I've been busy working on several personal projects recently, notably capturing different backgrounds that I am preparing for future compositing concepts I have in mind. I'll share results with before and afters once I finish them. In the meantime I wanted to say that I'm posting more and more shots, latest news and behind the scenes over at my facebook page aswell so be sure to check it out - http://www.facebook.com/StuartCosgravePhotography

Enjoy the bank holiday weekend! Next week I'll be posting a couple of before and after's for these latest portfolio additions......

Cheers,

Stu

I got together with Emily who is an up and coming make up artist to capture some shots for her portfolio.

The brief for this session was to capture some simple, close up well lit beauty shots. As always, I went through the process of prepping for the shoot, agreeing the type of shots we would aim for, different poses and lighting so we were nicely organised prior to the session.

In terms of lighting setup, I used a beauty dish with a diffuser and softbox for the evenly lit shots, and then a single soft box feathered to create shadows for the rest. Grey and Black backgrounds worked well for these so no need for a third light.

For the makeup shots, the objective was to show off Emily's skills, so whilst I retouched some for my portfolio, here are a few straight out of the camera with nothing applied other than color correction.

Here are a few that I retouched....

In terms of the post processing I applied some minimal retouching to the eyes, the skin and hair. The rest was just colour enhancement.

I need to give some credit to Emily aswell. In addition to applying the makeup and then modelling, she also spent time researching some poses and looks that she wanted to achieve, and it was Emily who found the image that we used to inspire the following shot. The original was more black and white than Porcelain, but I had a play around with some techniques and managed to get close to a Porcelain skin finish, without the lipstick looking to vibrant and making the image look like a selective colour shot which I'm not a huge fan of.

We spent a bit of time getting the pose right but it was worth it as this was my favourate from the shoot......

Be sure to check out Emily's blog.

If you are interested in building a portfolio or have a concept in mind feel free to get in touch.

Thanks for reading.

Stu

Here are some shots from a fashion style shoot I did a couple of week's back of Phil who bought his Armani range with him. 

Simple lighting for all of these, just a beauty dish without the diffuser, giving me a bit more of a contrasty light, and some fall off with good shadows to accentuate Phil's jawline. No rim lights this time as I wanted more shadows for a dramatic feel. I also enjoy working with one light and seeing what kind of results I can get.

After working the black background I wanted to switch to grey to add a different feel without quite so much drama to the image. Still using one light, simple clean looking portraits were what we were aiming for.

And as always, I wanted to have a play with some tonal effects and particularly liked this finish......

Thanks for reading. I'll be sharing some beauty shots next on the blog so keep any eye out....

Stu