Lessons

Lesson Info

Prep for the Victorian Beauty Shoot

Um so this stuff that we're getting her into next is a very victorian gothic styled look it's um it's more of like I don't know I don't know if you I don't know I'm not sure what exact arab in the eighteenth century but it's likable or red jacket petty coat kind of thing and with a nice big buttons going down it she's got like this really pretty blouse underneath we we did this look the store owner actually pulled a look together for me he just kind of asked what we were looking for and he went back he back with all this nice arrangement of options and uh and we're keeping that skirt on her the reason it was on her in the first place is so that when she changes it's not so time consuming yeah great and um and the film like the soft box or whatever yeah and yeah, so that's the next look we're going for and we're going we have another little talk pat I'm gonna put it on top see what it looks like it might not look right, but we'll see how it looks like within the camera and then yeah tha...

t's next look, we're doing yeah fun fact s so in the spirit of the d I y idea of not necessarily being ableto always hire professional models when you are looking toe bring in a friend or you know, colleague somebody to post for you, what are kind of the facial elements and hair elements that you're looking for for somebody in one of these types of chutes now, are you looking for people with specific bone structure? What, like, what do you look for in a person that you want to shoot? Yeah, um, that is that is a really good question I actually look for when I'm casting model, like I had explained before it's when you know when producers and directors are looking for actors and actresses, they're looking for someone to play a certain character you're not going to see. No, I can't think of any actors off the top of my head like brad pitt playing something that his look would not suit, so I do the same thing with models I pay attention to their all their features if they can pull off like that wicked look or if their face is too soft and doll like, I'm not gonna have them doing edgy hard photos. Some models are very diverse. I have a few girls that I work with repeatedly because they could change into any character, so some people have that gift to do that, but a lot of models are very specific to a certain look, so you just gotta, I guess visually see it in your head. And think about how that would look it doesn't always turn out you know you sometimes think it's going to be right not just the look but the model has to be able teo uh emote well and pull off what you're meeting from herself. Sure, now when you're doing a beauty shoot like this you've said that it's it's very focused on the face on the skin on the kind of products there so how much do you ever play with incorporating other elements like a hat like jewelry like, you know something else that's a little bit weird or different? Are there certain publications that you will or or products whatever that you will do more of that with than others? Um yes, like when it's a creative beauty shoot I play around a lot like I changed things and just I make sure like it if it's going to be an editorial there's has to be consistency, like when I had showed the that hair beauty editorial where she was wearing all those different wigs, it was only the wig that was the only element that changed the wig, the style in the color right? And but when it's like a commercial type job or for a client, it'll be, um I can't I can't be as creative I have to stick to the rules when it comes to stuff like that let's talk a little bit about what we did talk about the end of the day yesterday which was submitting and really getting your work published out there can you talk about something in particular with beauty shoots? What do you think about when shooting beauty shots that you know you're going to submit? Is there anything different that you do than from your conceptual shoots? Are you still thinking about the same type of things that you're looking at? Smith well, usually when it comes to the magazine normally magazines will take a lot of beauty work but not a lot in a magazine it's very rare you'll see a beauty editorial in a fashion magazine so if you're changing elements in a beauty let's try it what do you think? Ok, yeah sorry I lost my told grant thought way could have is aaron miked up? I'd love to have aaron kind of describe how what she's doing as she's changing this look and amanda can you say kind of what you asked for in this look to change? Yeah, um okay, so with this I had asked that we go a little more dramatic with the makeup and I'm kind of cool that she's doing her in front of everyone now they can see how when I'm doing stuff like this and I have to we have to change looks fast, I usually go from clean too dark, because then the make up artists aren't stuck recreating the whole look. Yeah, so she says, thank you so that's, what you've got to remember so it's just it's it's time consuming to be changing looks around like that, and so we always start clean and like I said, the models are warmed up near the middle toe end of it, so this is where I get more into the like crazy side of things. So, um, the look that we're going for here, she's you could see she's changing the eye shadow right toe like a red cranberry, right? Cranberry red color um, just to make it on, I don't know a little more dramatic and go a little more with the clothing makeup