Close headshot with Kira

The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion, but cosmetics are easier to buy – YvesSaint Laurent.

There is a lot of preparation that goes into a great photoshoot.  As a photographer I think about the lighting, the set, backdrops and how I will eventually pose my subject(s).  A large part of the preparation is scoping out the scene and scouring the web for ideas.  There are specific preparation steps that I am writing a separate post for, but now I am paying homage to importance of makeup.

I do my own retouching and I look forward to doing it and to getting better every time.  So, as a result of doing painstaking dodging and burning, color matching, Frequency separation I understand the importance of great makeup.

Here are  links to some great makeup artists and articles.

I’ve seen the work of Elizabeth Ulloa (http://elizabethulloa.com/) on several images by Julia Kuzmenko, a photographer/retoucher that I admire.  I’ve often wondered how Julia gets that radiant and vibrant look, and after reading a few posts by Elizabeth I can see where it starts.  Julia is of course an amazing photographer and retoucher, but she has a great foundation to build on.  Check out the stories on her site.

This link from improvephotography.com ( http://improvephotography.com/29671/makeup-photoshoots-definitive-guide/) covers some of the prep work when doing makeup for a photoshoot.  I encourage anyone to read it if  you are interested in preparing for a shoot.

A lot of the makeup sites cater to caucasian skin, I shoot a lot of African American portraits and I dont know how much the approach changes when dealing with darker complexions.  I’m looking for some good sites that answer this specifically and when I find a couple I will place them here.  I have a shoot lined up in a couple weeks, so I will also ask the MUA about this at that time.