It’s #anythingcanhappenday and it’s also National Lash Day, a day that promotes the love for true and false eyelashes. Eyelashes are a staple for every makeup look and make a woman’s eyes stand out from the crowd. That certainly includes the makeup used for today’s featured model and my first muse, Tia Stoneman.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Whether I’m wearing lots of makeup or no makeup, I’m always the same person inside. — Lady Gaga
Out here in the real world, few of us are perfect, which is why retouching can sometimes be a challenge for aspiring portrait photographers. In fact Cindy Crawford once said, “even I don’t look like Cindy Crawford when I get up in the morning!” So before you retouch any portrait here are a few steps you might want to take (if you like) to make sure your portraits won’t need much retouching during processing.
Photographic Retouching vs Makeup
One way to minimize retouching is to slightly overexpose the image, making it just a little bit lighter and brighter than what your meter says is correct. This will minimize retouching. Next, and highly recommended, work with a good makeup artist and believe me, they are worth whatever they charge because they will make your retouching simple or non existent.
How I made this portrait: Tia Stoneman was my first muse and working with her over many years was one of the highlights of my initial explorations of the glamour genre. The “before” image at above right is of Tia wearing no makeup and no retouching was done to the image. That photograph was made just after she walked into my former home wearing street clothes and is Straight Out of the Camera (SOOC.)
The second portrait was made in my former home’s makeshift basement studio in a working space of just 7×8-feet with less than eight foot high ceilings, proving you can make glamour portraits anywhere. The lighting for this “before” image was the same as I would use later for the “after” photograph below but… I didn’t make any notes and I didn’t do any setup shots. What I can tell you is that I was using the least expensive Flashpoint monolights that were available at the time and I’m guessing that one of them was aimed at the background while the other, most likely with an umbrella mounted, was aimed at Tia. She is sitting on one of my kitchen chairs that I brought down into the basement.
The left-hand image was cropped to produce the approximately the same head size as the before image but lots changed in the interim starting with wardrobe and makeup done by Greeley Colorado’s Diana Lareé. The “wet hair” look Tia is sporting was inspired by Jamie Lee Curtis in the lap dance scene in the film True Lies. The camera used was a Canon EOS 5D Mark I with EF 85mm f/1.8 lens. The exposure was 1/60 sec at f/13 and ISO 200. After capture, light retouching was done to the original JPEG file using some of Photoshop’s built-in tools, including Clone Stamp, Unsharp Mask and Healing Brush.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat me to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), please click here. And if you do, thanks so much.
My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography and includes information on all of the cameras used as well as the complete exposure data for each image. New copies are available for $42.81 with used books starting around thirteen bucks.as I write this. The Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.