Julie Morgan: Makeup for Photographers

I've been very busy as usual. This week I attended a 1/2 day makeup demonstration, photographed Liza Minnelli at the casino, attended a 3/4 day makeup hands-on workshop and spent ten hours photographing a poker tournament. I have a zillion images in my post processing pipeline. Busy, busy.

Anyway, I thought you all might be interested in makeup adventures! I had a photosession with some of the Team Dazzle promotional models a month or two ago. One of the models had gotten separated from her makeup and I didn't have any. Somewhere on a DVD or tutorial from Jason Cole, the Australian Wedding and Glamor photographer I recalled mention of his BOB ("Bag O' Bras) [Actually a bag of bras, panties, bikinis, etc.] and of having makeup on hand, 'Just in case!' So I decided I needed to get some makeup to have on hand. Well, as a 64 year old male I knew less than nothing about makeup. I asked my wife and she had no idea what I should have in a backup kit. So, I asked my intrepid collaborator, Marcella Kligman, who has since moved off to Sacramento, and she pointed me to Julie Morgan. So, I contacted Julie and asked about one of her makeup kits. She sent me her brochure. There is a lot of stuff, packaged up in two or three graduated kits: basic, advanced and ultimate! I told her to give me everything.

Well, Julie is an amazement. Since it was clear that I had absolutely no clue, Julie said, "How about if I meet you with the stuff and go over everything with you?" So, a couple of weeks later when Julie flew into town for a client she made time to meet with me at Starbucks in Goleta with a box of makeup and tried to go over it. There's no way! We finally sorta laughed it off, I took the box of makeup and we parted.

Then Julie gets back to me and says, "How would you like to come to Brooks and learn how to apply makeup?" It turns out that Julie works with Paul Meyer. Paul Meyer has been teaching a "People" class for advanced students at Brooks since Christ was a corporal. As part of the class, Julie does two sessions: a three hour demo to prep the students for a six hour hands-0n workshop that includes makeup application, photographing their models and doing an analysis. Julie had gotten permission from Paul for me to audit the two sessions for this group.

At the first session, the demonstration, I was a bit overwhelmed ... I had no clue that there was so much "stuff" involved: cleansing, sub-foundation (matting), foundation, concealer, mascara, eye liner, eyebrow powder, contouring, shimmer powder and on and on. I got four pages of notes and was lost, lost, lost. Paul was laughing. He said when he first started teaching at Brooks that there were ten guys to each girl. Now, of 23 students in this People class, there were 16 girls and it made the makeup section much easier.

So, the following Friday, at 9:30 am at the Jefferson Campus of Brooks Institute of Photography I had the opportunity to slather makeup on Carmen Kuchera, local life coach [www.lifenotescoaching.com] and jazz flautist along with twenty or so Brooks students. It was hilarious! On the first pass I applied contouring that was so thick that pale delicate skinned Carmen looked like a Polynesian warrior! Julie brought a mass of makeup wipes and suggested removing it all and starting over. Meanwhile, of course, all the other students were zooming right along as though they did this every day (I guess most of them do), sitting in student desks facing each other in pairs. But, once back on track and with Carmen, Julie and Julie's model (Carmen's sister) telling me continuously how wonderful I was doing (and making me grotesquely aware of how poorly I was doing) I managed, with lots of intercession by Julie, to get a face onto Carmen ... and it actually did look OK.

I learned a huge amount despite being inept. I will certainly never look at makeup the same again. I will have a much better appreciation and ability to judge MUAs. I will never simply ignore the makeup process and leave it entirely to the models and MUAs. I will never be afraid to look at the model after makeup has been applied and say, "I need this fixed!" I will know if there is too much shimmer, too little matting, if the the makeup is caking or the skin too oily! I now know about Lip Tox and Lip Lock and Lip Gloss. I know you don't apply lipstick with a tube of the stuff. Oh, I know so much and so little at the same time. But I know that I don't know and hopefully that will keep me safe. :-)

