American Crew Shoot 09

We had another crazy day on Sunday shooting. We are just getting our shots ready for American crew. American crew is a preppy black and white shoot, which sits really well for the boys. We have quite a large male clientele and its great to shoot boys for inspiration

Watching Other Hairdressers Work

Last week I was lucky enough to be asked to fly to Melbourne to watch Chumba Concept Salons shoot with the rockstar photographer Andrew O’Toole. I arrived at the Ozdare Academy bright and early to meet Karl Keeley, artistic director for Chumba, and his talented team. They were: Belinda, Karl’s wife and a great colourist, Tanya, Marcus, Peter and Kate. And I was down in Melbourne to cover it for prohairstylist.

These guys are so amazingly prepared and organised, and it was a real pleasure to see their creative process from start to finish. It also made me realise how disorganised I can be, and how much smoother a shoot goes with proper preparation. Good storyboards and delegation makes all the difference. And don’t get me started on the technical skills- I watched Belinda colouring a model’s hair and was so impressed by her placement and toning ability.

Unless you have been living in Antarctica for the past 10 years, you have probably heard of Andrew O’Toole. He shoots a lot of hairdressing collections, from the UK to Australia. He definitely looks the part of the superstar photographer, but when I met him he was lovely. His team work really efficiently setting up lighting and it’s easy to see why he’s the best.

The magic happens on shoots when all the elements some together, and on this job it definitely did. Carls’ team did a beautiful job on the hair, Letitia Dare is an amazing stylist, Kylie O’Toole’s makeup was spectacular and the man Andrew behind the camera doing his thing- it was organised, but there was a great frenetic energy in the studio. I thing the secret is creativity and preparation, and the results were stunning!

Big thanks to the Chumba team for having me, to Andrew and Kylie O’Toole for chatting with me and giving me some great insights into their success. Can’t wait to see the final shots during the awards season this year!
Damn im lucky!

How We Keep The Stevie English Team Inspired

On a windy Monday night, the Stevie English team headed to Slide bar in Darlinghurst, to see the latest creations from the Rokk Ebony team, who are Melbourne based.
We saw some amazing colour work, a cool undercut style and both these demonstrations sparked some inspiration for the team and refreshed ideas for our clients. The guys also showed us some different upstyle techniques and talked a lot about the culture within their salon.

The following night, the first day of spring, the team and I rocked across town to the new Muse salon, where we were completely blown away by the talent of Phillip Barwick,who is the artistic director for Redken and also a great friend. And he is PASSIONATE about hair so it was inspiring to be around him and hear him preach cutting. I pre-coloured a model, and Phillip just got in and just showed a huge array of cutting skills and the whole team were blown away. It's so great to spend time with other hairdressers to see how they do things, and to share all our knowledge with the next generation of stylists.