Moments of change

I had another period themed shoot today in the studio.  I was again doing the hair and makeup so I felt a bit rushed as I'm always quite slow at setting up.  My model was Rachel from my class and she was awesome enough to volunteer to be my model.  The previous night I had done a bit of research into 1940s hairstyles but I was still quite undecided even when I had finished the makeup.  I decided to curl the hair and just work from there.  I ended up half recreating a style that I watched on youtube and I was quite happy with the end result, the only difficult parts were trying to get the layers of hair to stay together (I'm sure that in the 1940s they didn't have layered hair!).

When we finally got to the photographing part I was struggling a bit with lighting as I was trying the butterfly shadow under the nose and got quite frustrated with my results.  I eventually found the lighting that I was happy with, but by that time we only had 15mins left to shoot and it was only then that I was really starting to warm up.  Unfortunately we did have to pack up and that was the end of the shoot.

Normally when I photograph models I am always interested in the transformation I see in the photos and when I use photoshop, but today I think I was more drawn in by the real transformation in front of me when I was doing makeup and hair.  My hair and makeup skills are just that of an amateur but today I felt as if I really did make Rachel's look as authentic as I possibly could.  This is why makeup is always such a dilemma, it's a mask, but at the same time it can bring out such amazing aspects of a person that you never noticed before.  Does every woman feel this almost love/hate relationship with makeup?

A bit of exciting news in my daily grind is that I am organizing a fashion shoot with a fashion design student, hopefully to take place in October, so now I am actively searching for models 175cm + and looking for a great location.  Hopefully I will remember to post updates about my finds.  Wish me luck!

Jenni

Oh and a sort of behind the scenes ;)

Mixed understandings and classic 30s photos

It's been a while since my last blog, unfortunately I'm very good at procrastinating and/or forgetting, but I'm here now.  These past few weeks have been filled with shoots nearly every week for my uni assignment and I still feel like I'm trying to figure out what it is I'm really trying to create.  I've done a few different shoots but I haven't felt that I am going in the right direction.  I've put up some work on the Facebook page that might be interesting as it's quite different to my outside of uni work.

Anyway I wanted to briefly mention a problem I had a few weeks ago with a model who had been a client.  I had done some photos for her but I had not gotten her to sign a contract as she was the one who had commissioned me for the photos.  But after wards when I gave her the photos she agreed to let me use the photos in my portfolio, website etc.  A few weeks after I had done the photos for her she sent me some photos that she wanted retouched asap.  So I retouched the photos for her and sent them back, letting her know the cost of the photos.  She emailed back and said that she didn't realise that I was charging her for the retouching, and that she thought it was a favour for letting me use her photos in my portfolio.  When I read that email I was very angry because I had never agreed to do them free of charge, and it had taken up time that I could have focused on my uni work.  Furthermore we had never discussed the cost of my retouching because she had wanted the photos asap, but i had assumed that I was getting paid because she had texted me beforehand and said that she would be able to pay me for them.  So I emailed her back and explained our misunderstanding.  I did get paid in the end but I had to compromise for only getting paid 50% of what I was owed as I did not want to create any ripples.  Anyway the lesson I learnt was to always get models to sign contracts!

On a better note, I had an exciting photo shoot in the studio today where I was trying to recreate 30s/40s style photos.  My model was my friend Nicole who I have used many times in my work.  I had a really good time doing all the makeup and styling because I had never really tried period photos before.  I just uploaded the photos and the previews look amazing, I can't wait to start editing!

Here are some photos taken by Angus:

 

One of the raw photos straight from the camera (my model won't like that it's not retouched, lol!):

I'm off to bed now, goodnight :),

Jenni