beauty » Raji Barbir Photography

Woman in Mourning

Sep 022010

I’ll be honest. Death has been a great big part of my life. I’d say it’s hit close to home, but that would be a lie.

It hit home.

Twice.

So although I’m not one of those people who has some obscene fascination with death, it’s certainly something I’ve been intimately exposed to.

In fact, we’ve all had our brushes with death, whether by our own experiences (I fell through a roof once when I was about 15 – I remember not being able to breathe and thinking “I can’t breathe anymore. This is it. I’m gonna die.”) or because we knew people who died.

And I do want to point something out. I don’t like to filter the language in describing death. I don’t say “passed away” or “went to a better place”.

It’s death! It’s not supposed to be pleasant or easy to say. It’s tragic and it’s painful.

And so, with all of that comes the narrative of this series. The idea came to me in November of 2009 and I immediately knew I wanted to illustrate the quiet and lonely suffering we all endure when confronted with the death of a loved one.

Many thanks to Kari Hawker (model), Ashlen Saunders Duke (hair stylist), Shanda Palmer from FaseItMakeup (makeup artist) and AultoRest Memorial for allowing us to shoot there!!

Jeremy & Alisha - Married... Have been for a while :)

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Sep 012010

I was sadly unable to shoot or even attend Alisha’s wedding when she got married to her handsome husband earlier this summer. I was already booked for another wedding on her big day.

When I first met Alisha, she was one of the more depressed people I knew. Soon after we met and worked together on a few projects (all film projects at the time), she got divorced and went through a horrible separation process while I watched helplessly from the sidelines.

She was a wreck.

And I didn’t realize how much of a wreck she was until I saw her transform into the happiest version of Alisha I’ve ever known.

So what defines a person? What makes them who they are? Well. Sometimes, it’s another person.

Here’s Jeremy, Alisha and their kids:

And here’s some random model shots of both of them. Can you tell who I’ve worked with most between the two? Oh and check out the contact section of my website. It has Alisha yelling into a megaphone

Enis & Whitney

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Aug 072010

Enis (pronounced Eh-niss) and Whitney were a joy to work with. Total goofballs and really comfortable with themselves.

So much so that when I had to run back to my car to grab something and come back, they took a smoke break. I asked if I could shoot them smoking and they said sure. I know it’s a nasty habit, they know it’s a nasty habit, and I’m sorry, but I don’t care; I love shots of people smoking – wedding or not. There’s something I find really interesting about it and if you dig deep enough, you’ll find some of my work with models smoking.

LOVE that shot of this couple! Let’s show a little character!

My new project FINALLY gets unveiled tomorrow! It’s one that’s very near and dear to my heart, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I’m excited to share it with you all.

Joe & Heather's Formals

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Aug 022010

Formal session just days before their wedding:

Dani Jae... Again...

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Jun 022010

Beyond our professional relationship, Dani and I are close friends. So it made perfect sense that late at night on May 19th, Dani called to see if I’d be available to shoot the very next day. She needed some shots of an outfit before she had to return it to its designer on May 20th, the night of our shoot.

I want to mention something in passing.

I love Dani (big surprise, huh?). It’s no coincidence I’ve worked with her seven times with no apparent end in sight. She’s impossibly fun to be around, easy to work with and endlessly talented.

And about that talent, I remember taking those first few shots thinking “Man, I don’t have to tell her anything. We’re in perfect sync. She just moves exactly the way I’d like a model to.”

This last one isn’t particularly good, it’s just a pre-cursor to something I’m shooting next week

Doing the laundry...

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May 122010

…never looked so sexy!

I’ve had this shoot in mind since late last year, so when I was finally in a position to do the concept a few weeks ago, I knew I had to have the best.

Enter two excellent women: Rachel Wixom (model) and Danielle Carlsen (makeup and hair).

Here are the results:

The Music Project - Part 1 of Infinity

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May 042010

What is The Music Project? Well, it’s a simple concept of mine. Here we go:

The Music Project

Listening to great music, and I mean really great music, elicits an avalanche of powerful images in my head. So powerful in fact, that with the best of songs or melodies, I am completely paralyzed in my visual imagination run amuck. The whole world falls away and all I’m left with is what I see from what I’m listening to.

So one day, I decided to attempt releasing everything that remained a prisoner in my mind.

Because I want you to experience what I do.

I started digging through all the music I loved, asking myself the biggest question behind the concept for The Music Project:

“What do I see?”

This will be an ongoing project with new photography concepts for new songs. I won’t be posting the songs together with the images, or even the lyrics. Hopefully, if you enjoy my work enough, it’ll make you want to go out and buy albums and MP3s. Nothing would make me happier than to find out there’s a spike in sales for every song that inspires me to a shoot.

Let’s kick things off with Regina Spektor’s “Summer in the City”.

Many thanks to Shanda Palmer and Nick Hemsley for the amazing makeup and hair, respectively, and of course my good friend, the endlessly energetic and beautiful Dani Jae for modeling, even in a bar full of men who all wanted to buy her a drink. I was planning on buying her a drink for the shoot anyway, but a customer did it for me.

First model shoot of the year

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Apr 222010

That’s actually not something I’m proud of… First model shoot this year?… That’s terrible!

