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 ;)