Mood Board

    For my digital image colour shoot I wanted my key colour to be red as my chosen model has red hair and I wanted that to be the main focus of the images, so for this mood board I took some images from the internet that related to some of the poses that I used in my final images and also looked at different types of lighting, poses and composition of the actual image. As you'll be able to see I tried to find images that had a red theme or had an element of red in the image, even if it was just lipstick or the hair colour, as for poses I tried to look for images that was from the shoulders up or close ups of the face and neck.
   As for the make-up that I used on the shoot on both my male and female models I wanted it to be very light make-up as if they wasn't wearing anything at all which is also what I tried to find in finding images for my mood board, this was the main focus especially for the male model as there isn't anything worse than being able to tell that a man is wearing tones and make-up in a beauty shoot.

Some Of My Beauty Shoot Outtakes!

    These are some of the final images from my beauty shoot! Although I didn't end up picking these images to show for my final submission, I am happy with them on how they turned out and how I decided to use the lighting for both my models and worked around what suited them better, apposed to just lighting them in different ways just because I had to. When it came to the editing portion of the shoot I didn't want to do crazy retouching and make their skin super smooth or 100% perfected as that isn't beauty in my eyes, I wanted you to be able to see the fine lines under the eyes and maybe some uneven skin showing though as it brings life into images of people. After doing hardly any retouching on the skin I then moved to brightness and contrast of the images, I wanted you to see definite contrast between shadows and highlights on the face and background and for the colour, for the red hair which was my chosen colour to really pop and be as bright as possible which the lighting I chose to do on her really enhanced her hair and eye colour.

Lighting Diagrams For My Final Beauty Images

These two diagrams will be the layout of my lighting set up that I plan to use for my two beauty shoots on my male and female model. The first diagram will be used on my male model as I wanted to keep the lighting more harsh as on males harsh lighting can look more flattering compared to if it was a female modelling in the same shoot, and to create this I'll either use a beauty dish or a soft box to create these effects I'm after. For my second diagram I wanted to recreate some images that was taken a few weeks ago where we lit up the background which makes images seem more softer and angelic, which I think will go perfectly with my model of choice as she has quite soft features so her face paired with this lighting with really make the image pop. For this lighting also I will probably have the power on the highest setting which will also make the background more exposed and creates that soft faded effect which is something I really enjoy on female models as it can bring out eye, hair, or lip colours and make them more intense.

Practicing In Lesson

    For this practice session we was playing with a different set up of lights and how to create a soft glowing look to an image. To create this we had two back lights lighting up the background on pretty much full power and having a beauty dish or soft box in front of the model to set off the back lights which when the camera goes off create this soft blown out effect that you can see from the images above. After these images was taken I decided that this is one of the lighting set ups that I want to use for my final digital image project, as I felt it would be so flattering on pretty much anyone as it makes you look radiant, soft focus and I also noticed that this kind of lighting can really bring out colours such as bright eye colours, hair, lips ect, which is something I really want to emphasise as my female model has bright red hair and red is also my chosen key colour.

Some of My Favourite Beauty Images

   Here are some of my favourite beauty images from various photographers. What drew me to these images was mainly the lighting that was used in them, as they're quite soft focus yet harsh enough to still show definition to the face which is what I want to recreate in my beauty images when I come to shoot them. The black and white images I've included have really got me thinking about black and white lighting as well, as lighting for black and white will work differently for coloured images so for my black and white shoot I will defiantly be trying to recreate some of these images lighting as they're beautiful. I also like the different poses in these images as they also inspired me for my own images by using hands around or on the face and how they've shot the images from different angles yet it still gets across the profile and front on images we have to produce for this brief.

Favourite Photographer: Tim Walker

    Tim Walker is a British fashion photographer who regularly shoots for Vogue, W Magazine and LOVE Magazine. In 1994, Walker worked as a freelance photographer assistance in London before moving to New York to work as a full time assistant to Richard Avedon, and when returning to England at age 25 he shot his first fashion story for Vogue.
    Walkers photographs have entranced the readers of Vogue, month by month, for over a decade.With his use of Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. His work is enchanting as well as outrageous sometimes but his work always captures the beauty in anyone or anything he photographs. There is something about his photographs that really captivate his audience and it feels like falling in love every time you see his work, I can't quite always put my finger on what interests me so much about his work, maybe its his use of backgrounds and props or the soft edge he manages to create with every photo. Whatever it may be, his work will always amaze me and I'll continue to fall in love over and over again.

Practicing In Lesson

    In todays practice session we tried out different types of lighting and getting to know lighting settings and how they can effect the overall image whilst also getting to know what kind of lighting suited everyone in my group. We started out by using the beauty dish as we wanted to see how it would compare to using a soft box later on, and as you can see that we started out by having the exposure on way too high which just made everyone look washed out and too bright for the overall image and as you can see from the image on the far right after turning down the power of the lights we finally found a happy medium. I do like this lighting, however I feel very few people would suit this lighting as it can be quite harsh, and when experimenting more though out the session we figured out that men suit this harsher lighting much better than women.

    We now switched to a soft box and as you can see the images look a lot softer and gives kind of a glowy effect to the model, I also like how it isn't as harsh with contract unlike the beauty dish is. I personally prefer the effect the soft box gives more than the beauty dish, but I guess depending on what you're trying to achieve a beauty dish might be better but for my beauty images I'd much prefer to use a soft box.