also because it's it's going to be more fashion shots now? Um, we have to add more to the face so that your eye goes on all over type of thing that's just the way I do things, do you think we could even smolder at that red under your too? Yeah, I'm just a reason, just free if you guys don't have higher makeup artist or can't afford one, which is fair because were expensive, what I'm doing right now to explain it, it's, because when you go from light to dark and you're really getting in there it's really important that you don't ruin all of this beautiful makeup that we just spent a lot of time on so that's why I put a tissue or something look upwards underneath and really get in there then you don't have to worry about wiping off and putting back on and having for you guys just a good brush or in your vision knowing that you need this color just picking it out go to the drugstore, grab something but have have a decent brush, ask your makeup artist or even say could you leave a brush for me if you work for them? Um the tools that I need so that I can go in and do it and the other thing too is like, you know, and some people some people who are watching this they there in some, you know, godforsaken area there probably isn't any makeup artist close by, so you ah lot of times when I don't have a makeup artist or if I was really random and I find a model to work with most of the time, I get the model to do their own makeup and it's it's usually good sometimes you know, I have to add to it and photo shop and it looks not like its natural so that's another good thing to practice on it is to understand makeup in photo shop and I'll be actually change you makeup in photo shop when I'm editing and show you guys some little tricks on how to change I color so say the model she's putting this red on, but let's say now afterwards, I want to change that eye color toe like a blue or something all show you guys like easy ways to do that really simple with masks and, um yeah, so it's good if you if you can't find a makeup artist and if you can, to make up I I I'm okay with hair, but I don't never dare put makeup on the girls because I I don't know what I think it looks good and then I start shooting it looks like they have no makeup on, so um, yeah, I usually get the makeup artists do their makeup, I send them I mean, I'm sorry the models do their own makeup if I don't have a makeup artist and I'll send them a visual toe like base, their makeup off so they can sit and look at that. And there are also no laws that differ from state the country about like, licenses and stuff that are needed in order to apply make up to somebody else, so I'm going to make sure that you're following that depending on where you are, yes, that's for sure, true, yeah yeah, it all kind of depends I guess there are a lot of makeup artists out there and hair stylist they're also not all a lot of them are self taught and sometimes they're trying to build their own work up but if you could get somebody who's actually gone to school and and gotten that education and it's really beneficial because they really know what they're doing so yeah yeah you know when you are planning out a shoot with your with your team ahead of time you've got like say you're planning to do three different looks will you then schedule that based on like going from light to heavy teo dark and just plan it out that way yes it's always the lighter version of things and we don't always change the makeup we will touch it up like if I was creating in an editorial it would probably probably we can't talk today it would probably be like the dark look and we would just keep it consistent through the whole thing but when we're you know moving from different looks I usually start off clean and we go heavy and even with editorial sometimes it just really depends on on the theme and what we're trying to get done so really pretty like it do you want even like bringing light yeah like just don't pull it out or something but light like just faded out yeah I like that it's nice okay, so we need to feel like oh yeah right so okay, so we'll have to move this guy on that end and then on and then this will just be pulled back just just to fill over her body so the lighting is changing now we're using ah large parabolic umbrella this is a seven foot seven foot parabolic and and we've put a sock over it is called a sock diffuser and just to soften the light because I because I don't want it too hard and we're still going to keep this beauty dish for up top to focus on her on her upper body on her face so this is just another way of lighting you know, I really love the beauty dish I love it so I use it a lot to keep it on the model's face that looks good I like it andi I don't know should we take the pointy tell out like, do you have another airtight here know you have a what if from split right down the middle and put like two pony I'm almost like a girl yeah, just flat really fast. Yeah okay, so I'm just gonna take her hair out were just quickly changing that this's really well I'm just getting fascinated by watching this process and a couple of folks in the room were saying how great it was they were able to see the process lives s o what say thanks, tio errand for doing this on camera it's not something that is normally done. I'm doing amazing so fast. This is important fast makeup artists I cannot handle when they're taking, like, two hours to do something she super quick. So it just it's creates a lot less stress for everybody