Christmas!!

Christmas is right around the corner and makeup artist Audrey Ivory suggested that this year we go all out and put up a 9ft tree... I figured, why not? This set has been lots of fun to put up and to photograph! We even made poster calendars for everyone that wanted to see their christmas shoot all year long ;) One of the most memorable shoots was with Billy L'amour - who, if you don't know, is one of the most talented and sassy drag queens Montreal has to offer. Billy sauntered in (all 7ft with heels) and worked the crap out of this set in less than 15 minutes. This image was used for Billy's sold out Christmas show and Christmas cards- it's a total honour for me!!

Here are some other really rad images from this set!  

Scarlet James, whom we also had the honour of photographing for the Montreal Burlesque Festival Christmas cards!

Sailor Jassie & Erik

Elsa Muse and Annie

And possibly one of my favourite family photos of all time:

the Miss Ginger Clan!!!

I also recently had the pleasure of photographing The Montreal Burlesque Festival's founder and curator, Scarlet James. Here are a few images in which we took the natural beauty concept and gave it a little femme fatale twist. We wanted to portray Scarlet's elegance but still have a little bit of that burlesque cheekiness!

And of course, who can resist Candyland!

Happy Holidays to you all, I hope your holidays are filled with family, friends and good times! I wish you nothing but the best in 2016. Thank you for reading my blog, sharing and giving me over 100,000 hits a year! It's incredible and I'm so grateful to all of you that like and share my work!

ALSO

If you're not doing anything January 9th 2016 - come celebrate with me at the Tassel D'Or - I've been working on this project day and night with Audrey for months and would love to see all your faces at this extravaganza!! Our host is none other than Laurent Paquin (who hosts sold out comedy shows all over quebec to an audience of  5,000 to 10,000 people!!). We have Burlesque performers from all over, including the infamous Raquel Reed (Glamour Icon, Model, Artist, Celebrity), Live band: Les Séparatwists, Circus performers, magic and so much more!! Our last two shows have been a huge success with people raving about the quality and sheer volume of entertainment wrapped up into one fabulous night!!! I really hope to see you there! 

Check out the event HERE! and buy your Tickets HERE!

Check out the promos below! Thank you & xox

Le Tassel D'Or troisième édition - 9 Janvier 2016 from Frank Lam on Vimeo.

Natural Beauty

For a while I've been thinking of releasing a black and white photo book of modern pinups set to a neutral background focusing on their natural beauty with very minimal photoshop & makeup. There's something sexy about a woman confident enough to show you her true beauty - nude, in her favourite lingerie or simply in her baggy sweater and wool socks with chipped nail polish. What do you think?

Model Audrey Ivory

Addams Family

Audrey Ivory

I've always loved the Addams Family and The Munsters - watching old reruns with my grandmother was a staple of my childhood! Two of the greatest people I know, Annie and Fred are the real life Morticia and Gomez - we jokingly call them this because of the beautiful couple they are and also because Annie has this fabulous sense of style so reminiscent of Morticia. I wanted to capture their love affair (they even met and fell in love working at a funeral home!!) in fantasy for a long time now... and then the idea just struck - why don't we do a halloween special with the concept? An idea was born! So many people participated in bringing to life characters from the show, it was overwhelming! Here are some of my favourite shots! 

Annie & Fred

Frank Lam & Lily Monroe

The whole family! 

Fred, Baron Von Styck, Annie, Frank Lam, Samsara Brown, Audrey Ivory

Lily Monroe. Marisa, Duyan 

Keep It Kreepy!

xo

A delicious menu just for you!

Happy Sunday! xxoo

Model: LouLou la Duchesse de Rière

MUAH: Audrey Ivory

Photo: Marisa Parisella

Dee and Paul

Dee and Paul are celebrating 10 years together this year and they chose to mark it in a fashion/punk/apocalypse shoot with me. They're pretty great people and I was honoured to celebrate this enormous marker in their relationship with them!

Montreal's Pinup Academy!

We have some great new sets at the studio! The first is an homage to our favourite video games and movies - A post-apocalyptic wasteland. I had the immense pleasure of photographing Lauren Stone, the amazing and talented wife of Travis, a co-writer of Fallout New Vegas. Here She's embodying a nuclear disaster survivor, a pinup fresh out of the vault followed by a seasoned Mad Max inspired Raider.

Lauren Stone, Writer, Director, Actress, Babe

Below we have Audrey Ivory doing a more classic Pinup with a little sass. My Incredible mother was the personal shopper for this set - I wrote a list of items I'd like to have for this homage series and she basically found every little detail, and then some. Some of the accessories include: A machete, Laser guns, Tank Ammo rounds, Missile Carrier, Gas Masks, Ammo Boxes, Helmets, Giant Bullets and more!

Audrey Ivory

I've Also been working on a fun pink series - I'm looking forward to a shoot next week with none other than Drag Queen Billy L'Amour!! We're going to twist this decor into an homage to Amanda Lepore - Stay tuned for images!

