Personal Shoot 5: Wild Child

Plans for the shoot:
In today's shoot I am going to be looking at photographing more a glamorous editorial look that might be seen magazines or even potentially advertising.  I am wanting to conduct a fun, flirty and feminine shoot by incorporating a leopard print eye look with a bright shiny lip.  I think this s something that I haven't looked at photographing yet as I am going to be working closer up to capture all the detail in the makeup.

I want my subject to look fun and flirty with a sensual side, therefore it is going to be important to make sure the connection with the model and the camera is strong.  As I am going to be working close up with my model I not too concerned about the background as I don't envision it being seen all that much - nevertheless, I want a clean sterile background that is not going to interfere with the photographing of the intricate makeup.

Shoot Evaluation:
I am relatively happy with how today's shoot went though I did encounter a few minor issues in the beginning, however these were all rectified quickly and easily and the shoot continued to run smoothly afterwards.  The first issue I found was with myself (I again used myself as a subject).  At no fault of my own my eyes kept watering in the cold weather and the makeup kept running, then the flash of the camera made it worse too.  This meant that I had to wait a while till my eyes had adjusted and re-do the makeup where necessary, which in turn wasted some of the time I had too shoot.  Ii then encountered a problem with the background that I  chose to use - brown.  Although I though it complimented the colours I had used in the makeup beautifully and really made it a striking shot, my hair got lost in the background as it was such a similar colour.  After some deliberation though I went with the grey background and used a polystyrene board to block out some of the light and create a shadow, making the background a really lovely shade of dark grey that worked well for my shoot.

This is probably my favourite photo from today.  I am happy with the expression and pose of the model as this is something that I highlighted as being important before the shoot.  The cropping is another major element for me liking this photo so much as well - I like how the subject only appears in half of the framing as this has helped to being all the attention to the eyes.  The eyes here have also connected really well with the camera which has helped to create that flirty vibe that I wanted.










This second photo, though similar to the first, is one I like as well and I think the slight change in the cropping has really changed the overall feel of the image.  You can see more of the arm here where the subject is holding her hair back and this has given more of a 'direction' in the photo and then again drawn attention to the eyes. 

 

This final photo is something different, again due to the cropping.  Initially I didn't like this photo as my models hair was messy and out of place at the back and this didn't look good in the photo, but I liked the facial expression and decided to crop the photo really tight and was happy with the result.

 

 

I have definitely learnt more and thinking about the cropping, framing and composition of my work from today's shoot and these are definitely things that I will be able to bring to future shoots with me.  I have also been more experimental by doing this and discovered that I like and can get different effects with photos by doing this.