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The Portrait Masters Awards 2019

Early this year I entered an international portrait award – The Portrait Masters, the photographs were judged by 11 judges who are the master photographers in the world. I’ve entered 4 photographs and 3 of them won Bronze Award, I’m super happy about the result!!! I’m already starting to prepare for the next award entries. 😀 Can’t Wait!!

This is Claire. Thank you so much, Claire, for your trust and your artistic mind.

 

This is Rebecca, thank you so much, Rebecca, for being strong and vulnerable in front of the camera.

 

I entered this image to the Portrait Masters for the Creative Portrait category. It is a super competitive category and I’m so so happy that this image won a Bronze Award. This image is a collaboration with the Notarial Archives. Thank you Notarial Archives and Joan being super supportive and thank you, Jade, for being a great model for this project.

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Malta Notarial Archives On Maltese TV programme Madwarna

Screenshot 2016-01-14 17.42.13

This is one of the projects I am working on, photographing the Maltese national treasure -the notarial archives. The program is done very nicely, you can see how people working in the archives including me. 🙂 I bump into them while they were filming. It’s been a pleasure to work in the archives. Thanks Madwarna for including me in the programme.

You can watch the programme online:
https://www.tvm.com.mt/mt/programmes/madwarna-2/ondemand/

There are many volunteers involving and working at the archives including myself. It’s a great feeling to be able to “give” something to people and to help.

 

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Amazing ride – Women in Malta

Women in Malta exhibition at Malta Chamber of Commerce
Women in Malta exhibition at Malta Chamber of Commerce, Valletta (Left Joe from Chamber of Commerce)

All the photographs were dismounted yesterday. This whole project took me 6 months, finally all is finished and done. I’m happy. I feel so tired and think I can sleep for a week.

I have received a lot of support and encouragement since I start the project “Women in Malta”. But to be honest I had no idea what I got myself into. It was just a very simple idea, to photograph women. Running this project was certainly not an easy task. Besides my main work as a portrait photographer, the project took up rest of my time. My average working hour was about 14-15 hours a day. Meetings, writing, emails, messages, problems, problem solving and more problem solving.

Scientist says that human use only 20% of their brain, in that case, I was certainly trying to push my brain to more than 50%, as my brain hurts sometimes.

I have so much appreciation and gratitude toward to all the people who helped along the way, I feel loved and being looked after, I can’t thank you enough. Your support and encouragement are my drive to push myself further. It got me through the difficult times when I thought the project wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t able to make it, was I doing things right.  With so many people’s help, I had no excuse to fail. Basically I had very good feeling about the project and everything worked in the right direction right from the beginning, so I just kept doing it.

There are many ideas in my mind, projects I want to do. so what’s next? We’ll see.

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Makeup and hair for “Women in Malta”

I’ve always interested in life experience, my own life experience and people’s life experience.
And they all teach me something.
I have Anabel and Remi as makeup artist and hairstylist of my exhibition project “Women in Malta”. They taught me something.

Anabel just lives a few blocks away from me, so we went to Valletta for photo shoots together in the morning.
Normally it takes about 30 minutes to get to Valletta but if we meet traffic that can be an hour or more. She didn’t want to take the chance being late.
“What time we have to be in Valletta tomorrow?” She asked.
“8 o’clock” I replied.
“I’ll pick you up at 6:30” She said.
It turns out we always get to Valletta before 8am or a lot earlier and I’m very happy about it.

She was quite persistent to check the makeup in my camera before I started to shoot. I often forgot to check and she would ask. She wants her work to look perfect in the photos and we did went on and on with some details. I know the more she cares the better the result.

When I started to look for people to work with, it’s not only about the skill, it’s about their personality as well.
I want to work with people I like. I know that very clear. I am sensitive with the people around me, I sense and notice everything goes on, I need to feel comfortable to be able to concentrate on working and with my best ability.
Anabel not only have the skill but also has the quality that she makes people feel at ease and comfortable in a short time. I knew she will take care of the 15 ladies very well. And it turns out everybody likes her.

