LISA POWERS on Fstoppers

Lisa Powers Photography

I was born in France. I emmigrated to New York with my family when I was ten years old. My first job was as a proofreader in a boutique advertising agency. Within a year, I became more involved in the creative side of advertising and was given opportunities to hire photographers, models and crew for photo shoots.After two years in the creative department, I left the agency and was hired by a busy commercial photo studio as their cleaner/janitor. There, I learned about lighting, exposure, films, developing and printing… and (the BEST part) was that the entire studio, with all equipment and spacious darkroom, was available to me at night, after everyone else had gone home. I lived in the studio’s small, upstairs storage room, but it was Paradise to me!I saw the studio’s vast space with its huge infinity cove as an oversized canvas…. I loved the look of vintage movies, so I experimented with all the different lights and the effect each lamp had on different films… I didn’t know the rules. I mixed daylight with tungsten; I pushed and pulled film processing; I played with many photo filters etc, and earned a bit of money shooting model’s portfolios. Having my images in models’ portfolios was a ‘couch-potato’ way to get my work to art directors, and I soon started getting assignments.In 2005 I relocated to New Zealand where I currently live and work.

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