Latest Photoshoot: Velvet magazine editorial ... Get the Cover look

It’s out !!! I have been waiting for this editorial to be published in the new issue of Velvet magazine … I love the result and the fact that we got the cover ... it looks amazing.

Absolutely everything about this shoot was great, our models the beautiful Gemma and incredible Masha (both available through my agent bareface), the fantastic Adam Browning-Hill behind the camera, the stylist extra-ordinaire Guillaume Nallet and the supporting team including photographer Jason Gareth, who I recently shot The Desert Dweller with.

Adam had originally planned to shoot this story in and around some amazing stranded old tankers in Sharjah (near Dubai) for which he had received permits. However, as the whole crew rocked up to start shooting at sunrise the security insisted that we needed a further permit ... after 3 hours of waiting we suspected that the city probably didn't want to be associated with some old stranded tankers in a fancy fashion editorial, which is why it was probably taking so long.

Slightly disappointed but not willing to give up on the shoot, we brainstormed locations and decided on the uninhabited "Ghost Village" in Ras Al Khaimah (about 45min away from where we were).
Check out my blog entry on the Kurv. magazine shoot for more information about this haunted place!

Thank you so much for these beautiful images Adam! 

HOW TO: HAIR and MAKEUP

It was another 3am start for Hair & Makeup, curling and setting the hair and getting most of the makeup done before we moved to our location. I had curled and coloured the hair extensions the day before so all that was left for me to do on the morning of the shoot was to curl the models’ own hair and secure the extensions as well as cut them.

In terms of makeup, photographer Adam wanted the girls to have a beautiful golden "Cavalli Model" tan, which meant that I chose my MAC Full Coverage foundations 3-6 shades darker.

I used Illamasqua bronzer both as a blusher and on the arms adding a golden sheen. I then emphasized the eyes with loads of black eyeshadow from Mikyajy in the crease (all the way from the bridge of the nose blended out sideways) as well as underneath the eye. I added highlights on top of the lid using bronzy gold MAC pigment and my fave Illamasqua liquid metal in Solstice for the inner corner of the eyes. The lips were plumbed up using DIOR Lip Maximiser.

I had originally planned a more pewter/copper coloured look for the eyes, but considering the new location it just seemed that a darker eye defined with black eyeshadow worked better. I, however, stuck with the nail colour I had mixed the night before from the original eye shadow pigment and thought that worked beautifully even with the new look.
I do this a lot for shoots, it's so easy. Just get some clear nail polish, scrape some of your eyeshadow pigment off and mix it ... its that easy to get a nail varnish to match your eye look.

HAIR MASCARA to achieve GOLDEN EYEBROWS
My favorite part of this shoot’s makeup must be the golden eyebrows, they worked beautifully in combination with the golden jewelry and the overall feel of the shoot! Rather than bleaching the brows I used Frederic Fekkai Hi-Lights Hair Mascara. It’s amazing, the mascara is so highly pigmented that the brows literally lit up with the flash.

Beware though, the bushier the eyebrows the better this hair mascara works. You can see the difference clearly below, Masha on the left has stronger eyebrows so I was able to work many coats of the Hair Mascara into the brows; Gemma on the right has less strong eyebrows so the effect of the gold eyebrows is not as strong.

BEHIND THE SCENES

... take a peek behind the scenes of our shoot ...

Final shot of a long 14-hour day

About 30 of these jumps and we had the shot ;)