This is my entry for the daily #monomad challenge hosted and curated by @monochromes.

Hello and greetings everyone. How are you? I hope that today is an awesome day for all of you. Its been a very long time since my last post here on the community, I am missing all of you here, all the post and my friends.

Today I will share a series of black and white portrait of Diamond. She is one of the winner of Miss Pearl Malaysia 2023 and she is one of the model at Kimora Entertainment Network agency which is the modeling agency that I am currently working at.

This portrait shoot was not planned. It was a run and gun portraiture. On that day we are actually having a Chinese New Year celebration, she was invited and in my surprise she comes with her aunt which is the makeup artist and her wardrobe designer. While waiting for everyone and the foods arrived, they made a quick preparation for the shoot. I was informed later after her makeup was done that they want to get some photos taken. Luckily, the celebration was taken place inside the studio. So I prepare the set for the photoshoot.

The photo setup :
I used the black background for the shoot and use the Godox 600 AD for my main lighting. With the 180cm umbrella attached to the light with a white diffuser, I placed the light slightly to her right. I use one Godox 400 AD with a rectangle softbox mounted for the rim lighting.

EXIF - 1/100 sec | f/8 | ISO-200 | 70mm | 0 step exposure bias

She had a hard time to get the facial expression that I want. Before this she was active on pageantry and the photoshoot that she had was most of the time with smiling face and happy mood.

For this shoot I asked her to make a serious expression without a common "pageant" pose. It took me several minutes to guide her until she was comfortable enough to do what I asked for.

She really wanted to learn and she never gave me any complain, only she keep on asking me on hot should she do her pose and her expressions.

EXIF - 1/100 sec | f/8 | ISO-160 | 70mm | 0 step exposure bias

She told me that it was her first time doing this kind of shoot which involved a lot of shadows and thus made her took some time to adjust her mood for the shoot. While the background music during that time was a Chinese New Year song, a lot of concentration for the mood was needed.

EXIF - 1/100 sec | f/8 | ISO-200 | 70mm | 0 step exposure bias

One factor that made her a little bit difficult to get the mood that I want was, she is a very happy go lucky person and always making jokes plus when she laugh she always laughing it out loud. I think you guys can imagine having someone like her around, it will always in a happy mood which is good actually.

EXIF - 1/100 sec | f/8 | ISO-200 | 70mm | 0 step exposure bias

I like the expression of her face for this shoot. I think she nailed the expression and the mood of the shoot.

EXIF - 1/100 sec | f/8 | ISO-200 | 70mm | 0 step exposure bias

This was one of my favorite shoot. She made strong and good face expression plus the pose. It was a perfect shoot for me.

EXIF - 1/100 sec | f/8 | ISO-200 | 70mm | 0 step exposure bias

And this last photo proves that she already knows how to do the pose and with the face expression. On this photo, it shows that she have a lot of confidence and her eyes looks sharper as if it pierced into your soul.

And that is all from me today. I hope that you guys enjoy reading my post. Until we meet again on my next post. Have a great day and stay safe always. Cheers.

P/S : which one is your favorite? do comment below. :D