In 2010, I followed my husband to Kuwait. He was working for the department of defense. My experience was surreal when I first landed in Kuwait. Straight out of the airport it was a stifling 110 degrees at midnight! Outside the air was blowing, but it felt like the whooshing hot air you feel on your face when you open a hot oven. I could tell you soooooo many crazy, quirky, funny, sad and beautiful stories of my time there. To make a long story short, it took me 6 months to adjust to the reality of living in a country full of rules. No pork. No alcohol. Dress modestly or else you will get stared at and in some areas, frowned upon. I digress, right now I want to focus on how I became a photographer.
I started to feel more settled when I decided to get to work. I made one of our spare rooms a makeup and eyelash extension studio. The beauty industry is a a big craze in Kuwait. A lot of my clients became my friends. I had opportunities to do makeup for Kuwaiti weddings, and became a regular makeup artist for members of the royal family. It was a big deal to get makeup and hair for parties in Kuwait. I had many local clients that liked my “American Style” of makeup.
My husband and I have traveled to many countries while living over seas, such as Dubai, Egypt, Istanbul, Bahrain, Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt to name a few. After we traveled to the first couple of countries, it occurred to me that I wanted to document our travels with high quality images. So I bought my first professional grade DSLR, a Nikon D700. I had the idea of using it, not only for my travels, but to also bring photography into my makeup business. Because I’m a perfectionist, I wanted to learn all the ins and outs of my camera before I felt comfortable calling myself a photographer. So I started by reading the manual from front to back, using info from kenrockwell.com to learn all the buttons, gadgets (features) on my camera. It helped me to get familiar with my camera right away.
After studying the manual and practicing…. I practiced on my old, cosmetology school mannequin (I call her She-She) pretty much every other day since I was still running my makeup and lash business to generate cash for all the equipment that I was to buying. While shooting She-She and coming up with blah photos… I discovered that good lighting makes all the difference in a great photo. Because of this I really wanted to learn off-camera lighting. So I researched online and found a fantastic free photography lighting resource blog called the strobist, written by David Hobby. A began reading his lighting 101 and realized that off camera lighting would give me more dynamic pictures. I wanted to become great at “off camera” lighting. I told myself that if I could master lighting, the magical element in photography, I could call myself a photographer. So I bought some basic equipment. A flash, umbrella, light stand, reflector, and a flash trigger so that I could trigger the flash off-camera.
I became friends FAST with anyone who was from the western world. We gathered at each others homes and threw house parties for fun. Because there were no clubs in Kuwait. Unless you had a friend that lived on an Embassy and would invite you to their happy hour. Yes I said happy hour… You could legally consume alcohol on Embassy soil. So at one of these house parties I met a lady who had the most sparkly blue eyes but I could tell that she didn’t spend much time pampering herself. I was tired of shooting bad photos of She She. I wanted to photograph a real woman. I told her about my professional hair and makeup background and that I wanted to start offering photography in my business. I asked if she was open for a free haircut and I offered her a free makeover and photoshoot.
That’s where it all began for me. You can read all about my first attempt at a makeup and photo session in my next blog post. Hint: It was bad.
