A couple of Friday night’s ago around 9pm, just when I was settling down in front of the TV with a nice glass of wine, I received an email through a website where I have posted some photos of my work. The email was from a student by the name of Amaju Ogun, studying fashion styling at university. She had organised a shoot for the next day as part of her university project but her make-up artist and hair stylist had dropped out at the last minute and she wondered if I would be able to step in. Feeling sorry that the poor girl had been left in the lurch and reasoning that this would be a good opportunity for me to get some experience of working on a shoot and with different hair and skin types, I agreed to do it.
So on the Saturday morning I made my way to Gunnersbury Park in Acton, where the shoot was taking place. I’m not really an outdoorsy/nature-loving person, but I must say this was a gorgeous location for a shoot and is also one of the only public places I’ve come across where you don’t need a licence to conduct a professional photo shoot. There I met Amaju, a team of photographers, including the very talented Karen Helle, and the fantastic models, Jesmond and Claire.
Amaju’s brief was to style middle-aged women in such a way that they are portrayed as strong, empowered women. The models’ hair was to be styled in a simple low bun, as the models were to be wearing hats for much of the shoot. The brief for the make-up was a day look with dark lips and dark smoky eyes; think Marlene Dietrich meets Dynasty! Now before this shoot, I had never worked on mature skin but I knew from my studies that, as a rule of thumb, cream-based foundations work best and that it’s important to use a primer to smooth the texture of the skin, an illuminator to give a more youthful appearance, and to keep eyeshadow and lipstick colours as light as possible. However given that this last point contradicted my brief, I had to use shades of eyeshadow and lipstick that worked within the confines of the brief but still complimented the models’ overall look and showed them off at their best.
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| Getting ready Model: Claire Lane Photographer: Karen Helle |
On Claire, I used browns and creams on her eyelids and blended them well so that it didn’t look too harsh on camera. I used a brown eyeliner and brown mascara. I used a dusky pink blusher on the cheeks to lift the complexion and mixed together two shades of lipstick to create a kind of raspberry shade.
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| Model: Claire Lane Photographer: Karen Helle Stylist: Amaju Ogun Make-up artist/hair stylist: Donna Harris aka The Make-up Darling |
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| Model: Claire Lane Photographer: Karen Helle Stylist: Amaju Ogun Make-up artist/hair stylist: Donna Harris aka The Make-up Darling |
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| Model: Claire Lane Photographer: Karen Helle Stylist: Amaju Ogun Make-up artist/hair stylist: Donna Harris aka The Make-up Darling |
On Jesmond, I used gold and terracotta tones on her eyelids and a black eyeliner and mascara to accentuate her blue eyes. I used a bronzer to define her cheekbones and applied a bright red lipstick, which I then darkened with a bit of black eyeliner (It sounds strange but really works!).
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| Model: Jesmond Murray Photographer: Karen Helle Stylist: Amaju Ogun Make-up artist/hair stylist: Donna Harris aka The Make-up Darling |
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| Model: Jesmond Murray Photographer: Karen Helle Stylist: Amaju Ogun Make-up artist/hair stylist: Donna Harris aka The Make-up Darling |
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| Model: Jesmond Murray Photographer: Karen Helle Stylist: Amaju Ogun Make-up artist/hair stylist: Donna Harris aka The Make-up Darling |
I had a great day on this shoot and met lots of lovely talented people that I hope to work with again in the future. It was good experience and has also made me more confident that I can handle whatever challenge is thrown at me on a shoot or with a client. I hope to work on some more shoots soon.
