Behind the scenes at a beauty fashion shoot – 1

I was recently asked to shoot a beauty feature for Pretty Magazine.  The brief was simple: 2 models with a total of 4 – 5 looks.  The first look featured cupcakes from Hummingbird Bakery so I knew it was going to be a good shoot!

Beauty photography is a specialised subset of fashion photography.  It is often done without a stylist but since the focus is generally on head and shoulder shots you rely very heavily on the make up artists.  Fortunately we had two great make up artists – Katy from MakeUpByKaty and Rebecca from Le Salon de Beaute.

Since everything was focused on head and shoulders, we didn’t even need a studio.  I set up a Lastolite hilite and a bunch of lights in a flat in London.  The shots below show you the set ups and some of the finished shots.  For the techies, behind the scenes are shot available light on my Nikon D3 and the shots for publication were on my Hasselblad H3D with 150mm lens.  Close ups used a supplementary +3 dioptre.  Since we’re on medium format and need crystal clear images for publication I’m shooting at fairly narrow apertures and that means lots of lights.

Look 1 cupcakes

This is model Davina Stennett.  You can also see make up artists Rebecca (first shot) and Katy (second shot).  Notice how close the lights are set – this causes very soft lighting but also a little contrast from the fall off.  I’m using a Lastolite Triflector to provide fill from 3 sides.  This gives me wrap around lighting from a single flash light.  The background is lit by two Lencarta Elite Pro 300 heads inside the hilite.  Davina is lit by a large beauty dish on a Lencarta Elitepro 600 head on a boom arm.  Notice in the last 2 shots how we can change the contrast and shadow by asking Davina to turn either towards or away from the light.

(Just hit the arrows to advance through the pictures at your own pace.)

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Look 2 – Jessica

This is model Jessica Tobert.  The behind the scenes shots show the painstaking make up and application of sweets to her lips.  Typically in beauty photography the setup and preparation can take far longer than the photography.

Notice the catchlights in the final picture – the lighting is exactly the same as the previous look with Davina.  In the cupcake shot I’ve folded down the reflector on camera left to increase the shadows slightly and provide slightly more drama.  (This shot was deemed a little too commercial by the client and so didn’t make the cut but I like to shoot a variety of options whilst we have everything set.)

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In the next article we’ll increase the drama with some embellishments and I’ll show how using exactly the same equipment I was able to shoot alternative layouts on black as well as white.

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