But now I have one last amazement to share. I had met one of the students previously at a seminar put on by the Gold Coast Professional Photographers Association (of which I am a member) by Jim DiVitale, master product photographer of Atlanta, Georgia and Santa Barbara. She is Courtney Miller and is a rising star. Courtney does underwater glamor (my words, not hers) ... you can see her stuff at CourtneyMillerPhotography.com. So, I decided to see what the other students had come up with. I got to Courtney's model and my jaw dropped. She was certainly a beautiful model. And the makeup was very nice and sultry. But, Courtney, not to simply 'do the work' had added a stunning stripe of black dots running down one side of her face from above the eyebrow to the upper outer cheek. And later, I watched Courtney take this model through some of the light setups in "The Cove" and see how powerful her vision was when put to the test of actual photographs. I have no pictures of Courtney's work. I did tell Courtney I would love to work with her but haven't heard back ... I have a feeling she is even busier than I am! :-)

So, guys, if you get a chance, learn makeup! :-)

Travel Safe!

Dwight

LightRoom 2.0 with Hal Schmitt at The Institute

I spent the weekend with Hal Schmitt learning about LightRoom 2.0 at The [Lepp] Institute in Los Osos and running off to shoot the Santa Barbara County Vintners' Association Harvest Festival at Rancho Sisquoc, California. Both were superb.

But I need to back up just a second to report that I have had two major computer failures that have been taking up my time which is why I haven't been blogging as frequently as intended. I won't dwell on them ... I am a compulsive backer upper and would have lost no data even if I had not been able to recover both machines which I have been able to do. One up side is that I have built and am migrating onto a new machine that I will describe completely with pictures when I'm done and one down side is that the two failures really have complicated the hell out of the process of migrating! But I will fill you all in later when I have a nostril above the waterline.

LightRoom 2.0 is here. Hal says LightRoom 2.1 is close and that it will fix lots of the little bugs that have been revealed, making a much more solid release by Adobe. I have been a LightRoom user since the first public release of 1.0 due to a most fortuitous coincidence of taking a class at The Institute that I thought was going to be Photoshop but which turned out to be LightRoom. It is now an integral part of my workflow where I mainly use it for RAW conversion. I rarely Photoshop any images after the conversion. This is mainly because the things you do with Photoshop are not things that interest my current clientele. But this is changing and as I move into more areas of photography such as fashion, glamor, family and maybe weddings, I will need these skills. To this end, LightRoom 2 looks like another significant increment in the toolkit. I have LR2 installed on my new machine and 1.4.1 on my old machine ... I'm trying to tease myself along!

So, in his usual inimitable instructor fashion, Hal has created a really super LightRoom weekend that combines material for LR newbies and for those of us migrating from 1 to 2. I think our class of about a dozen was a mixed bag of new and continuing users. No one was bored! And there are a lot of little tricks and treats that I can't imagine stumbling upon or even reading about that are part of Hal's show. In fact, I was chatting with Hal and a couple of other students when I heard myself say, "It's not that I get everything that I expect in taking a Hal Schmitt class, it's that I get so much that I didn't expect that makes Hal's classes so exciting!" Hal and Victoria bring a lot of top flight instructors through The Institute, but I don't think any of those I've attended or read do quite the job that Hal does. He's not as cute as Tim Gray. He's not as verbose and chatty as Scott Kelby. He's only been into photography for a short time. But he understands teaching and students so thoroughly that he is seamless and getting better with experience.

Hmmm, I guess I'm impressed ... yet again. Anyway, Hal covered all the significant new stuff, particularly in the develop module, as well as its interface with PS CS3, since that's where the meat of the new release lives. But be clear, you would understand the entire workflow through all modules after attending this weekend seminar.

Enough of that! My next Institute class will be with Andy Katz the first weekend in November doing vineyard and winery photography and I'll give you another report.

I have a lot of topics lined up (my wife is getting tired of all the boxes, lenses, bags, Pelican cases and the like that are cluttering the hallway to and inside my office and studio) to write about. I really want to show the rest of my gear so I can finally talk more about using it and the workflow involved. So stay tuned and we'll get to everything from grapes to girls and concerts, too!

Be Safe!

Dwight