Pro­fes­sional Makeup

The pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher uti­lizes a vari­ety of tools to make his/her trade suc­cess­ful. Among the most impor­tant and least talked about is the defin­i­tive color and flair offered by a pro­fes­sional make-up artist. His work can make the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure. Or per­haps, more accu­rately, pro­fes­sional makeup can make the dif­fer­ence between a stun­ning set of pho­tos and a ho-hum set.

Many mod­els apply their own makeup and feel com­fort­able doing so. How­ever, the exper­tise and insight offered by a third per­son, who is also pro­fes­sion­ally trained, can make a con­tri­bu­tion not avail­able oth­er­wise. For exam­ple, often a model uses an appli­ca­tion that she devel­oped over time, not real­iz­ing it may have become out­dated and is not appro­pri­ate for the unique require­ments of a photo shoot. The pro­fes­sional makeup artist is always cur­rent on fash­ion makeup and is able to use that infor­ma­tion to lay the ground­work for a suc­cess­ful ‘look’.

Hair & MakeUp

Every model, whether male or female, has some­thing unusual and unique about her/his appear­ance. It may be bone struc­ture, or con­tour of eyes or mouth, or shape and tilt of nose… or some other eye-catching fea­ture. The model’s hair may be unusu­ally strik­ing in color or tex­ture or length or shape. What­ever fea­tures the model brings to the photo shoot can be empha­sized and strength­ened by a pro­fes­sional makeup artist. And that empha­sis can then be high­lighted by the pho­tog­ra­pher with light, pose and angle.

The pro­fes­sional makeup artist intro­duces her­self to the model, cre­at­ing a sense of trust and com­fort with her exper­tise. She asks what the model likes and dis­likes about her appear­ance, and dis­cusses what visual effects they want to cre­ate together. The makeup artist knows he can­not accom­plish his work with­out the coop­er­a­tion of the model.

‘Looks’ are also cre­ated with makeup. Inno­cent, foxy, invit­ing, beguil­ing, stern and scold­ing, and many more, can all be gen­er­ated with makeup. We’ve talked else­where about the role the model plays as a sales agent. Fre­quently, pho­tos from a shoot will be used com­mer­cially, to sell a prod­uct. The ‘look’ result­ing from the com­bi­na­tion of phys­i­cal attrib­utes and makeup appli­ca­tion will make a state­ment about the prod­uct. The makeup artist will cre­ate a look that is con­sis­tent with the prod­uct to be sold.

The pho­tog­ra­pher knows when to snap the shut­ter to achieve a strik­ing photo that cap­tures every ele­ment in a ‘just right’ place. Equally impor­tant, the makeup artist knows how to bring out strik­ing qual­i­ties in the face and hair to make the total look ‘just right’. Color added to face and around eyes in the right way will make a fea­ture look larger or smaller, depend­ing on how color is applied; cheeks can be made to stand out or recede; eyes can be made to look larger or smaller; a round face can be made thin­ner and a thin face rounder. Out­lin­ing eyes or mouth will cre­ate empha­sis, again depend­ing on appli­ca­tion and heav­i­ness or thin­ness of lines.

He/she also knows how to min­i­mize phys­i­cal attrib­utes that could detract from a qual­ity photo. Makeup can cam­ou­flage all kinds of phys­i­cal sins! But the makeup artist knows whether the ‘sin’ should be cam­ou­flaged or empha­sized and her work is com­pleted accordingly.

The model and pho­tog­ra­pher often coop­er­ate with the makeup artist in deci­sions regard­ing how makeup is applied and hair is designed. The pro­fes­sional makeup artist isn’t a prima dona; she knows input from oth­ers is impor­tant to the total suc­cess of the photo shoot. The com­bi­na­tion of her peo­ple skills and pro­fes­sional exper­tise con­tribute sig­nif­i­cantly to the suc­cess of the work.