Obscurae Magazine: In the Spotlight

Magic happens when you work with amazing people who also happen to be wildly talented!

Published in Obscurae Mag Issue 29 - OUT NOW!

Photographer: Shayne Gray
www.shaynegray.com
@shaynegrayphotography

Retoucher: Abstraxion Retouch & Design
www.ardedit.com
@abstraxion_retouch

Clothing Designer & Stylist: Julia Welsh for Humility the Label
www.humilitythelabel.com
@hvmility

Makeup Artist & Hair Stylist: Kristen Foote Makeup & Hair
www.kristenfoote.ca
@makeupbykristen

Model: Kehli G (Seven Model & Talent MGMT)
www.modelmayhem.com/2998132
@kehli_g @sevenmodelsmgmt

Audi for TOM*

Toronto Men's Fashion Week opened its third season last night at Audi Downtown Toronto. Last week I shot an amazing "What Drives the TOM* Man" Audi campaign with a fun & dynamic group of wildly talented creatives. Thanks to Audi for having us (and of course for cutting us loose with some cool cars to play with) and to everyone else who worked on the campaign. See the TOM* blog post here.

Looking very forward to the runway events starting tomorrow.... (And in case you missed it, check out more from TOM* here: backstage, celebrity/VIP, and of course...runway)

Special thanks to Brian for the awesome Behind the Scenes photography:

Photo courtesy of Brian de Rivera Simon

Photo courtesy of Brian de Rivera Simon

Photos courtesy of Brian de Rivera Simon

Photo courtesy of Brian de Rivera Simon

Photo courtesy of Brian de Rivera Simon

Photo courtesy of Brian de Rivera Simon

Photo courtesy of Brian de Rivera Simon

PHOTOGRAPHY Shayne Gray

DIRECTION Andro Gayondato, Ryan Wohlgemut, Kalvin Coria

CASTING Armel Massissou with Mimi Aba-Olema

MODEL Barrett Lucak of PUSH Management

F&B Adrielle Jordanne

HAIR Ryan Oakley

MAKEUP Maria Natalia Rodriguez, Rainier Croft

STYLING Carl Woo

BTS Brian de Rivera Simon

COORDINATOR Jeff Lei

Fashioning Life: Wear Your Story

Last night was the opening of a beautiful and inspiring art & fashion exhibit at the Design Exchange that I feel honoured to have been a part of. Congratulations to curator Filomena Natale Gasparro for the show's amazing success.

We've put together a video to complement the exhibit where she explains it much more eloquently than I ever could:

I would encourage everyone locally here in Toronto to check it out from now until March 6th - see the Facebook event page for further details.

Latin American Fashion Week: Behind the Scenes

Makeup artist, Rainier Croft with model, Christine Ramkeesoon

Latin American Fashion Week just finished yesterday and was an amazing event to be a part of with tons of talent buzzing around everywhere.

I've done a few fashion shows lately, which isn't my usual, but when I walked into the Spoke Club here in Toronto and saw a herd of other photographers with basically the same gear taking photos of the same thing I was forced to take a moment to think about how I could capture the event differently, which is an invaluable exercise. What's your purpose for being there and how is anyone going to recognize your photo from anyone else's - how is your work going to stand out? Interestingly, I'm quite sure that had I not been confronted with a room full of other photographers, I may not have tried so hard and wouldn't have gotten the images that I did.

That's when it's time to experiment - one fun trick is to shoot through things. Here, I put some water glasses on the bar and shot through them creating a dreamy effect without any fancy-pants photoshop effects:

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Makeup artist, Tamar Cox "Flawless"

Makeup artist, Sophia Chau Hoang

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Me and my shadow

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Just Sultan bow-ties

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Sultan of "Just Sultan" bow-ties