pastel bones

we started this day taking photos in fields of grass in the shade of big gum trees. as we were walking across the road in the heat, we stumbled across this abandoned house. at first we only saw the metal-skeleton clothing line lonelily standing and swaying in the breeze. as we went to knock on the front door to ask the owners if we could take a few photos in their yard, we found ripped fly screens on the windows and a vacated white house.

and so we spent the rest of the day resting on flower bushes with bees happily humming around our ankles, treading through the squelching grass (the front yard had been flooded and all our shoes were destroyed by the end of the day), sitting by the lavender flowers and getting tangled in tree branches. 

model: ellie

makeup: www.abbeylove.com.au

clothing: oh deer boutique

i also created a little film from our adventures on the day, this is probably one of my favourites. drowned in sunlight and the exact way i like to spend my afternoons:

age of intimacy: behind the scenes

miserable weather.

standing in the middle of the train tracks. left.

right.

the car through the trees that would soon be lighting our photos.

coralie getting her makeup done in the dark. lit by phone lights.

the team filing up helium balloons.

jess & coralie.

the amazing wonders in the antique store we shot at.

jess working her magic.

penney in the reflections.

the view from above.

jess taking polaroids of everything.

a shelf of harry potter wands.

goodbye lovely antique store.

little car, big trees.

look number ii.

every hour that day it woud start to pour down rain. it's a miracle we had any sunshine to shoot with at all!

"it's cooooolddd!"

penney won't let me take any photos of her.

the long, muddy road home.

wandering around the acres of grass and trees.

this time we brought candles for the dark, we lit the night on fire.

the last look of the day just before it got dark.

 blogging has become sort of an online diary where i post all the adventures i get up to. now it seems like such a normal thing to do, but it will be wonderful when i'm old and wrinkly to look back on all these careless things that we did when we were younger such as running around in an abandoned castle at night while it's raining, screaming and laughing at the bugs and gross mud we walked through just so we could stand in the long, wet grass with a handful of slowly deflating balloons.

i couldn't appreciate more being a photographer at times like these. being outside in the cold air that scratches the back of my throat when i breathe, holding a camera tightly between my palms and taking photos of the light and movement, drenching half my clothes in ocean water for a single photo, running in muddy forests barefoot, breathing in the rain. it hits me almost every day that this has become my life, and i couldn't be happier that i'm living it. slowly making my dreams come true.

age of intimacy: my deadly sins, vanity

part i

/

part ii

/

part iii

/ behind the scenes

and here are the final photos from our two day shoot for age of intimacy. we shot in a lovely antique store that had things hanging from every possible spot in the ceiling. old 60s music softly played in the background as we shot amongst the rocking chairs and walked along the creaking floorboards.

the final video:

a big thank you goes out to the team making all this possible:

chase studios

 for creating the lovely music for all three videos you will soon see! if you want lovely music like this for your videos, have a peek at their 

website

.

the team at age of intimacy:

designer & creative director: 

jess green

productions & locations: 

penelope green

model: coralie bradbery @ chadwicks

photography, video and editing: julia trotti

hair stylist: 

linh nguyen

makeup artist: 

jess chapman

many thanks to: 

POLAROID 

banjara jewellery

eurama estate &

town and country antiques

for letting us shoot this campaign in their beautiful locations.

behind the scenes will be blogged tomorrow! x

on the streets with james

 model:

james

stylist:

jodie

today we spent the day exploring the corners and sidestreets of surry hills. my camera came along with us as we were invited to shoot inside quaint cafe's by a jolly coffee-maker, climbed barred windows and skated around the sydney streets decorated with dead rats on the sidewalk. we walked into a random corner store to get sour apple slurpees and took some photos while we were there beside the shelving with lollies as the manager of the store just stared at us, slightly amused.

towards the end of the day of running around and walking upside-down, we decided to finish up by having another small adventure, so we ventured to the rooftop of a tall building. it was windy and cold but the view was breathtaking. i've always had such a fascination with being so high up and seeing how little the world is in all it's vastness.

age of intimacy: my deadly sins, pride

part i

/

part ii

/

part iii

/ behind the scenes

on day two, we drove back through the bumpy road (car sliding and girls screaming and chatting in between) to get to the abandoned castle, we shot in the wet fields of grass and muddy puddles until sundown.

and of course, a big thank you goes out to the team making all this possible:

chase studios

for creating the lovely music for all three videos you will soon see! if you want lovely music like this for your videos, have a peek at their 

website

.

the team at age of intimacy:

designer & creative director: 

jess green

productions & locations: 

penelope green

model: coralie bradbery @ chadwicks

photography, video and editing: julia trotti

hair stylist: 

linh nguyen

makeup artist: 

jess chapman

many thanks to: 

POLAROID 

banjara jewellery

eurama estate &

town and country antiques

for letting us shoot this campaign in their beautiful locations.

