The Great Outdoors: 4 PM sunlight

The fun thing about makeup on an all-day shoot is that you get to start with clean, glowy skin in the morning, and then build definition and intensify color as the day goes on.
You never know where a makeup look is going to go, which is the fun, spontaneous bit.
Mod and lashy, with a feline eye? Architectural, with an aggressive brow? Pale and flushed, like a porcelain doll cross-pollinated with postmodern Amish?

Christina (Next) is just stunning in person, without any makeup at all. But she was so much fun to work with, that I ended up doing a smokey, bronzed look for the top photo (let's hear it again for the universal wonders of Armani Sheer Bronze Mania No. 1!!). And, as usual, Daniel's insistence to shoot in "that awesome 4 o'clock sunlight" paid off: we all love the outdoor photos above.

Color Me Bad...

Or Color Me Good, if you're not into early 90's R&B...?

In any case, I loveloveloved working with Rodney and Nastassia for this shoot. Rodney's best work, in my opinion, is beauty photography, with a focus on skin.
And if the skin looks glowy, luminous and fresh, there's no reason not to play with color, right? Hands down, I'm a sucker for translucent, lit-from-within color that reads as alive and dewy.

Roy G. Biv

Helmut Newton, Fig Newton

This last photo of Gina (Next) makes me think of Helmut Newton's classic alpha females from the 1970's. So striking and all-American, almost as all-American as a Fig Newton. But I digress.
In any case, this was from the same shoot with Daniel; I love how architectural her facial structure looks in the lighting above. For that reason, I wanted to keep her skin clean with freckles in full view. I'm a big fan of freckles, don't you know?

Cheekbones! Alpha lips!

Shot this last week with my very talented friend, Daniel Bernauer. He's an LA-based photographer with a penchant for Polaroid and an aesthetic toward Peter Lindbergh and Greg Kadel. Working with Daniel is a treat, because his lighting is always so gorgeous.
And because we both know the secret to a great shoot is Stevie Wonder on the speakers. Ha!

Though we've been friends for a couple of years, this was our first shoot working together. Good fun, and great results... I was pleased with the images, and I'm hard to please!

Thanks also to Gina from Next...
www.bernauer.com for more visual delights...