Week 2 - Beauty

I just noticed that when I click on my pictures the quality of the images has dramatically dropped since I changed the image size for the web.

Bare this in mind when looking at them ;)

This week was based around "studio" and "people".

For this set of images I wanted to try 2 things. Firstly I wanted to try using a fan with a very brightly coloured lipstick (blue) and then I wanted to try having a different brightly coloured lipstick (red), but instead of using a fan with the red lipstick I wanted to use black lace over her eyes as I thought that the contrast would make it look better.

I wanted to give the idea of the images being beauty shots, but the model is kind of hiding her face (with the lace and fans). I thought that this would look interesting as unlike a typical beauty shot, the whole face isn't showing. It kind of gives the feel of "hidden beauty."

For this set of images I chose Jamie Nelson as inspiration. I was inspired by his range of beauty images, and thought that I would take his idea of using bright lipsticks in different colours to make my photo's really stand out. The main thing that interests me about his work is the close ups of the eyes or lips depending on what dramatic effect he is using.

Ideas for the next shoot for this week:

1. Try make up on the eyes and close ups on certain parts of the face.

2. Edit the photo so that I can make the skin perfect with no blemishes.

3. Try to set up the studio better. (High key set up)

4. Take some of Jamie Nelsons pictures with me for inspiration.

For this image I used a low key set up in the studio. I wanted to make the lip colour as bright as possible, therefore I decided to use face paint instead of lipstick.

When editing the picture I decided to make the skin as perfect as possible by using the spot healing tool.

I also changed the exposure and de saturated it slightly to make the skin paler. I thought that this would really make the lipstick and fan stand out.

I am quite happy with this picture as I really liked the romantic feel to it. I got this effect from very slightly blurring it. I was inspired by a beauty ad I saw for Chanel where they covered the eyes in lace. To change it and make the picture my own I decided to use a lace that I found  with spots on it. I thought that this would make it more fun.

I cropped this image slightly to get rid of the excess background in it.

This is the first image that I chose out of the shoot to use. I kind of wanted to make the skin really pale to emphasise the colours in the picture, so I de-saturated it.

This looked a lot better as the skin isn't as orange/yellow as before.

However if I was to do this shoot again I think that I would have spent a lot longer on the make up trying to make it neater. One of the things that I really struggled with when editing this image was editing out all the single strands of hair over her eyes and face.

This is my 4th image for this week, again based on the theme "studio" and "beauty".

I decided to try this shoot with a more natural feel to it, I wanted to make an interesting contrast between this photo and the previous 3.

The idea behind this picture was to do "natural beauty" so that it looks like she isn't wearing any/much make up, although she is infact wearing quite a lot.

I think that the close up composition makes the image look like a successful beauty shot, therefore I am very happy with this result.

My last image of the 5 for this week. I thought that I would try and leave this image unedited.

I don't think that this picture goes with the rest of the images for this week, mainly because the model used doesn't wear make up and the shot isn't particularly a good beauty shot, although I do think that it works well as a portraiture photo.