First Photo Shoot

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Yesterday I had my first photo shoot for the project, for this photo shoot I decided to shoot the looks for the core themes, Very Sexy, Dream Angels and VS pro. These photos are for the purpose of the look book and potentially the in store advertising boards.

My initial feelings about this shoot are very positive, I feel the photo shoot went very smoothly with no last minute disasters. Whilst on the shoot I was very pleased with how the makeup looked on the model. Now, looking back at the raw files at the photos I am still very happy with the results, although I can see some obvious areas for retouching in terms of the hair and evening out the skin tone. I feel I have achieved the looks I was going for and clearly portrayed each theme, through the makeup, hair and styling.

I had a detailed plan including my initial mood boards for the three themes, a storyboard of the makeup looks, lighting and poses and three face templates of the looks I planned to d. Face templates are featured below, the top two are for the very sexy theme and the bottom two are for the dream angels theme.

My team on this shoot consisted of my model, a photographer and a nail artist who I collaborated with as part of her final major project. To prepare my team I sent the story boards round to the photographer and model to ensure that they were clear on my objective and outcomes for the shoot and to provide a better idea of my project and the sort of imagery I am aiming to achieve, because leading up to the shoot I had only spoken about what I am planning do and had not yet shown any visuals.  Leading up to the shoot I had discussed with the nail artist ideas for the nails and what sort of colours and patterns would work. We decided on having a clean light coloured nail for VS pro as the focus is on natural beauty, a darker nail for Very Sexy and to have Victoria’s secret signature pink stripes and the VS motif for the dream angels theme. I decided to include nails in the photographs because having researched Victoria’s Secret beauty product line; I found they also sell nail polish. So I felt the nails will be a fitting addition to the shot.

I feel that by preparing for the shoot, providing images and taking all the visuals to the shoot, it enabled me to be more organised on the shoot and clearly show my vision. As a result of this I felt the team worked very well together as everyone had the same idea of what the final outcome needs to look like. I feel that there are aspects of the shoot that I could of planned out better and researched into more, such as the lighting and props I planned to use. I had a rough idea of the sort of lighting I wanted for each shot, for VS pro I envisioned a beauty light that show the skin in the most flattering way with a balance a shadow and light. For Dream Angels I planned to have more light exposure to create a slightly hazy effect to make the image look slightly softer and dreamlike. For Very Sexy I planned to have a much harsher and stronger light for a more sultry effect. Reflecting back on this shoot I needed to provide much more detailed visuals of the sort of lighting I wanted as the only visuals I provided for ideas of lighting where the ones in my story boards. When asked by my photographer questions about the lighting I was unable to be as specific as she wanted because I had not given it enough thought and provided good enough examples to show. This also goes back to the test shoot I had done in preparation for the shoot, as I had only photographed it using my IPhone rather than a professional camera. Next time when conducting test shoots I will photograph them properly, which will allow me to see what sort of lighting works best with the makeup, giving me a clearer idea on the day of the shoot. I made a last minute decision the day before the shoot to include feathers in some of the images for dream angels. I felt that the feathers would fit in with the theme of dream angels and my initial idea was to have my model Diandra cupping her hands together and holding them out in front of her with the feathers and blowing them towards the camera. Again, as this was a last minute decision to use the feathers I didn’t have any visuals to back this idea up. We tried the idea on the shoot however it was harder to achieve because I didn’t have any visuals and Diandra’s facial expressions whilst blowing the feathers did not look good. This idea is something that could have been executed well, if I would have given it more thought and provided visuals such as an editorial where this had been done before. All in all I have learnt from these experiences and be sure to provide much more detailed visuals and clearer ideas for every aspect of the shoot and not just hair and makeup.