part iii will be blogged tomorrow! x

age of intimacy campaign: my deadly sins, lust

part i

/

part ii

/

part iii

/ behind the scenes

 last month, i shot age of intimacy's my deadly sins campaign for their newest collection. it was one of the craziest campaigns i've ever been a part of, split up into two days of mishaps and lovely moments where everything seems to somehow fall into place and fit together perfectly.

day one was a half day shoot. we planned to meet up in the beautiful wilderness of the blue moutains during the day, but pouring down rain and a broken car later, we get there just before dusk. the sun settled down as hair and makeup was finished and by the time we started shooting in this amazing abandoned castle, it was dark. we fired up the car's highbeams to shoot through the night. it was the middle of winter in sydney and poor coralie was freezing but was an absolute trooper and fought through the cold.

we had polaroid cameras to shoot behind the scenes with, and dozens of balloons to play around with. we filmed and shot while the rain came down, but we didn't stop until all the outfits had a lovely photo to go along with it. the drive back home was bumpy and muddy, but i got home and collapsed into bed. my few days beforehand of colour-starved eyes were finally full of lovely photos and moving-pictures to inspire me for day two of shooting.

none of this dream-like creativity would have been possible without our amazing team!

first of all a big thank you goes to chase studios for creating the lovely music for all three videos you will soon see! if you want lovely music like this for your videos, have a peek at their

website

.

the team at age of intimacy:

designer & creative director:

jess green

productions & locations:

penelope green

model: coralie bradbery @ chadwicks

photography, video and editing: julia trotti

hair stylist:

linh nguyen

makeup artist:

jess chapman

many thanks to: 

POLAROID 

banjara jewellery

eurama estate &

town and country antiques

for letting us shoot this campaign in their beautiful locations.

part ii will be blogged tomorrow! x

yesterday's flowers

 coralie.

love at last sight

 model: coralie

makeup: catherine s

stylist: leah t

different ways to shoot in direct sunlight

something i get asked a lot about is how to shoot in direct sunlight without a reflector or an extra light source. so i thought i'd put together a quick blog post with some image examples to give you ideas on how to position your model against the sun to achieve a certain look to your photos. i've noted the times in which the photos were taken, most of them range between 12pm - 6pm. between 12 and 2 is usually when australia has the harshest light of the day.

hopefully this blog post will inspire the thought that you

can

take beautiful photos in the middle of a sunny day, with nothing but natural light and your camera, and give you some ideas to try it too!

back-lit.

 shot at: 12.30pm

back-lit images are when the light source is behind your subject. by doing this, your photos will look dreamy and soft, this is one of my favourite ways of shooting! for a golden halo around your model, try diffusing the light behind some trees, a building or a cliff.

shot at: 3pm

 shot at: 1.30pm

direct sunlight

shot at: 4.30pm

when shooting in direct sunlight, position yourself to have your back to the sun, and the sun shining directly to the model's face. this lighting creates a more dramatic look to your photos. the shadows are deeper, the colours are more vibrant and the background is more prominent. 

shooting with direct sunlight at the beginning of the day produces more striking images, with more contrast as you can see from the two photos shot at 1 and 2 pm. the later in the day you shoot, the softer the light becomes as you can see in the photos taken at 4.30 and 6pm.

shot at: 1pm

shot at: 6pm

shot at: 2pm

in the shadows

shot at: 12pm

another option when shooting in the middle of a sunny day, is to shoot in the shadows of a building, fence or tree. the shadows will give your image a nice dark balance, with light still bouncing back onto your model's face from the bright day. 

shot at: 1.30pm

side light

shot at: 12pm

one last way i work with bright sunlight, is to use it as a side light. this gives you a little bit of both worlds; back-lit and direct light shooting! the images are halfway in between soft and dreamy as well as harsh and deep.

shot at: 11.40am

shot at: 5.30pm

I'm excited because I've started sharing more fashion shoot behind the scenes videos + Lightroom & Photoshop Tutorials on my YouTube Channel! Be sure to subscribe as I upload 2 new videos every week x

as the lavender catches fire

i had some fun yesterday playing around with photoshop, something i love but hadn't done in a very long time. i created both these images from original portrait photos, finding extra sky and trees from other photos taken on the day and stitching them together. there's something slightly unusual about a photo tied together at the edges rather than simply cropping it to a square. hopefully i'll be doing a few more of these over the next few months!

i also recorded while i was editing the top picture. the original video is an hour and a half long, so i've shortened it for you to see:

also, these are the photos i took for the wonderful oh deer boutique, so it's a little sneak peek of what there is to come soon! 

model: ellie

makeup: abbey love

clothing: oh deer boutique

the suburbs

 model: bree fry

makeup: joanna lurhs

sunglasses: oh deer boutique

black jacket: black milk

on a lovelily-sunny spring afternoon, bree, jo and i went walking around the suburbs to take photos against purple houses, overgrown flowers in front yards and the big blue sky. we were kept company by house-cats, purring against bree as she perched on fences and we were invited to a stranger's home to take photos by their pool. these are our photos of our day running around on the road barefoot, stretching our limbs to warm in the sunshine.

