hollie
Hollie was the one time I’ve been called out of the blue and ask if I could do a shoot right there and then. For that reason, I don’t remember a lot about it aside from it being a beauty shoot for a hair stylist. So I got the call and within the hour had a bunch of beauty dishes and reflectors thrown in the back of my car.
I arrived at an open plan loft style room just beside Parliament Hill Lido around 5pm. I load in and meet my contact who was someone I had worked on various jobs with as an assistant, it always pays to be nice to everyone it seems.
In the world of beauty photography, photography is secondary to the art of the hair and makeup. My job was to both literally and figuratively thrown as much light onto my subject as I could and capture their work. Which was Hollie with some heavy makeup and some serious hair. If you haven’t noticed yet, Hollie had the most blue eyes. (I really haven’t boosted the colours at all in retouching, they’re just that blue.) This shoot I learnt a lot about how this much light really helps your camera be sharp. Every eyelash was there, which was new to me. Cool.
The setup was a Profoto 2x3 soft box behind her to act as both a rim light and a pure white background, with a beauty dish above shooting into a reflector that was sitting on her knees. Clamshell I think they call it. The basic starting point for 90% of beauty imagery.
We shot the images they needed. They weren’t really my kinda thing but they were what they needed so I was happy to have hit the brief. Before she left, I spent 10 minutes with Hollie shooting some more editorial style in the corner that barely passed for a kitchen. I remember her being really into these images and saying that they were very different for her. They’re fairly basic university level fashion images, but nice all the same. Looking back now you they remind me of the American Apparel style which was all the rage when I was in college. Girl on white background. Skin. Hard flash.
This was just a short pitstop along the way, but a one where I actually feel I got to learn about two styles very quickly.