and it just gets the energy moving, right? Yeah. Sorry. What were you saying? That's? I was that's exactly what I e love it. So you're men let's talk a little bit more about beauty. Your conceptual looks tell a story or are based on actual stories. Like I know that you love snow white, as you mentioned and all that how much of a story can you tell with beauty? Or do you concern yourself with the story during a beauty shoot? Yeah, you could tell a story with beauty for sure you can. It depends on what you're doing and if your you have little props involved, if you change the look, you know you can say for example, a story with beauty could be where she's innocent, you know, saying so so we're doing the clean, too heavy thing she's, just this innocent girl, you know, she's nice and all this and she goes like as we change, she becomes more and more dramatic and our old demeanor has changed she went from like, say good to evil that could be an example of a storyline in beauty where it's just focused on the face so her posing and everything would just slowly change as we go so that would be an example of a beauty story yeah, it looks really nice she reminds me of like a vampire right kind of now that I see the look together it's like where's those how are those shoes? Did you try those on thes red shoes? I'll show you guys the these clothes again or from the metro clothing company thes red shoes I bought off line online I mean and there were about fourteen, ninety nine, so I just yeah, I was like, I haven't shot these yet I have to bring them with me and we have the use of somehow and so they will go with this and they're a little bit of a different read, but that's no big deal I makes lots of reds up and still can create the consistent red and editing. So yeah so just so you guys know you can get stuff like this pretty cheap and it's from like, I think I got it off ebay yeah, I'm pretty sure because I ordered these months ago I can't remember too much but yeah, I love it. Oh, yes. So with that, I just I was thinking of this, but I don't know putting hairs bring my hand hole and then on her, especially with your lenses, your lenses, they're so expensive that you want to keep them. And if you have a makeup artist, which I learned very quickly coming around and just spraying everything it's going to get all over your lenses so just strayed in your hand like that and then bring everything down and keep your lenses clean. And the clothes is a lot of time when you borrow these clothes, you don't want to send them back with hair spray all over them or makeup all over. Then we have to be really, really careful and respectful the way people in the middle, your beauty, and so we're just gonna clamp it in the back row. Quick. This all this stuff is like something with stiles. What end up doing? But we don't have one where I'm just showing you guys kind of how it goes without one. So I love this court. You guys have anything you want to ask any more questions yet you're a natural light over studio, so is it safe to assume that that you rent studio lights when you need them or do you own like a few core pieces of equipment and then if you have a concept that you haven't done before, you just rent the extra equipment that I need yeah, I do um I I should just use my I have two lights at home I have I do have one little hair light it's just rarely used I use like my just it's just simple satellites at home it's it's the modifiers that are more important than the lights for me so I haven't really rented any lighting before we've we've pulled like these lights to use because I wasn't going to drive my light stone here um when it's something really specific if I do need a specific light that I don't have we would rent it or I would borrow it from someone yeah, thank you you're welcome yeah yeah I love it you wanna change anything else? No, I love it can't. So amanda for the past two days two days now through day I've um I've watched you go from like, inspiration too concept and building all of this together and then we talked a little bit about submitting your work what work would you submit? Would you submit like this? This comes concept kind of stopped I mean, you know, obviously depending on what the type of the magazine and the feel of the magazine would you set send them that type of work that you have or yeah so with the magazine like I said you have to pay attention to their the kind of work that they're even publishing so you know they're certain magazines that probably wouldn't even look twice at this but then there's someone that would just you and all over it you have to pay attention to the kind of the kind of work that they're putting in and this is something I'd be creating a story for like I would've pulled way more items to create a whole story out of this but you know that would kind of think would this be for something like just for yourself kind of art stuff this would just be more of a creative for me and for you yeah because we're just doing the one single look kind of thing and where would you go without like for yourself the art stuff the like I'm sorry but I mean like just would you just like more in the fine art for yourself oh yeah great appears like portraiture fun yeah this kind of thing yeah this one look but we're just kind of like we're going toe make it more into a fashion shoot okay and yeah I don't know I just I really love the look if if I had if I had more time and pieces that we would have created a whole editorial but