This photo was a result of an editorial photo shoot for BHLDN, a bridal fashion company owned by Anthropologie. Says photographer Jen Huang (an Rf 30 Rising Star from 2012): “While I consider this largely editorial work, it was really part personal, part fashion and beauty, and part bridal portraiture. The makeup artist, Chiali Meng, and I are dear friends and collaborate often. We were given 100 percent creative freedom by BHLDN to create several winter looks for their online social media and blog.”

While Chiali envisioned the hair and makeup, Huang exercised her posing and directing muscles. “I photographed everything in my home studio in Santa Barbara, in front of a custom lime-wash wall that took two weeks for my husband and I to build and plaster. For me, there is nothing better than the feel of a real wall, and I wanted soft, wintery tones and the natural gradation in plaster to show.”

(Shot with a Contax 645 medium-format camera with an 80mm Zeiss lens, using 120mm Fuji Pro 400H film scanned on a Frontier scanner at Richard Photo Lab in Los Angeles. As with most of Huang’s work, she used all natural light.)

Photo © Jen Huang

Read more about Jen’s aesthetic, photographic approach and business acumen here:

Beyond the Wedding Day: Jen Huang Finds New Avenues for Her Photography Through Adobe Stock