Photography: Alexis Finch, Fashion & Beauty Editor: Ingrie Williams, Makeup: Roxanne DeNobrega, Hair: Simone Finch

Sway Magazine Holiday Beauty Feature on creating mesmerizing makeup looks for eyes for the holiday season.  See the full article on the Sway site here.

Photo of Lake Ontario that I took a few days ago on my way home from Christmas holidays. It's in my "photos to print" folder!

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a great holiday season!  As I started making a list of all of the things that I want to do with this new year I realized that I haven’t updated this blog since October so I will put a few new posts up this week to get up to date.  I guess as far as new year resolutions go, the cool thing to say is “I don’t make resolutions” but people who know me know that I (obsessively) LOVE making “to do lists” and scratching items off!

Somewhere on my list between “go to bed earlier” and “stop quoting the movie Friday” is my resolution to PRINT PHOTOS.  Actual real paper photos.  I miss the days when I used to spend hours in the darkroom.  It might have been the toxic chemicals and light deprivation, but I could spend an entire day in there and not even notice the time go by.  Printing photos in the darkroom made each photo feel like a personal product.  Now, like many of you, my photos never seem to leave my computer.  After having a hard drive stolen a couple of years ago, I learned the hard lesson to backup my photos multiple times.  Still, there’s nothing like having a physical print.

Well I’m off to a good start with this one.  I already printed last week’s Christmas photos for my family and finished hanging up a gallery wall at home (ok, I totally cheated with the gallery wall since the photos were already printed for art shows last year).  I have a folder on my desktop called “photos to print” and I’ve promised myself to print the photos in the folder once a month.  They can be work photos or personal ones, as long as it’s printed I know that I’ll always have them.  Of course, unless my house burns down,  haha (nervous laugh) (knock on wood).

So once again, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Good luck with your resolutions, goals, intentions, whatever you want to call ‘em.  I’m right there with you just trying to make myself a better person!

xo

40 portraits, 8 makeup artists, 1 photographer & a very busy day!  Last week I spent a day shooting makeovers for Rexall Pharmaplus’ Network Your Look Project.  It was a fun day and it was great to see the transformations take place.  Huge thanks to my assistant Gillian, Stephanie from Pharmaplus, Natalie from L’Oreal, the makeup artists and reps from all of the participating cosmetics companies (L’Oreal, Vasanti, Pupa) and all of the lovely “real people models”!

A few of the makeup artists and company reps

]]> http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/rexall-pharmaplus-network-your-look-shoot/feed/ 1 alexisfinch all3 IMG_9594 IMG_9653 IMG_9579 IMG_9656 IMG_9600 IMG_9590 IMG_9679 http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/zaki-ibrahim-photo-shoot/ http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/zaki-ibrahim-photo-shoot/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:28:12 +0000 alexisfinch http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/?p=654 ]]> Singer Zaki Ibrahim creates a style of music that can’t be defined by one genre, but definitely has a serious fan following.  Formerly Toronto-based and now living in South Africa, Zaki came to Toronto to perform at last Sunday’s Manifesto Festival concert at Dundas Square.  If you missed her performance there you can catch her at Headspace  tonight.

I met Zaki many years ago and if you’re a fan of hers you’ve probably seen photos that we shot way back (2006?).

Our latest shoot turned out pretty much exactly like the idea in my head.  I’m happy that she trusted me because I had her climbing rocks, walking in water, and crawling around on hot sand!  I’ll have more photos posted online soon for a project that I’m working on, but for now enjoy the preview!

Photography: Alexis Finch, Makeup: Shawna-Renee

Shawna-Renee, Me, Zaki. Great shoot day!

The fall issue is available on news stands now.

]]> http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/sway-magazine-beauty-fall-2011/feed/ 0 alexisfinch IMG_7395 IMG_1028-3 IMG_1073 IMG_7319 IMG_7523-crop http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/afrobella-afrodelik/ http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/afrobella-afrodelik/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:40:26 +0000 alexisfinch http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/?p=616 ]]>

This past weekend was a busy one for natural hair enthusiasts in Toronto.  There were several big events that took place centered around the care and beauty of black women’s naturally curly/kinky/locked/twisted/etc. hair.  If you follow blogs and Youtube videos on this topic then you know that one of the most well known beauty bloggers out there is Patrice Grell Yursik better known as Afrobella.  I had a fun shoot with Patrice and Afrodelik designs during her visit to Toronto.  More photos will be out soon on the Afrodelik site.  It was a pleasure working with these ladies… Oh, and Afrobella said she loved my hair (wheee!!!)

Anne-Marie and Luvvie, always working!

Afrodelik jewellery.

Amanda Tacus (makeup artist), Desiree Marshall (Afrodelik.com), Me (alexisfinch.com), Anne-Marie Collymore (soulafrodisiac.com), Patrice (Afrobella.com), Luvvie (awesomelyluvvie.com)

Last week I was on set for the filming of Saidah Baba Talibah’s music video for “So cool” from her album (S)cream.  For the filming of a concert scene, a devoted group of friends & fans piled in to a dark creepy building to jump around and of course – Scream.  Can’t wait to see how the finished video looks!  If you haven’t heard Saidah’s music check her out here: sbtmusic.com

Photography: Alexis Finch, Editor/Style: Ingrie Williams, Makeup/Hair: Roxanne DeNobrega, Model: Happy

and the team…

Me, Happy, Ingrie, Roxanne

]]> http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/sway-magazine-summer-2011-beauty/feed/ 1 alexisfinch IMG_9575 IMG_9732 IMG_9867 IMG_9818 IMG_9986-small http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/nashville-yall/ http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/nashville-yall/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:34:13 +0000 alexisfinch http://alexisfinch.wordpress.com/?p=479 ]]> I’ve been meaning to post something new for weeks, but well, we’ve had a beautiful summer and it was hard to stay stuck to the computer when the sun kept calling me outside!  I’m gonna post a whole bunch of new stuff so let’s start with Nashville.

I was in Nashville with another photographer to photograph a National convention for a sales company.  Sounds boring, but it was actually fast-paced and fun.  Downtown Nashville is made up of a lot of concrete and feels quite industrial so being on foot in the heat didn’t make me want to venture out very far from my hotel (& air conditioning).  We were working most of the time so I didn’t take a lot of personal pics (I had just finished a 13 hour day of photo-taking) but I did spend one night walking around with my camera.

Country music is played EVERYWHERE.  After a while all I had was country songs in my head and I was singing them in the shower and whistling down the street!  A lot of the bars even have live music playing 24-hours a day.  At first I felt out of place in those “honky-tonk bars” but most people are pretty friendly and when a cowboy boot-wearing, wrestler-looking muscle man gave me an enthusiastic (and ridiculous) “heeeyyy sistaaaa” with a wink and a smile I just couldn’t help laughing out loud!  o_0  Here’s some pics.

Oh New York… I had such a great time on this last visit.  I fall in love with this city more and more with each visit.  I went to the Phillips dePury & Company gallery to see their photography auction featuring some of the most iconic images in photography history, had dinner with an inspiring group of women in the arts, and most importantly, was introduced to the best mac n cheese I’ve ever had in my life.

Best. mac n cheese. EVER @ s'mac

b&w prints by Cartier-Bresson, Patrick Demarchelier, Robert Doisneau, and many others at the photography auction

Dinner in Harlem

mornin'

my sis

I’ll be back very soon!