yeah you guys see like the theme here his completely opposite of what we just did and I would have like yes on whole victorian vampire evil I know you have like a like a princess thing like a snow white thing have you ever submitted that or is that against the snow white thing you have like a serious story of that actually no, I never did never did never did know because you know what you two decided to pull something like this might as well forget it now because they're all over the originally I was going to submit you could make a book for her I could totally up that's something I'm thinking of doing in the future all right, so I'm just clamping the jacket here so it fits her a little snug and so I feel like it's just too bulky on her so this is the kind of thing people do a lot of times and shoots you don't see it happening gonna clip it twice so that once here and then once down here so it squeezes around her body okay so the cameras good them tethering okay all right you're good I like it yeah shoes oh yeah shoot hurry losing time here okay, so where is the camera? Oh do you need help getting those on you probably can't bend over now can you yep, thes might be our they just let me know if they're too big because we might have to quickly like stuff. Okay, just put it through the back. I'll tie a bow on the front. Yeah, how did they feel? Um, can we put the fifty back on no real quick? Is it still not coming through? Please? This is where we also come in handy, so if you have a make up artist that come in, you know, we were here on set, and most of the time we're willing to help you out in any way because we want these images, we want to work with you, we want a relationship with you. So, aaron, you guys don't mind being asked to help out, like, after you've technically done your job by applying make up in here, I don't know most people they find the right makeup artist, um, but, no, I mean for the most, like I said, we we really want a working relationship, we want to work with you again, and we're getting a lot out of this, you know, we're getting beautiful image it's for her book so anything that we can do to help, but you really want to communicate that with your makeup artist so that you just don't throw her in there and be like, hey you know I need you to do this this this and this because we a lot of time have clients afterwards so we don't if we don't have time we don't have time and then we'll be upset because you're yeah making us do things we weren't known to dio left up I'll explain it now while she's getting ready so the model asked me like what I want from her um this look you know what's that girl's name from adam's family mart isha wednesday yeah, she kind of reminds me of that but a grown up version of her so we're going toe uh look I want from her now this whole look has changed the whole character is different I need her to be more what is this the price tag? Yeah uh okay, usually we would take those off but we're going to keep along just to be sure usually okay, so we've changed the look and then now it will be more of a I want a lot of deadness annulled in her face I don't want like hot hard fashion poses I need her to play her character now it's completely changed. So how are those shoes feeling good? Yeah, so you're just very like, you know, vampy royal very like doll like just that kind of mixture of of emotion in that mood and just I love I love this. Look, now you did switch out the backdrop for the darker backdrop. Can you talk a little about the thought process there? Yeah, I just I just thought with that you know what? I was trying to match the coloring. That's what I wanted that red against the grey. I just felt like the white I know the falloff was creating great anyways, but I wanted it dark occurred in that I wanted her to pop out from there, and I wanted that that gray around her. So that's, why we switched it out. Amanda, you shouldn't against the gray background because you plan to swap it out for something else later. So you planning in the final image, put some texture in, but keep it, keep the great background texture in this no, I'm texture. I usually add more of witham like ethereal photos, more of like conceptual work because this is fashion. Usually you've got to keep a little more clean, straight fashion work with magazines. A lot of it is a lot more clean, right? And so the focus here is strictly on this outfit because it's fashion so, yeah, I would leave the background as it is, and just focus on editing on her on the clothing, the makeup in here. And would you ever do any fashion with some creative, colorful backgrounds and crazy yeah, you could you could but it would depend on the whole theme in the whole look of anything right? And where you're trying to go with it so what this? I just want it clean I want it very even the character that she's playing she's going to be more very stiff like and all that so I feel like out of textures and things like that won't I think it would hurt the sim is rather than help it, so I want it really strong yeah ok alright, everything else in the room here ah, you're very good at posing obviously practiced and whatnot do you have any advice for us? Is photographers on coaxing you and telling you what it is we're looking for in terms of your expressions and for me it's like like she said, she wants dolan like a vampire it's kind of telling that story. I guess if I can have a character in my mind or an image that I've seen before like a mood boards really