When I first met Remi I was thinking, “This guy is tall and handsome, more like a model, can he do proper hairstyling?” Then I saw his work and knew he is pretty good. Two things he said caught my attention and I felt I would like to work with him.
First he said the most natural look of hair style can be the most difficult styling to achieve. I agreed. Second he said he doesn’t care about what he looks when he is working as long as his clients look good. People who work hard on their profession sometimes don’t have the time to look after their appearance. That I agree also.
Remi was quite persistent with the hair styling also, he kept poking his fingers into my frame when I was shooting and it did annoyed me a bit. He was adjusting the hair style and removing stray hairs. Again, I know the more he cares the better the result. So I was glad to put up with it.
I appreciate that they both are meticulous about details as I’m the same.

I like watching both of them working. When Anabel picks up her brush and moved between the pallets and face, she looks confident and happy. When Remi is working, his world only has one focus point, himself and the hair, everything else is blur. The concentration is like nothing can stop him doing what he was doing.

Anabel_Remi

Anabel’s Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/aatta123
Remi’s Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/remihairdressing

If you are a makeup artist, hairstylist or videographer and you would like to work with me, please send me the link your work to info@amandahsu.com

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Interview in Pink Magazine

It was interesting to have the interview with Pink Magazine, they really went in depth to ask me all the questions. They are good questions, it took me a bit time to came out the answers as something I didn’t even think of before. Like “Whose portrait would you most like to shoot – dead or alive – and why?” It’s a cool question as I am totally into science fiction.

The magazine asked me to send them some of my works. My recent work is my exhibition project “Women in Malta”. At that time the work hasn’t finished yet. Then the magazine told me I can send them any of my work, “it’s about you”, they said. I was excited that I got the chance to show my ongoing project – Her, it’s a series of environmental self-portraits.

Here are the images from the magazine:

PinkMagazine_1 PinkMagazine_2 PinkMagazine_3

See more photographs from the series Her click HERE.

 

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Women in Malta – working progress

gorguss _Amanda_Hsu

(Something resembling!!!)

I’d like to think that I am immortal (too much The Lord of The Rings), I perform magic (too much Harry Potter and photography) and time is the most valuable thing and everything (too much Lucy. I’m having a love-and-hate relationship with time. )

There are rough times when I have to keep telling myself “don’t give up, keep going. ” But it’s nicer to hear someone to say it. (Friends are awesome!)

Anyway, after months’ preparation, contacting, meetings, research and work, finally “Women in Malta” is going to start the photo shoots next week. I’m very excited about it. This project has been testing my stamina and put me through challenges, nothing is easy in life as we all know it. It’s been a great ride and a lot of fun. (I’m loving it)

I’d like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who help me with this project, I can’t do it without you and am immensely grateful to you.

The photographs for the “Women in Malta” exhibition won’t be uploaded to Facebook or Website. it’s totally “hush hush” as I would like to invite EVERYONE, all of you, to come to see the exhibition. (Journalists and TV programs are welcome to contact me for more information.)

My “Women in Malta” exhibition is on the 8th March for celebrating the International Women’s Day at the Chamber of Commerce, Republic Street, Valletta, for 2 weeks.

(Please put the date down on your diary 😉

https://ow.ly/Dlx0J

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Exhibition Project – Women in Malta

This exhibition project “Women in Malta”, dedicated to my dearest friends, family and all the women in Malta. I am inviting 20 amazing women who are over 40 and living in Malta to join this project. This project  is to raise awareness of women’s influence in Malta.

Every woman has her own stories to tell. I hope to through the portraits exhibition and the stories of the women will help to encourage, inspire people and encourage people to employ and promote more women in life.

Sponsorships are very welcome to support and finance this project. The portraits will be exhibited on Women’s Day which is 8th March in 2015 in Valletta.

Amanda Hsu

info@amandahsu.com

Updates and log about this exhibition project will be on this page:

Women in Malta 2015 – Portrait Exhibition Project

Stay tuned!