Commercial Beauty Headshot

I've been in a funk lately. My recent pictures were good but they weren't better than the one that came before. I didn't put them up. Instead, I sat down and made a list of what I'm good at and what needs to be improved.

It basically boiled down to this:

Strengths:

• I am very good with lighting
• My compositions are relatively good especially for faceshots
  
• I am able to pose and direct my models
• I am relatively personable on the set
• I have a studio space and a decent set of equipments
  

Weaknesses:

• I dabble in too many things, my portfolio is not focused enough, it doesn't have a single unifying style or theme
  
• I do not have the resources to do more location shootings
  
• My full-body shots need to be more dynamic
• I look too panicky (even when I'm totally prepared) when I am on the set, often frowning and cussing and that sometime worries the models.
• I need better models. No offense to all my previous models but almost all of them don't quite make the cut as super models. I can say that freely because all of them are close friends of mine and don't do it for a living * :P
• The production value of my work isn't pro-standard yet.
  

Ok... erm what do? For this shoot I decided to focus the last two weaknesses: high production value and professional models.

My solution was simple enough: pick a theme, find a professional model on www.modelmayhem.com and pay for make-up and hair. For the theme, I went for commercial beauty photography. For the model, I found Viviana (MM#1101626) and to increase the apparent production value, I hired a MUA/Hairstylist.

But first, a little brainstorming was in order. I started writing down adjectives that I thought would convey what I wanted. The few that stood out were: beautiful, soft, warm, radiant and smooth.

Fair enough, for beauty and soft, I used a medium softbox. For the warmth I used a small accent amber background light with a black background and we picked a brown top for the model. For radiant, I added a hairlight with a gridspot. Finally I asked the makeup artist to create a smooth, natural style for the model

Here's the setup, it's pretty self-explanatory. You can click on the image for a bigger version.














The fan was used to add a little dynamic to the hair. The flag is there to keep the light from the hairlight to cause flares on the lens. For the background "accent" light, I used a small Olympus Fl-36R with an amber gel and set to trigger optically. I've come to depend on small, optically-slaved "speedlight" often lately even when I have professional equipments at my disposal. They are easier to move and tinker around with than a Profoto head.




















The proof sheet above is 20 of the best unretouched shots we got that day (out of about 400).

Not bad, eh? Well, until next time for another high production (hopefully) shoot.

* They'd also tell you that children scream and women chase me with pitchforks at the sight of my mug