Shoot 3 - Work Diary

Evaluation

During this shoot, I continued with my idea of using a male model and placing makeup on him in order to achieve a slightly feminine image. When applying the makeup, I felt as though it was too strong early on and didn't fit into my topic of beauty as it subverted it too much. Therefore, I simply decided to leave the stubble and make a masculine male with a feminine idea. I set up the studio, by placing two redhead lights with honeycomb diffusers over the top. This allowed me to direct the light so that it wasn't so strong as only appeared on a certain part of his face. I also used a beauty dish which was placed up high pointing down, creating soft and subtle shadows but still giving the face a nice glow to conform to the publishings in magazines. This worked, however I felt that all of my images were coming out very similar and I didn't get much variety in my shoot.

Following this, I decided to place two different colours of glitter on the face. I was hoping to get two clean stripes, however using face glue gave a sticky glow and the glitter was going clumpy on it. The model had to hold there face up causing fairly awkward pictures. I changed the lighting to suit this and I feel like my images came out well in contrast to the previous shoot. I used two different coloured blue gels, which I enhanced in photoshop. In Photoshop, I went onto the Hue/Saturation tool and changed the strong blue colours. By adding a slight white tint, the image appeared brighter and the glitter stood out more. Again I sharpened the eyes and the facial features so that they stood out. I tried images with certain lights turned on and I feel I really experimented my use of lighting in this shoot as I had enough time in the studio to do so.

The image above is my favourite from the shoot due to the colours it emits. I changed the colour on Photoshop so that it went from a strong blue, to a more artistic colour. With the soft green and pink tinge on the face, the image appears darker and also allows facial features to appear more masculine. I also like the contrasting colours on the background, and a soft gradient is present with a dark header and a slightly brighter middle of the frame. Below is an image from the shoot which is unedited, it appears messy and the colours are very dull baring in mind I used two strong colour gels. I feel as though the biggest contribution to this shoot was the use of Photoshop in cleaning up the glitter and enhancing the colour.

Progression
In my next shoot I wish too use diamond gems with more relation to the beauty industry. I will aim to get a range of different close up and portraiture images within this. I want my work to draw similarities to that of Rankins, with high key lighting and a smooth complexion. I will aim to learn how to airbrush on Photoshop properly without losing pores and making sure that my image is cleaner and more crisp. I feel like the work of Rankin will influence me a lot, and I have strong ideas to take smooth and cleaner images.