natural hair — Blog — Denyelle D. Beauty

A year ago I had a dream...a vison if you will, about doing a photo shoot which featured beautiful brown women having fun. That vision /dream gave me the idea to do "Curlfriends in the City" . So, I reached out to one of my photographer friends Melena of MShonell Photography ( www.mshonellphoto.com) with the concept; lucky for ME, she was down. Fast forward, we did a model call, and snagged 5 beautiful women of color. We did the shoot in the U St corridor of Northwest D.C., and "Curlfriends in the City" was a success!! We were featured on blogs, and were reposted many times.

AAAaaannnnddd...

*drumroll please* This year we were published in the 1st edition of Color Story Magazine!

Exciting right!?

With the unexpected success of "CITC"* shoot, it was hard to find a concept to top it. I knew we had to " bring it" with the next shoot.

Then...

One day, while scrolling my FB timeline, I got wind of the County Fair coming to town. After my discovery I quickly realized we had about two weeks to plan and prepare to execute the shoot.

Knowing Melena wanted to shoot at the fair, my immediate text to her was- "WE HAVE TO SHOOT CURLFRIENDS AT THE FAIR!!! What is your schedule??"

We HAD to act fast because the fair was only in town for one weekend, which, for me, meant I had to carefully and strategically execute EACH detail...we locked down a date and time and I had to start with the planning.

Model call was tough...I needed at least 4 women of varying skin tones to pull off my vision and I was receiving images of the same tone..BEAUTIFUL women nonetheless, but I needed a variety.

Then "voila" everything came together...I ended up with 6 models...which meant work for me as the MUA, Stylist, AND creative director...No sweat right?? Nah, no sweat, I got this!

Deep sigh...

I decided this time we would be colorful so the outfit colors you see were chosen by me accordimg to each model's skin tone. Makeup had to be soft glam on the eyes with a popping bright lip to coordinate with their clothing.

KNEW I wanted them to have big fun, eat fluffy cotton candy, win cute prizes and laugh until their bellies hurt...but I didn't think of the crowd. OMG...ya'll when we arrived...I cringed "what about the crowd??". How in the world can we do a PHOTOSHOOT at the fair with this HUMONGOUS CROWD???

Let me just say this...My GOD is AWESOME! with the exception of one rude game worker, we had a smooth shoot! People were surprisingly respectful of the models, and some were even giving lovely compliments to my ladies.

All in all we had a bunch of fun, and I am extremely proud of this colorful fun-filled shoot.

A HUGE thank you to photographer Melena DeFlorimonte (MShonell Photography) and my beautiful models Joy, Catherine, Terri, Mischelle, Krystle and Denise for making this shoot better than what I could ever imagine!

I hope you enjoyed Curlfriends at the Fair!! Leave a comment..let us know what you think!

If YOU would like to be a Curlfriend email me at hello@denyelledbeauty.com!

Until next time,

💜D

*CITC= Curlfriends in the City

CURLFRIENDS AT THE FAIR

PHOTOGRAPHY: MSHONELL PHOTOGRAPHY

CONCEPT/STYLING/MAKEUP: Denyelle D.

This past August I decided to host my first Natural Hair Seminar. The idea came to me after receiving so many questions and comments about my hair. Any time I post pictures of myself online, I get a slew of questions from people asking what I use on my hair, how do I take care of my hair, what style was I wearing, etc. So I decided to host a FREE class to help women like me to understand their natural hair. I've been natural for almost 12 years and I've inspired so many women to wear their natural hair, I thought this was the perfect timing to share what I've learned during my journey.

During this class I shared many tips and tricks of how I style my hair, what I use for my hair, and how I nourish my body to promote natural hair growth. I also sold some of my all natural homemade hair products that I use daily.

“we all use the butter, I even saw my husband use it on his bald head! lol”

— Newly Natural attendee

I commisioned model, and great friend of mine Catherine to be my hair model and we had a blast playing around with different hairstyles. We also showed the participants hot to set their natural hair for bed.

I will be hosting another class in October, so be on the lookout for details!

Thanks to everyone for participating in my seminar and I'll see you again soon!! -D

Event Photography: MSD Photography