The Making of a Beauty Shoot - part one

Rather than write another blog post on yet another new product, today my friends, I have something a little bit different. I thought it might be interesting to show you what goes on in the lead up to, and behind the scenes of an editorial beauty shoot.

I was asked by my two lovely friends Christiana Amankrah, makeup artist and JC Candanedo, photographer, to work with them on a beauty shoot for a magazine submission. The shoot was to be based on current Autumn/Winter '14 trends and would involve two makeup artists (myself and Christiana) working on two agency models. 

Firstly I had a phone call with Christiana where we chatted while simultaneously emailing each other inspirational looks and ideas. There was a lot of ooohing and aaahhing as images were sent back and forth. Our makeup styles are quite different so we were looking for ideas which would work for both of us, and that would result in images that we would both like to add to our portfolios. By the end of our phone conversation we had a fair idea of the looks we were going for and Christiana had graciously offered to find us a hair stylist and fashion stylist to collaborate with us.

Mood board 1

Mood board 1

Mood boards were created, studio space at Flash Avenue Studio was organised - it is such a fantastic studio in east London (Bromley-by-Bow) and I highly recommend checking them out if you need a space to shoot in. Rachel Williamson was booked to do the hair, and Elizabeth Adina was booked to style the shoot.

Mood board 2

Mood board 2

JC has a great relationship with First Model Management so we were lucky enough to be able to work with two of their girls. We wanted the models to have two very different looks so we chose Anastasia and Jessica. So with our full team in place, our Zuca bags packed and ready to go, we were ready for the shoot. 

In next week's post we will go behind the scenes on the day of the shoot - stay tuned!