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Makeup: Colour Law
Hair: Christopher Cody Hartl and
Jessica Rodinelli
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A photographer I had worked with a handful of times (All-Star Studios) was designing the Rummele's winter catalog (in the Manitowoc, WI area). The owner loved an image the photographer and I had captured at a previous shoot and asked for it to be reshot but with the model wearing Rummele's jewelry that they wanted highlighted. The photographer asked me to model again, the only issue was I no longer had the hair! (This was shortly after the hair butchering fiasco) We had to think fast...
I was instructed to find a wig that looked as close to my old hair as possible. Oh boy! The trick was to find something on an unemployed budget, that looked natural, and that was similar to my cut, style, and length so we could reproduce this image as closely as possible. Another photographer gave me a suggestion for a wig shop in town (PHEW! Thank you!)...I had one day to find this thing.
I walked into the store and let the owner know what I was looking for. She had ONE blonde wig. It didn't match my color exactly, and it was quite a bit shorter than what my hair had been at the time of the original image, but it was all I could find with the amount of time given. I sent a pic to the photographer to get his approval. I had also remembered a friend of mine talking to me about extensions at one point, so I sent her a message. She selflessly GAVE me her blonde extensions, saying she'd probably never go blonde again anyway. She helped me out last minute, and they worked perfectly to give me that extra length that I needed.
So the day of the shoot... there was a lot of ridiculousness that occurred that was just plain ol' silly and unrelated to the shoot. It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I was running a bit behind...It was one of those days, you know the ones... the ones where every single thing you touch, falls, breaks, makes a mess, etc. During the early morning hours (I had not gone to sleep yet), I had been at my parents house, and accidentally dropped my dad's iPad... he loves that thing... The screen was slightly cracked...which grew into a bigger and bigger crack... Oh no... My stomach was all sorts of twisted. Once he woke up, I knew I had to tell him. I did, I cried, I felt terrible. I had to pull myself together, I had barely gotten any sleep the way it was due to this and the amount of guilt I had, and now I was puffing up my face by crying like a baby. I was responsible for my own makeup, which was a task in itself with the waterworks. And I had a bit of a drive ahead of me yet. With being behind, I wasn't sure I would have enough time to pick up the extensions... I texted the photographer to let him know the situation, he gave me the go ahead to pick them up even if it meant I was going to be a few minutes late. I was finally on my way, and making good time. Then dad called. I'm still feeling incredibly bad about the iPad situation, and my makeup couldn't be worked on again! He was calling to let me know that something in my car was leaking, and I needed to get it checked before driving very far-the photographer lived an hour away, and I was nearly there. During this conversation, I ended up missing my exit. I was actually going to be on time, too! The next exit was about 15 minutes away, and once I turned around, we're at about a half hour of me being late. Again, I'm feeling terrible! I call the photographer to let him know, fortunately he was understanding.
Ridiculous, right?
There were a few more incidents at the actual shoot. What a goofy day! Once the photographer started shooting, he made a comment (not knowing what I had just gone through) "These pictures are looking great... you just look really sad for some reason." Oh crap. Apparently my makeup couldn't cover up the lack of sleep, the hours of craziness, and the tears. Well, no excuses. Now that I know that, I have to work extra hard to convey the proper emotion for this shoot. It doesn't matter if my face is puffy, I have to FEEL it and make the viewer FEEL it.
A funny little tidbit: I had asked the photographer if the owner of Rummele's knew that the model in the image he chose didn't have that hair anymore... he said "Nope... I was hoping we could figure that part out!" With the wig, I was able to incorporate some of my natural hair, and the extensions worked out perfectly... And this has all come in handy several times since! Thank you to those who helped out with that part!
Fortunately, the shoot went well overall. The cover image that was chosen is shown here... Credits: H/MUA-myself, jewelry-Rummele's.
We got the shots we needed and then some... we even had time to play around with some other ideas, completely unrelated to the catalog. It was great to just experiment and let loose after a productive and partially stressful day. We were able to come up with a few things the photographer hadn't tried before. That's when it gets really fun. When the creativity comes out! :) To see more from this shoot, please check out my artist page: www.facebook.com/NFGartist You'll find them in the Modeling 2 album.
It was an exciting day when I was tagged in the image below... the brochure was in the paper. I jumped around exclaiming "My face is in 10,000 places!!!" for most of the day. Pretty neat to see the hard work in print... to be able to find a way around some of those obstacles, it was a great feeling. While this is still pretty small scale, it was the largest thing I had been a part of at the time. And I am thankful for the opportunity and to those who helped me trample those obstacles. :)
