I had the most wonderful time creating this set for Issue 20 of Archive the Magazine with Tasha Newell and I hope you all enjoy it too!
I've always wanted to do a beauty series with pieces of torn paper and I love the focus and color it provided. Quite a few people have asked me the details on the behind the scenes for this series so here it is! I started at Michaels Craft Store and purchased about a dozen different pastel toned sheets of paper in the scrapbooking aisle. I then carefully tore holes into the centers of each one, just big enough for a small section of the face. All in all a very easy prep. When it was time to shoot, I simply had Tasha hold the paper in front of her face and we made micro adjustments from there!
Makeup was the biggest focus for this series and I really enjoyed brainstorming different looks. The base of beautifully prepped skin and light complexion correction using mostly RCMA foundations was the same throughout the series. For the colors, I used products from Make Up For Ever, Stila, NYX, Ben Nye Creams, MAC pigments, Loreal Volume Mascara, and more! I mixed a myriad of colors and products to achieve the final result.
The post processing for this series was intensive. This series is more heavily retouched than my normal portrait work because I wanted to slightly suspend reality. I wanted perfect skin, vibrant colors, and a clean, sharp look found only in my favorite magazines. I also experimented heavily with colors, changing a coral look to a tangerine orange and then red nails to yellow. These changes would have obviously been easier to achieve before capturing the photo but I couldn't find seem to find pastel orange paper and I wasn't about to ruin Tasha's perfectly red nails.
I'll likely be making printed sets of this series available to the public soon - stay tuned!
Watch the video below to see how I changed Tasha's nail color!
Thanks for reading!