liquid visions…

I shot for the latest cycle of Britain’s Next Top Model earlier this year. The show is hosted by Elle MacPherson this season.

I shot a very simple beauty shoot for Revlon at their headquarters – Revlon House – in Camden. At this point the competition was down to 6 girls: Alisha, Amelia, Charlotte, Joy, Olivia and Tiffany.

Shooting for TV is always a bit surreal and somewhat detached from the normal shoots that I conduct. When i normally shoot beauty, I spend some time talking to the model beforehand to build rapport and trust and ensure them I have their best interests at heart. We work as a team with hair and makeup and we play music to create an atmosphere, chat and there is no-one extra on set who doesn’t need to be there.

When you’re shooting for TV, you have 10 minutes with a model you have had zero contact with and who for the most part have never done a beauty shoot before in their life. The girls have very little time to interpret the brief, there is no music playing and there is a team of about 20-25 people, assistants, tv crew, the people from Revlon watching you and the model as you work in near silence. It feels a bit unreal and it must be worse for the girls.

So under these conditions I don’t expect miracles from the girls but when someone shines through it is a breath of fresh air. Amilia was definitely the girl who gave it the most on the day and it was a joy to work with her. Some of the other girls tried hard but I didn’t feel that oomph from them. I feel that Joy was definitely the most beautiful of the group and with experience I think she could have a great career as a model.

Video Here:

All in all it was a very enjoyable experience and the people at Revlon were a joy to work with. And if you go to the BNTM site today, my image of Joy (above) is photograph of the week.

Click the image for a larger version.

And here’s a composite of all the girls in one image

Click for larger version.

Isn’t it bizarre how composites of women always end up looking like Natalie Portman? It’s as if she’s the template of the ‘ideal’ woman.

Makeup Design by Mel Arter

Revamp are an umbrella organisation that work in tandem with Cancer Research UK, taking ‘finds’ from the various charity shops and revamping them with the help of a number of up and coming designers to transform them into completely new designs.

Pretty smooth shoot. Minor hiccup at the start where we tried to work with fabrics draped across the back of the shot but it really looked too cluttered and just messy basically. There weren’t enough of the materials to make it work and the clothes are all so different we would have had to change the set with every shot so there wasn’t enough time to make it work either. We pared the look back to something a lot more basic.

Models Erica and Liberty from Cape Models

Make Up: My Alehammer

Hair: David Cordeaux

Big thanks to Jen from Revamp for styling and co-ordinating the shoot and also for the really cute hand painted skirt which she gave to me for Adele, my Petaling Jaya bunny.

Kit Heath are a Jewellery company i’ve been in negotiations with for a while about shooting a campaign for their advertising, online and point of sale images.

Stylist: Shelley Fanell

MUA: Machiko Yano

Hair: Peter Beckett

Asst.:Rebecca Van Ommen

Model: Regina @ Premier

The lighting took a little while to fine tune but once we had what we wanted we moved pretty efficiently. This was on the back of fashion week and I think Regina had a busy week the week before. She worked well but was a teensy bit irritable. Perhaps I was being a little too controlling. Maybe I need to let the model do her job sometimes. I guess I’ve just been working with a lot of new faces and inexperienced girls recently who you have to micro manage so it becomes a bit of a habit.

Jay is a hair stylist who works in a successful salon in Knightsbridge. He’s in the process of putting together a high end home make up and hair service catering to party girls etc. These images are part of a series we’ll be shooting for his site. Girls are Rachel and Jenny. Make up by Antonia Wilson, Hair by Big Boi Jay Williams…