beauty shoot

The Making of a Beauty Shoot - part two

The day had come, the studio was ready! Aside from a very stressful tube ride to the studio (northern line, I hate you), I was relaxed and ready for a fun day. I find doing hair as well as makeup quite a lot of pressure so I was thrilled to hand over the reins that day to Rachel Williamson, and I was super excited to be working on a shoot with a stylist as not many test shoots have that luxury. 

JC Candanedo working his magic with a little help from Rachel Williamson

JC Candanedo working his magic with a little help from Rachel Williamson

The team met at the studio at 10am and started setting up. The clothes Eizabeth Adena had chosen for the shoot were lovely - a perfect mix of sophisticate, rock chick and disco queen. I may or may not have rushed home to purchase a certain furry disco queen jacket at the end of the shoot. Shhhh. 

Christiana working on her first look with Anastasia

Christiana working on her first look with Anastasia

Jessica shooting her first look. For the final versions please go to my portfolio page.

Jessica shooting her first look. For the final versions please go to my portfolio page.

The first looks of the day were natural looks mainly for the models to use in their books. I love doing this type of makeup, I find my natural skin-focussed style lends itself well to this kind of shoot. My model was Jessica and I kept the look very simple, just sweeping a taupe colour through the socket, adding some mascara, grooming brows and keeping the lips pretty natural. I love the movement of her hair in the final version of these shots which can be seen on my portfolio page. I love a wind machine!

Anastasia with her natural look by Christiana

Anastasia with her natural look by Christiana

Once we had those looks nailed, we moved on to the more creative and exciting looks. Christiana shot her model Anastasia first with these incredible statement lips. Anastasia has such beautiful, full features that she pulled the look off with ease. I'm afraid some of these shots are being kept under wraps for the time being as they are part of an editorial submission, but trust me, they are amazing!

Rodarte inspired look on Jessica 

Rodarte inspired look on Jessica 

My first creative look was on the delightful Jessica Turner. I was inspired by the Rodarte AW2014 runway show so I went for a dense application or brown cream shadow over the socket teamed with a metallic lip which I mixed up using Bellapierre loose pigment.

Next up it was my turn to do a statement lip and I went for gold foil (stolen from my daughter's craft box). Truth be told, I hadn't really done too much of a practice on this look prior to the shoot, but boy I was happy with how it went on the day. A happy accident you might say. 

My final look was on Anastasia. I was inspired by a picture of Amanda Seigfried ... a purple smokey eye, a glossy lip. It took a while to get this look happening from a styling and hair point of view, but after a few clothing changes, we got some really lovely shots.

Anastasia on her final look .. before we changed some of the styling around. 

Anastasia on her final look .. before we changed some of the styling around. 

So what did we end up with? Well you will have to wait for part three of my post for the final images. Behind the scenes snap shots by me and Christiana, but professional photography by Grey Pistachio. Our location was the fabulous Flash Avenue Studios.

 

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!


New Work - fashion + beauty shoot

I did a really interesting shoot with Antonio Milevcic, fashion photographer, and Elissa from M+P Agency last week. The shoot took place in Bromley which took me right out of my comfort zone and forced me to drive off into the unknown. Aside from a few technical i-phone issues, I made it in one piece. It is a lovely part of the world.

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I kept things very natural for the first look. Elissa's skin is amazing so she didn't need much coverage. The eye makeup was kept to a minimum and I just enhanced her natural features.

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I went darker on the eyes for the second look and added some texture to her hair. 

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And for the final look I put the hair back in several messy braids and went super-smokey on the eyes while pairing the lips right back to almost the colour of her skin tone.

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Photography: Antonio Milevcic

Hair and Makeup: Pascale Maestri

Model: Elissa from M+P Agency

New Work: Beauty Shoot

Here are some shots from a beauty shoot I did last week with the photographer JC Candanedo of Grey Pistachio and our lovely model, Chantelle Masuku. These were actually taken in my house - my daughter's play room to be exact. JC did a stellar job of working in a tough environment, having to negotiate his way around the toys and general kids rubble that permeates my home. I'm really pleased with the final results!

The first look we did was very natural. Chantelle has the most incredible lips - a makeup artist's dream to work on!

We did another set playing around with a beautiful feathered neckpiece by Eva Orive ....

And then finally I unleashed my glitter!

A massive thanks to JC and Chantelle for being absolutely delightful to work with, and for travelling to me for this shoot!