Behind the Scenes at a Makeup Test Shoot
December 16, 2009 by Joe Edelman
Filed under Lighting, Makeup, Photography, Recent Articles
New images from a recent makeup and hair test shoot.
Model: Tabitha Rubin – Jersey City, NJ
Makeup & Hair: Morgan Chalfant – Philadelphia, PA
This group of images is from a recent makeup test shoot that I did with the multi-talented Philadelphia based Morgan Chalfant. Our model was the beautiful Tabitha Rubin of Jersey City, NJ.
As promised, I have included lighting diagrams and behind the scenes images where available.
The shots are presented here in the order that we did them so that you can also see how we transitioned to shoot 7 completely different hair and makeup looks in 6 hours.
This is a day that requires a lot of planning, a lot of creativity and a lot of collaboration. The goal was to showcase Morgan’s ability to create many looks with one subject, ranging from a clean commercial look to an over the top fluorescent color scheme.
In this case, Morgan arrived with the concepts and props/outfit pieces. All were ideas that she would like to add to her portfolio.
My job was the easy one, simply create a lighting scheme and find a camera angle that would highlight Morgan’s efforts and of course it was up to Tabitha to bring each of the characters to life.
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| Backlit – Photogenic 1250DR with a floor to ceiling diffusion panel and white walls. Two evenly placed reflectors near the camera allowed me to expose for the face and the background was allowed to blow out. | ||
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| Clam shell Lighting – AlienBee 22″ Beauty Dish on Top and AlienBee Ring Flash under a Photoflex Diffuser on the bottom. The hair is rim lit with two AlienBee B400′s and purple gels and the black background also has an AlienBee B800 with a purple gel aimed at it. | ||
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| Sidelit – Photogenic 1250DR a with floor to ceiling diffusion panel and white walls. | ||
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| Backlit – Photogenic 1250DR with a floor to ceiling diffusion panel and white walls. Two evenly place reflectors near the camera allowed me to expose for the face and the background was allowed to blow out. | ||
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| Ring Lighting – A Nikon SB900 with the Ray Flash Adapter was used for both of these shots. The first shot had the model posed directly in front of the background and the ring flash creates the rim shadow. Blue rim lights on either side of the model added to the effect. The second shot was done with a 50mm lens at close range and the white background was lit separately. | ||
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| DIY Fluorescent Lighting – My homemade rig with the main fluorescent lights in front of the model and two single strips on either side of her head for some subtle accenting on the jaws and cheeks. The vackground color was created in Photoshop with a hue and saturation adjustment on the gray background. | ||
Disclaimer: I have not received free merchandise, payment or consideration of any kind from any manufacturer or brand name listed in this post. In fact I wish they would all lower their prices or offer to sponsor me and send me free stuff! I will be sure to to tell you if they do. 
Joe,
I just want to say, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I’ve spent hours tonight reading and learning on your website. Your lighting diagrams help spur my imagination. Thank you for all your work and generosity for putting all of your wisdom and experience on your site.
-James
Joe:
Thanks for posting these lighting setups, much appreciated. Can I ask, was it just regular flourescent tubes you used in your last setup? Just curious because it looks like you didn’t have any problem with the white balance.
Would love to attend the Meeting of the Masters workshop, but being in Ireland, I’m just a little too far away. Hope you all have a blast at it.
- Thorsten.
Hello Thorsten!
You are very welcome! I am glad that you find the information helpful.
The fluorescent tubes are inexpensive household tubes. They are not the daylight balanced tubes.
Given that most digital SLR’s have the ability to do custom white balancing it really isn’t an issue.
My tool of choice is the Expodisc by Expoimaging.
It takes just seconds to build a profile and is incredibly accurate for my taste.