ACK!!! %&$%&#$&(*#!!!

Don't worry - this is a happy post. The above only means I'm freaking out in a good way :)

Yesterday...ahh, twas a grand event at least for me.
I had an opportunity to have professional photos taken of me by the wonderfully talented David Irvine.

Morning started off as such: hair and makeup at Les Ciseaux at 8:30am sharp (Jenny doesn't like to wait around, lol). My hair was styled by Jenny Luong and I love her because she's so hip and cool and young and modern. I walked in there with what I thought was the most fantastic punkiest idea EVER...and walked out looking edgy and sexy, not childish. The style I had chosen, in Jenny's words, would cause me to look more like a tween than a sexy 30-something.
Fair enough.

I sat in the cushioned salon chair facing myself in the mirror. I slightly resembled what I can only call a hip hag. Jenny stood behind me eyeing up the task at hand and as she fingered my hair (sorry, I suppose that sounds a little tawdry) she says to me "Girl, did you colour your hair blonde recently?" Yes, I said back. On the weekend in fact.

"It wasn't done professionally was it? It's too brassy. I have a solution for that." she proceeded to inform me of a product that thankfully I can find at Shoppers that helps make blondes look like blondes and not, as she said, brassy.

But brassy rhymes with sassy, which I am!, I thought with a smile.

She fluffed, straightened, styled, and product-ed (in other words, put "product" in my hair) until I was perfection in her chair. She's like that though; ANY strand out of place and she will fix that asap. I've never met a stylist as anal as her (I say that with love, I really do) but it's also what makes her so darn professional. :)

It took her all of 20 minutes to help in the transformation of Lisa. I had streaked my blonde hair the night before with Manic Panic red (that looks more like fuschia) and it was a pretty awesome job if I do say so myself! ::snaps suspenders proudly::

"Okay girl, makeup next with Kayla. Good luck today eh!" I smiled and thanked her for her awesomeness and scootched 3 seats down to where Kayla was waiting for me. We exchanged pleseantries and I showed her the eye shadow that I brought along to use: beautiful bright blue.
Srsly.
I was going ALL out today: edgy pink hair styled to funkterrificness. Blue eyes so bold and vibrant. God I love colour!

Might I take a moment at this point to say how incredible it is to get pampered. You know that light dreamy feeling you experience when someone is playing with your hair? I kinda got that same feeling when Kayla was applying with gentle brush strokes the powdery softness of the eye shadow.

Until she said "Open your eyes and look UP."
Riiight. Having someone draw eyeliner on me is not something I enjoyed. Not because it hurt or anything, just because it makes me uncomfortable. It's something that I should be doing because well, I'm not going to poke myself in the eye...not that Kayla did...crap this is going somewhere it shouldn't.

About 15 minutes later she stepped back from working her magic, handed me my glasses and a mirror. I was like, whoa. I had bright-assed blue eye shadow on and it.looked.GOOD! On me! Makeup! Who knew?

Long story short, both Kayla and Jenny did a remarkable job transforming me into VaVaVoom girl. :)

By the time I left the salon I was jacked...emotionally speaking ;)
I weaved in and out of downtown 10am London traffic with ease, enjoying the heat of the day already, slinging my left arm casually out my window all the while shifting gears, dialling my girl friend's number to OMG over my transformation and punching the radio keys to find the right song to fit my mood.
As soon as I heard Sex on Fire, I blasted it and waited on calling Rebekah :)

45 minutes later I arrived at David's house, hot and sweaty from the ride down from not only the weather, but my nerves. I was tres excited!

As I have explained to so many people over the past few weeks, this photo shoot was for ME. It was an ego boost I was in dire need of and no amount of sexy shoes on sale could help, to my chagrin. So I saved my pennies and found images online of the look I was hoping to achieve, and prepared for the day on so many levels.

And 'sides, I ain't gonna look this good in 10 years so I might as well get this shizz on film while I can, lol.

As David opened the door to his house, he complimented my hair and allowed me to walk past him with my props. I was armed with gear and attire; I had prepared for about 3 wordobe changes plus the usage of my props (chains, Fedroa, skulls, stilettos, and dolls my Aunt Carol sewed for me from my childhood).

I was there for about 2.5 - 3 hours and we logged over 400 images. That's not to say I will walk away with 400 pictures; David's going to narrow them down to the best ones based on so many aspects; shadow, light, skin tone, eye colour, atmosphere, personality...he will keep all the images for future reference but what I end up will be the best of the best.

David, I might add was VERY professional. Really easy to work with, made it such a comfortable experience with beverages and music and his overall talent. We did indoor shots in his studio and outdoor shots to take advantage of this beaitful sunny weather we had.

His 2 storey brick country home was located on sprawling farmland; there were 2 barns and a couple other little buildings, one being a small smoke house which was originally used for his kids to play in, but that day we used it to do one of my scenes after clearing out the colourful toys and taking down the art taped to the brick wall.

Near the end of the session I asked that David take some shots of the skulls for an invitation idea I'm working on. He set up the red suede background that I supplied and I positioned the skulls in the way I wanted them to be.

He took several images and when prompted for explanation on different lighting techniques, showed me the difference between general flash and flash with a puffer..?..buffer?...see I can't remember, but it was this white plastic piece that sat in front of the flash and makes certain portions of the props look more...real? I dunno. I can't explain it. :( But it was pretty cool stuff.

I also had him take some pics of my tatoos...they turned out AWESOME. Very nicely done. The whole session was tastefully done too. Yay and yay!

As we wrapped up, we talked shop about how many images I may walk away with, the difference between RAW images and jpegs, and when he figures I will be able to attain said images.

So. I'm excited, still. Another week or so and I get to see Lisa Transformed :)