do is to make the knights and dames to look more stunning in the battlefield.

Aurora Dream

As for the word Evolution, it is equal to the word Concept. We consider every concept shoot an evolution because we always like to put a twist on an ordinary concept. With the twisted concept, everything becomes more interesting and people will be amazed when they see the final result from our production.  Currently we have a few concept shoot that are in their draft stage and we are excited to make each concept into reality.

Evolution

We have covered all the terms that you need to know from our group. Now let's have a quick recap of those words:

Knight of Dusk - Male Model
Dame of Virtue - Female Model
Aurora - Graphic Photos
Evolution - Concept Shoot
Icon - Exhibition Shoot

Keep following this blog because you will never know what to expect in the next entry.  Also check out flickr images on your left to see more photos from our photographer, Astro Marus.

The Knights and The Dames

If you have seen our logo, you should have noticed that it is made up of black, white and pink. Each of these colors does represent something to our group and in this entry, let's talk about black and white.

Black and White are like pairs, they cannot be separated in our definition. They each represents dark or bright, ying or yang and of course, male or female. To us, we also want to associate words with male and female models because we don't like ordinary words; therefore, we come out with knights and dames to represent each gender. Further more, since we associate black to male and white to female, the result will become :

Black = Man = Knight

White = Woman = Dame

The reason why we choose the words Knight and Dame is because these models are fighters in the modeling industry. We know that because they are passionate about their jobs and will fight hard for their futures. In our definition, we are their add-on armors. With our photography, directing, styling, make up and hair dressing skills, we will customize their flawless armors for them to fight in the battlefield. For the knights, we call them the Knights of Dusk because they first are associated with the color black, but also our style for them will be more gloomy but still look cool. As for the dames, we call them Dames of Virtue because we tend to give them a more glamour and bright feeling (and of course, they are associated to white). Regardless of which side you are on, we will explore your other persona and let you have the appropriate attitude for your battleground (and yes, those definitions are just guidelines, they are meant to be broken!).

Sounds complicated? Let's translate the above paragraph into our everyday language. Basically, once you pay us for a photoshoot, we will do our best to capture your best model look and possibly find another side you have never realized before. BUT, that doesn't stop right here. We will keep you on record and whenever we have a concept shoot or exhibition shoot we are going to develop, if we believe your look fits one of the characters, we are going to approach you and ask you to be on board with us. We will pay all the rents and we are basically giving you a FREE shoot so you will have photos for your portfolio. If those shoots will turn out to be some advertising campaign and stuff, we will definitely pay your share. In the end, we want to get your name out there too!

For those of you who have read till here, may your passionate spirit help you reach your goal! Good Luck and feel free to approach us.

The Knight

The Dame

Creation of à la mode

Can't believe how far we have come through to this point. I still remembered how Leslie and I were brainstorming how this group should work in the cafe and now with the help of Ryan, our vision is starting to see the reality. At this point, we are still developing the facebook fan page, but I am already having a good feeling that this is going to be a brand new journey for all of us.

In the following days, I will try to explain how our group works and I am sure this will make you excited (yeah, you, the one who is reading this right now!). As for now, let's explain what we will do.

As for this moment, we have three directions we are going for. The 1st one will be shooting photos of the models to help them to create their portfolio. We have been working with different models and we always can discover his/her other persona that they ever notice. We enjoy working with them and from what we heard, they enjoy working with us too!

The 2nd direction we are going for is concept shoot. We constantly have different ideas in mind and with careful planning, we turn the ideas into reality. Recently we have done a concept shoot and we are going to sell this concept to companies. Due to the fact this is dealing with other companies, we cannot tell you what this is all about at this moment. Stay tune for some good news!

The 3rd direction is exhibition. We love to collaborate with different photographers, makeup artists, stylists, hairdressers and models. Back in August,à la mode is lucky to be part of a shoot with Sibel Aisha Photography and Dcfotography. The theme of this shoot is to bring the Kings and Queens of playing cards to life. Since we know that a lot of people have properly done this before, we have made a twist to it. Each suit will be assigning to a specific theme and they are: Loathe for Spades, Love for Hearts, Power for Clubs and Greed for Diamonds. Ryan is the King of Spades while I am responsible to shoot the Hearts couple. After we have done the shoot, this project gets a chance to be displayed in the Sleeping Giant Gallery for a week from Oct 23-29,2009.

In the future, we are planning to do event and wedding photography too. Stay tune for more information about us!

Cheers to the bright future!