Featured Above: Burlesque Stars Lou Lou La Duchesse de Rière and Audrey Ivory

The second image is actually for Montreal's Pinup Academy, which will be hosted at my studio by the lovely Miss Ginger (featured below). The workshop will offer great hair and makeup tutorials, Body Image classes and posing techniques by some pretty amazing montreal ladies including: Lavender May, Audrey Ivory and HellCath! At the end of it all everyone gets a quick photo shoot and options for prints and retouching!

Miss Ginger

Hope to see you there!!

xx

New Images!

Audrey Ivory

Lady Hoops

Ruby Rhapsody

Mélodie Couture

HD Makeup

This is a touchy subject - some women find the use of makeup oppressive and that the encouragement of it's use is perpetuation a negative female stereotype. Personally, I love makeup and I wear it because I f-ing want to. PERIOD. Being a woman is awesome, why not take advantage of all the awesomeness it entails? I can wear no makeup, I can wear pants, I can wear a dress with combat boots, I can be a boss lady, I can be a delicate flower, I can be a cutthroat hustler. Yo, the world's my oyster - lemme get some lipstick on that if I damn well choose.

My advice for people unsure of taking the HD makeup option or people screaming feminism etc...

1. Do it only because you want to - you are not obligated in any way to do anything you don't want to.
2. Do it if you're going to make me retouch you as if you were wearing makeup... 'Cause that's just stupid, if you know what I mean.
3. Do you want to look like the girls in the portfolio? Yes: They're wearing HD Makeup

Here's a great example of HD Makeup by makeup artist Audrey Ivory

Audrey does both makeup and hair for 60$ - which is a real steal considering most makeup artists are double the price for half her skill. If you'd like to book her services let us know when you book your appointment, you won't be disappointed!

What is HD Makeup?
It's simply a makeup heavier than an everyday foundation, blush, mascara, eyeliner & lipstick look.
It involves contouring your particular face/neck morphology, colour correction and eye/lip shape. The final product on camera is a classic porcelain finish (we're talking texture no matter what your skin tone may be). Though it may seem very heavy in real life; on camera it gives a timeless starlet look that is very beautiful and simply enhances your natural features in ways you may never have imagined.

Le Tassel D'or

Audrey Ivory and myself are proud to present our new Burlesque Production House:

LE TASSEL D'OR

Logo designed by the crazy-talented, 

internationally renowned pinup artist Maly Siri

We're proud to present a show this January 10th at the Lion D'Or Cabaret hosted by none other than Quebec's favourite humorist; Laurent Paquin!!

This show will provide a nice little kick to the new year with a retro chic ambiance and constant entertainment - may it be burlesque on stage, a live band, a contortionist at the bar, a lovely damsel on stilts dancing through the crowd, a three breasted snake charmer taking photos with you or a magician performing illusions right at your very table. Come laugh your face off and dance the night away with us!! Buy your tickets HERE!! Don't wait - they're going fast!!

Join us on Facebook HERE!

In the meantime here's a fun little teaser ;)

Le Tassel d'Or - Vaudeville & Burlesque // 10 janvier 2015 @ Lion d'Or from Frank Lam on Vimeo.

Flames land us a new home!

WOW.
What a crazy couple of months it has been!
First - I'm sure some of you heard; Diablos (the restaurant below us) literally burst into flames. The fire destroyed pretty much the entire building and in the process exposing the nice little old lady next door's massive grow-op. Who knew? We were fortunate however, the firefighters saved the majority of our stuff - both personal and studio. It was a hectic day as we waited outside (me in my pyjamas with two restless dogs) to find out if anything was salvageable at all.

The fire stopped around one in the afternoon, but the firefighters continued to douse the embers and take apart the walls for a steady six hours. It was hell.

Thankfully we were escorted in by some awesome firefighters who helped us pull out the necessities. At this point we had been drinking beer on our handy red cross provided blanket in the alley behind the blaze for also a solid 6 hours... so needless to say Meg haggled to be escorted by the firefighter of her choice. You have to laugh, right?

Homeless, studioless and feeling like the littlest hobo, we wondered where we were headed and who could take us in in such short notice? Finding an appropriate space that doesn't cost a fortune (starving artists over here) isn't all that easy in MTL. The rent was either way too high or affordable but too far from downtown in every available space scouted. BUT THEN - the awesome people at La Commune stepped in. Not only did they offer us an affordable space but they also provide us a genuine communal atmosphere, where everyone helps each other out, people brainstorm together and shit gets done. I couldn't ask for a place that feels more like HOME.

Thank you to all our friends and family who KICKED ASS and helped us clean, move and just cope with this huge ordeal. A really special thanks to Fred, who tirelessly made trip after trip, moving our shit in nothing less than a hearse. Yes, a hearse. It was rad. 

Please check them out HERE and see all the amazing services they have to offer.

That being said; we had to change our number as well as our address so check us out here:

514-775-3218

440 Place Jacques Cartier (Old Montreal)

suite 200

Here are some shots of the event space I took for La Commune: