Fifty and Fabulous!

“Why are women over 50 not represented in the media?” asked fashion photographer Anais Benoudiz. “After 50, women are strong and have lived experiences that have shaped them into who they are now”. After years of photographing fashion models in New York City, Anais moved to LA in 2021 and created a project to empower women over 50 and to make them feel like a celebrity. “Age is just a number”, she said.

I signed up to be one of “models” early in 2021, knowing I’d be turning 50 by the end of the year and hoping it’d give me the motivation to get into gear. Covid was still keeping everyone indoors though and I made limited progress. Fears aside, I showed up for my photoshoot in mid-December to her downtown LA loft.

Preparation

The loft building downtown had a hallway that looked like a private investigator would be typing away behind one of the closed door, cigar in hand. You bring your own outfits and there is a makeup artists that does your hair and face.

Make-up

I was happy with how the make-up turned out. It looked natural enough and the lashes are a nice boost.

Hair

The hair was a little curlier than I’d hoped, but this worked out fine during the parts when the assistant used a hair dryer to create a “Beyonce effect”.

The loft studio had lots of natural light and some props for portrait and other poses. The prep and shoot took about 2 hours for a few outfit changes. To be honest, the poses did not feel natural to me at all, but it explains why real models look so much better in magazines and advertisements than normal people. The following week, we met by Zoom to go over the proofs and to narrow down hundreds of images into the dozen or so to be printed. While the sitting fee had been reduced to $350, the actual cost of the prints (that came from Italy in a beautiful leather box) cost a lot more than I had expected. I had a laugh thinking of George Costanza and his photo shoot from Seinfeld. Mike saw the photos and asked if I had dropped my keys behind the sofa. All in good fun! I must admit that she did a great job. #ThisIs50