But here we go anyway and I’m quite proud of some of those. I’ve done another shoot since (where the images absolutely ROCKED!!) and planning at least another two for the coming weeks.

Many thanks to all involved!

I should also mention something. I’m sure some of you have noticed this, but I’ve developed a real thing for black and white photography. So much so that the last concept I shot was designed only as a black and white shoot. Color was never an option. It had to be about movement, composition and more than anything else, the narrative of the story. More on that shoot when I post it. But if you look at the vast majority of these, you’ll see a lot of black and white. I just looked at them and though “Why the hell do I need color in these?”

Enjoy!

A little more

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Nov 232009

I feel like I’m approaching being fully caught up. I wonder if I just jinxed myself and a meteor will hit my house this time tomorrow… Surely my clients would be understanding if I got hit by a meteor, right?… Right?!

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“Wahoooooo!!!”, said the Slough family. Thanks Heidi for letting me tag along!

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Day 302/365

Evelyn & Yuly

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Day 303/365

The Moyes family. Again, thanks Heidi for letting me tag along

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Day 304/365

This is what it looks like when I wind up to my first frame on either of my new film cameras (the Holga and the Diana F+). I’m REALLY excited about showing you these! I’m going to be scanning and posting images from my film rolls soon. “Soon” as in soon after I check with NASA to make sure I’m not really getting hit by a meteor. (iPhone photo)

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Day 305/365

Beads… (iPhone photo)

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Day 306/365

Ok I have to talk about my personal favorite shots of Jennifer Klekas.

First off, Jen is a beautiful and immensely talented actress. I’ve seen her perform and she’s just stunning.

She dabbled in modeling when she was younger, apparently deciding she wasn’t any good at it. I know I know, “but look how beautiful she is!!!!”. Well, yes. But believe it or not, beauty isn’t everything in modeling. How you move has a lot to do with it. You shoot enough models and you start to get a feel for how models move just by looking at their portfolio, which is filled with STILL pictures. Don’t ask me how, you just develop a feel for who’s got it and who doesn’t.

Jen was kind of rusty but more than anything lacked some of the confidence she needed to move the way I knew she could. We still managed.

Anyway, the reason I wanna talk about Jen is because I got something that I’m really proud of.

And there it is:

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In the one on the left, her hair is a bit of a mess, she looks uncomfortable in her own pristine environment, her expression looks stunned. She looks out of her element. This is before the guests arrive.

In the other, she’s poised, in control, clean as a whistle, confident; she could get you to buy her a villa in the south of France if she felt like it. This is the only face you ever see when you’re around her.

Visually, the contrast is relatively subtle. But the contrast in the mood of each image is so stark, they’re unmistakably different.

So woohoo!! I’m excited to have pulled that off

And here’s the rest that I loved:

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Day 307/365

The mountain range across from my house, for the bazillionth time (iPhone photo)

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Day 308/365

Trinity

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A tender mother-daughter moment… Awww…

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Day 309/365

Don’t tell ME to slow down!!! (iPhone photo)

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About a week's worth

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Nov 172009

Ok, here’s some of what you’ve missed out on.

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If it weren’t for this shot, I would have forgotten to take anything that day. I thought it interesting that a chair was just out there (iPhone photo)

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Day 294/365

Family shoot.

DISCLAIMER: Both my good friend Heidi and I were shooting with my camera that day. On the same memory card. For those who have been following my blog, her gear was stolen recently, so she needed loaners as she worked to get back on her feet – which she is now; she bought all the new gear she needed! Yay!! Anyway, what this means is that I’m not completely sure these are all my shots. I’m pretty sure most of them are, but I’m not 100%

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Day 295/365

I can’t post pictures of Kenzie’s bridal shoot until after her wedding on December 16th… But I have a good deal of cool stuff to show you when I’m allowed. Put it on my tab!

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Scouting for new locations. Best day of my life.

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Day 297/365

I absolutely LOVE being on movie sets!!

This was from a goofy short film a friend of mine wrote and directed called “Takito: The Quest to Save Rivendork”. It was, believe it or not, a prequel to another short film he wrote and directed called “Takito: The Revenge of Dreyfus”.

Yes, it’s a spoof. It’s a joke film. I mean… “Takito”. We’re alluding to taquitos.

It was a spoof on a largely unknown feature film called Shikito, by Utah Wolf Productions. Now, I’m not one to talk smack about other artists, but these people make some truly, TRULY atrocious films… As if that wasn’t enough, they’ve willfully infringed on an unbelievable number of copyright laws while insisting that you don’t infringe on theirs.

Andrew (the writer/director for Takito) and I found this incredibly funny. Particularly because Utah Wolf Productions seem to take themselves so damn seriously. So Andy decided he wanted to make a short film out of it last year. The original Takito film. I found this to be dangerous, not just because he’s stealing the movie from Utah Wolf Productions, who are stealing things from giant corporations like Sony, who probably stole their ideas from some schmuck in Arkansas, but also because… Well, how do you spoof a film that sucks? Make it suck MORE?… Andy decided to make it more obviously silly (ie. make it a comedy) while making the cool stuff cooler (ie. better production values).

Regardless, it was enormous fun shooting on set. I shot on days 2 and 3. On day 1 I wasn’t available.

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