Elizabeth Messina - The Luminous Portrait: Capture the Beauty of Natural Light for Glowing, Flattering Photographs

I first met Elizabeth Messina at the wedding reception of Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott in Los Angeles. At the time, I was in the early stages of pregnancy with my first child, and apart from my husband, Elizabeth was the first person I told, despite her being a complete stranger to me. This is the immediate effect she has on people: You instantly get the feeling that this is a woman you can trust with your deepest secrets and your biggest joys. Many months later, I hired her to take my pregnancy photos, and since then shes worked with me on several magazine shoots, has photographed my family repeatedly, and has become one of my closest friends.

Beyond being a dear friend, Elizabeth is also an exceptional photographer, her success due partly to how well she relates and responds to others. She possesses an innate sense of how to work with natural light and expose film in a way that gives her images a uniquely luminous quality. By working with fixed lenses, shes forced to work up close with her subjectssomething she loves to doand to physically move with and around them, creating truly intimate images. Because shes working with film, she can create wonderful little breaks during the shoot while she or one of her assistants reloads the camera. This is a special time for Elizabeth, when she might happen upon an unguarded moment or an introspective glance from her subject that emerges naturally. All these elements are inherent in an Elizabeth Messina shoot, creating a sense of oneness between herself and her subject as they work together in a graceful collaboration that ultimately results in an image reflecting the subjects innermost beauty and, more importantly, true self.

Which brings me back to that first encounter with Elizabeth. Right then I knew that a very special person stood before me, someone who effortlessly brings out the beauty in other people. This is ultimately why Elizabeths photographs glow. When I look at the portraits she has taken of me over the years, I feel shes captured a little piece of my heart. Her photographs convey what I look like when Im living fully in the moment, when Ive let go of all my sorrows and worries and theres pure joy radiating from my soul. This is what Elizabeth creates with all her subjects and what, in addition to her exceptional use of natural light, sets her apart. Elizabeths images elicit a visceral response because they are created with love and light. This is the mark of a true artist.

Ulrica Wihlborg
West Coast Weddings Editor, People magazine

Sweet Ulrica with her newborn son. (Every mother has feet in her face at some point!) The bright warm light came in through a window on a sunny afternoon.

Contax 645 with 80mm Zeiss lens, Fuji 800 NPZ film, f/2 for 1/60 sec.

I fell in love with photography at the tender age of twelve. I was a tangle of awkward limbs and unspeakable shyness as my words often found it difficult to leave my mouth. Then my mother gave me a camera for Christmas, a Nikon FE2, and I was instantly intrigued. The moment I held that camera in my hand, I longed to be a photographer, though without the faintest idea what that entailed. Thus began an intense love affair that would unfold throughout the course of my life, and continues today, with no end in sight.

Portraiture quickly became my genre of choice, as my first attempts at photo shoots were of my friends, whom I instinctively directed and styled without reserve, always in natural light. After applying copious amounts of makeup to their faces, Id ask them to sit in certain places and turn their heads this way and that. At the time, I had no idea what I was doing, and I was taking just awful photos, but I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, I didnt have anyone I could turn to for guidance as my passion for photography grew deeper. My entire family (with the exception of a concert violinist grandfather) was made up of traditionally educated professionals, mostly lawyers. It wasnt until my third year of college that I took an elective photography classand when I did, it was as though the clouds had opened up and light poured into my heart. There was a name for what I wanted to be: a photographer. Although my plan had always been to go to law school, the trajectory of my life changed forever as I became more and more immersed in photography.

I subsequently dropped out of college (unbeknownst to my parents) and applied to the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). I can still remember the day I drove by myself to San Francisco to drop off my application and portfolio, and then walked back to my car and burst into tears. I was so full of hope and so anxious to be a photographer, but I was certain I wouldnt be accepted. I had jumped off a cliff, figuratively speaking, and did not know where I would end up.

Luckily, I was accepted into SFAIs photography program and the rest, as they say, is history. While in art school I earnestly developed my own film and prints under the glow of a red light while surrounded by other creative people who shared my passion. It was everything Id longed for. The more I learned, the more I was enraptured with natural light and images. To this day I remember being inspired by legendary photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sally Mann, and Julie Margaret Cameron, as the language of photography opened my heart and made me hungry for more.

A room filled with floor-to-ceiling windows gave me the perfect light to capture this beautiful girls steady gaze. The ambient light lit up not only her face but also the lace detail of her dress.

Contax 645 with 80mm Zeiss lens, Fuji 800 NPZ film, f/2 for 1/60 sec.