helpful seeing myself in the mirror is helpful, so I kind of think of that in the back of my mind as I'm here yeah it's just creating that character again would you like us to show you exactly how to move our body like what we want from you does that work for you and haven't expressed that to you? I guess when girls are first starting now it's really helpful to say you know, maybe kind of move like this a little bit, but once you once you get some experience and you're able to take that character and just put it into play I guess I guess it just comes with experience but um yeah creating the character is the biggest thing I'd say so right now makeup is she's just adding a little bit of a more of a strong color to the lip she mentioned it and I thought yeah let's do it because um I think it would work with this I like the look so if that's what she's just darkening the lipstick a little more than it iss graha and erin we've got people in the chat room who are saying but what was it that I love this recently saying that after seeing how erin is working, I'm going to have to have a talk with my own makeup artists good? Yeah, I don't move forward you're going to start to be a little more picky and choosy with the things that you're doing so and it's a good thing yeah yeah now and amanda, when you are looking for a makeup artist, what are the things that you were looking for with those first of all, personality their professionalism is very important that's my number one the behavior on set the next thing is their skills that's really important but personality would would come before like if their skills are good but we don't click to well then that would probably end but some yeah their skills and she's obviously amazing and then yeah and then the next thing would be speed they have to move fast they cannot be sitting there and tooting around while you know, everyone's waiting you've got to get moving and so makeup artists have to be really quick on quicken on the ball with thing so yeah, yeah, I like that see now look at how much more dramatic she is. Yeah, did you didn't reckoning of your anything break okay, love it and can we talk a little bit about where the where the clothes came from for this somebody was asking about that oh yeah, it came from so it came from it za local booty care in seattle and it's all geared towards that god um alternative type of look a lot of people shop there is actually a pretty well known store and he gets he pulls a lot of the sing straight out of los angeles and it's called the metro clothing company and I can't remember exactly where but it's you just google it you'll find it and it's here in seattle so okay, so this was also from metro this whole thing was from metro except for the shoes he also this shoes she had on earlier were from metro as well yeah fantastic question for marina and in room hi. So, um I have a question actually for the makeup artist and the model um so obviously both of you are established and if we're trying to build a portfolio and do trade for prints and stuff like that how do you propose we do that without coming on too strong or being so get? And I think with most of us artists, um I have my mike so uh you just email us and say, hey, you know and be up very up front like I am a new photographer this is my work and would you be interested in doing a trade? And if we like you and and we have the time, you know it's a lot of time don't take it personally, maybe just, you know, I do a lot of weddings, I do a lot of corporate stuff, I'm here out of kids, so you know, you work at a time with them and be like, yeah, I'm I'm happy to do testing for prints or for a lower amount or if not, I can refer you to somebody, one of my assistants that need to really build their book, I do that all the time, so for me, that's, just what I would recommend is, you know, an email people that you really love their work, you know, don't email somebody that you have no idea what they do, and then you get them on set because they're cheap, you know, you're kind of you're going to get what you pay for. So when you said it's all about building the relationship with your artist, you do hair and makeup. I do hair and makeup, and I think most of us in seattle do because it's a smaller market l a new york, I've been in both, they can kind of get away with specifics going here and there, but I really love creating the entire look from top to bottom, having control over it for my stuff we can everybody go ahead? I would just say when girls were first starting out, they would love to be asked to do a test shoot just building your book is so important and in the modeling industry, I guess so. I know when I was new, I was just trying to do as many as possible toe build my books, jump on the new girls, so just ask, just yeah, yeah okay, you can say, is no, yeah, ok, yeah, that's. How I started out, I did all testing in new york for, I would say, a good year and a half just to get my book going so that I was established, and I still do it now, to this day. So, you know, building, building, building. We're all looking to have fun experiences. It's. Awesome. I mean, this is basically what we heard from amanda over the past two days. It's. Awesome tool to actually hear from the makeup artists and the models perspective, that it is true. Everybody wants to get amazing work for their book and are willing sacrifice that in order to do that, because that gets some even more paying jobs that pay the bills. So this is great.