Johanna Braddy: Iltalehti photo shoot

My Thursday turned out to be quite different than I expected. I got a phone call from Iltalehti, one of the biggest tabloids in Finland. I had sent some bikini shots to their summery bikini contest and now they wanted to photograph me. Originally they were supposed to publish pics of women sending in their photos, and I was hoping maybe they'd publish one of mine, and ask one girl (that turned out to be four girls) to a photo shoot with professionals. So the phone call took me by surprise. Of course I was super excited and a bit nervous when I realized what was gonna happen. I headed to Helsinki and met up with our reporter Elina, makeup-artist and hair stylist Katja, who also did our outfits, and our photographer Pasi.

I was really excited about working with professionals who'd shot with a lot of famous Finnish models and beauty pageants. Of course you always worry about how you're gonna look especially in front of a big camera but these guys are professionals and know what they're doing and telling you exactly what to do so we had no problems whatsoever.

I met three extraordinary women, Suvi, Michelle and Johanna who were also gonna be in the same shoot. Johanna had her precious little doggy Lily with her, she was also following the shoot. She camped in Katja's makeup suitcase and looked just adorable when falling asleep. Katja did our hair and makeup and then we started fitting on the bikinis while Elina was still completing our interviews. Once we'd chosen our bikinis we put some scarves on top of them and headed outside where the taxi was waiting. We got some wondering stares when we got out of the cab with all our stuff and equipment and on top of it all we were at the wrong beach. Luckily the right one wasn't far away but we ordered a cab so the wind wouldn't ruin our hair and makeup which had taken hours to finish.

Lily the queen of makeup <3

Finally arriving at the beach we met our photographer and started shooting. First some group photos with that girly and playful Sex in the City feel and then some pair photos after. I know modelling is hard but you really start appreciating the job even more when you do it yourself. I'm not complaining at all, we had a really fun day and were blessed with the sunny weather. Only later in the evening the wind was getting a bit tricky when we had our individual pictures taken and there was not much sun anymore at that point. I really enjoyed the shoot, especially my individual session, it didn't feel hard at all, Pasi kept telling me how to pose and when to smile and Katja was helping out and fixing my hair and makeup.

Don't forget to eat :)

Lily hiding

Who knows, maybe one day I'll try modelling for real. This was my second shoot, previously I've done one last year for the gym I go to in Helsinki, called Esport. Below are some personally taken pics of my individual shoot. I'll post some of the best professional ones later if I get the chance.