Avalon-Chanel Weijzig: The Work Of David Stella

This post is also available in: Dutch

Let me introduce you the beautiful Miss Avalon-Chanel Weijzig. A lady with a story: you probably know her looks because Avalon-Chanel competed as one of 12 finalists in our country’s national beauty pageant, Miss Universe Nederland.

Avalon-Chanel is born to parents of Indonesian decent here in Zwolle, The Netherlands, as you can immediately notice.
I’m always looking for that kind of special, pure looks. I love having a kind of tonality contrast in the facial expressions: dark eyes, dark hair, lighter skin.. it’s so much easier to let images stand out like that because dark and light make a natural contrast which I love to accentuate with a custom light setup.

I had already contact with Avalon-Chanel and she was on my waiting list for quite some time. But when I received a message from one of my favorite make-up artists, David Stella, I knew what to do.
David asked me to collaborate. Working together to make some new images of pure beauty. The last time we worked together was in 2007, 4 years ago. He didn’t have a model yet, but Avalon-Chanel came into my mind immediately.
I replied David if he would like to work with Avalon-chanel and he said yes immediately. And after the shoot, I knew why.

David is the king of skin treatment and clean work. He works for M-A-C Cosmetics New York and uses materials with special minerals. I must admit, the stuff does something special with skin tones. And David has a special gift, to highlight the most sensual and beautiful aspects of a face to accentuate character and combine it to a very unique look.

While I was walking with David Stella and Avalon-Chanel Weijzig in my backyard, the Ittersumerpark in Zwolle NL, I had some moments that I didn’t know where to look at. And, I noticed the same with some other people there.. 😉
I’m used to work with beautiful women but this, the combination of her roots, her looks and David’s work, was a new experience to me. I liked it, of course.

I kept the lighting equipment quite simple. Outside in the park I used a Speedlite in a Lastolite Ezybox, because I could trigger the flash with my PocketWizards so I could control the flash from my camera. I liked to have the images more natural, so I also used some large reflectors of 2 by 3 meters. It was a battle against the wind but thanks to David again. 🙂

In the studio I used a basic, standard setup. An frontal Elinchrom Deep Octa, with a reflector for a kind of clamshell setup. I used a stripe with grid from the back and I also used a maxi spot with grid (overkill, I know) from the back as hair light.

I didn’t had to retouch so much, only some stray hairs. The work of David was flawless. Thank you so much, both.