sugar & spikes

 model: sophie

makeup: lidija j

stylist: jodie d

glacial fracture

model: erica east

makeup: antonia mcgrane

hair: ribbons & crown

stylist: leah thompson @ sevven styling and creative direction

sunglasses: oh deer boutique

in bloom

models: monique & shannell

makeup: lidija jevremovic

clothing: black milk

modern romance

 model: alex w

stylist: leah t

makeup artist & hair: emmily b

photography workshop

a couple of weeks ago i had the lovely opportunity to share my photography knowledge to colour-hungry photography students at my local high school in the form of a workshop. i asked rachel, a pretty girl who i went to school with, to model for me for the day. we walked down to the park in the late morning with the students, and in between taking pictures i showed them how i work with light, gave them tips on instructing the models and people they are photographing and everything in between. here are some of the photos i took:

 the main aim i had for the day is to show them all how simple it can be to take portraits of someone. you don't need fancy lighting or to hike to a tropical location. we shot these photos in a park in front of the high school, the park that they would walk past every day to and from going to school. 

i loved every minute of being able to share everything i know and answering all the questions that were asked throughout the day. so much, that i wanted to offer one on one lessons to anyone interested in learning from me and living in sydney. you could be a high school student wanting to learn more, someone who photographs for fun or someone who just wants to pick my brain for a day! 

please email me on juliatrotti@gmail.com if you're interested.

black milk

not too long ago, the amazing black milk clothing (who i may or may not be in love with) sent me a box of their clothing so i can shoot with. my lovely little team and i spent a day walking around the streets of annandale take photos on the road, in the front yards of quaint houses, random alleys and outside the annandale hotel.

 model: madeline rae mason

makeup artist: megan vaughan

stylist: jessie mcnaught

clothing:

black milk clothing

bushfire trees

i thought i'd take the time to write a little blog post of all the photos i took that i never got a chance to post, as well as the in-between photos that i take in daily life and let you all know what i've been up to these past couple of months. life has been a sweeping adventure so far this year. sometimes i will sit and think about everything and sometimes i will be firing the shutter, one photo after another and nothing else exists. some of these were taken with my camera and others with my iphone.

driving through the bushfire trees of autumn. roadtrips to nowhere.

hanging out with the boys from scarlet chase.

working with my talented team again for black milk clothing.

i went on a massive roadtrip long ago with the band say it forever. we were running through rivers with our clothes on, and had a watergun fight as the day was ending. after a two hour drive back home, this is half of the band curled up on my driveway.

taking photos in a park with overgrown grass of my lovely friend katie and her lover austin.

dan and i on a drive for no reason.

we dropped off friends at the airport during the week. this year my best friend moved to live in adelaide.

soft acoustic music being played at a wedding i documented with ashley.

more empty stretches of road, it's sort of calming after spending a whole day surrounded by people - to have your hair thrown around by the wind, watching the sun turn black and listen to soft music loudly.

i shot some beautiful weddings far and near; in sydney, berry, wollongong, mittagong.

i had coffee with my sister and family in wollongong. dan was driving us home and i was sleepily taking pictures in the passenger seat.

more rehearsals and staying up til 5am. dreaming of our tour around america, always driving, playing music, taking photos, meeting all of you.

dan and i going to watch live music in the city.

an editorial and lookbook i shot with a cute puppy.

last but not least i wanted to share with you some beautiful behind the scenes film photos oh deer boutique snapped at our last shoot:

 i hope you've all been wonderful. i told myself that i need to take my camera with me everywhere i go, and that's exactly what i've been trying to do. if you don't mind, i may make a few more blog posts like this - of just life and the little things that happen here and there.

also, one more thing. i've been so busy lately shooting and editing and going to meetings that i haven't had a chance to do free curve friday for a while - and i'm sorry! someone on formspring a while ago gave me a lovely suggestion though, to make a curve that looks like a fairytale, soft and pretty. so instead, for the next few weeks i will be releasing a series of fairytale curves, starting with alice in wonderland:

you can download the free curve "alice in wonderland" here. instructions on how to install your curves can be found here.

this curve works best on photos shot on an overcast day, or photos with lots of shadows. it adds a lovely purple tone like the caterpillar's smoke 'who r u...?'.

hopefully this little surprise + a few more will make up for my silence :)

oh deer boutique + august street

 model: shannon lawson

makeup + hair: megan vaughan

designer/stylist:

oh deer boutique

planet blue

a couple of weeks ago i collaborated with a super talented team of creatives, these are some of my favourite photos from our day of trekking over mountains of tiny moon craters.

model: madeline rae mason

makeup artist: megan vaughn

stylist: jessie mcnaught

stylist assistant: harmony hearsey