Considered as one of the upcoming stars in the Philippine Indie film scene of 2017, FHM had the privilege of having actress Phoebe Walker for their April cover; and I was given the assignment to photograph her.

As we were working with someone familiar with movie sets, it was only natural that our pegs for this shoot with be in the spectrum of cinema—colored lights to set a mood, nothing overly staged to provide that natural ambiance, and in areas you would find yourself everyday. We converted my home studio back into a “home”, altering the lighting to build a more cinematic atmosphere.

For this particular layout, we shot completely with ambient light, no strobes or expensive equipment needed. I wired myself some T5 bulbs (easily available in your local hardware) and a couple of sockets for spotlights. The advantage of using these kinds of lights is that you get to hide them easily as they don’t require much space in comparison to strobes or studio lights. In order to spread the spill of color, I used white smoke as this absorbs light pretty well (and hides unnecessary details). Most generic and affordable bulbs come in your basic RGB, so altering the colors was done in post. To “erase” colors from Phoebe, I used a white bulb.

Photography by Artu Nepomuceno, assisted by Ignacio Gador
Direction by JL Patulan and Ash Mahinay
Styled by Meg Manzano
Makeup by Nicole Ceballos
Hair by Carlo Umipig