Maraya Claire
This image of Maraya Claire in Melbourne in 2025 has a bit of an 80/90s vibe about it, not in a good way. I like it though, mostly because of the off-centre orientation and because of Maraya’s eyes – complemented here by the highlights in her hair. This shot is a bit of a miracle/fluke shot; all the shots around it are ordinary. Immediately after this I flicked over to video hence the 10 seconds of footage of Maraya below.
This image was shot in the La La Land bar on the Sony A6700 with the Sony 50mm f1.4. So we’re looking at a 75mm full-frame field of view equivalent. The image looks a bit soft-out-of-focus around her mouth/cheek because I’m shooting at f1.4, but her eyes are dramatically sharp, focussed, compelling. Maraya-plus-Sony-A6700 for the win.
I’m always telling myself to step back because, when I’m reviewing files, I always gravitate towards the more environmental images. This image was shot on the Sony A6700 with the Sony 24mm f1.4. The 24mm lens is such a beautiful, small, exquisitely rendered lens; it comes into its own, for portrait work, on an APS-C camera body. 35mm equivalent, for the win here. It has to be noted that talent like Maraya Claire, who somehow manages to appear completely relaxed in a not-so-relaxed setting, are photography gold.
Short video clip of Queensland model Maraya Claire in 2025.
I’ll likely add another image or two from this shoot, at some stage. I’m including this 10 second video just as an example of how perfectly Maraya handles her time in front of the camera. She’ll no doubt be highly successful as a stills photography model but the way she holds herself, I would argue, works better again as footage.