The Transformation

I have a wife and 5 kids, 4 of them girls. There are many, many reasons I am glad to be male. One of those, top of the list, reasons is make-up; selection, purchase, application and maintenance of all things make-up. Don’t get me wrong, I fully appreciate the effort required and result of  properly applied and the beautiful results (deceitful on some level) of cosmetics.

I have photographed a few females in my time as a photographer. As at home, I would only venture into and out of the room where the makeup artist makes magic happens – normally to inquire either “Are you ready yet?” or “How much longer?” or ” Have you seen my camera?” I never paid much attention to the details of the process, only the result as presented in the portrait session. Always impressed by the transformation from the girl next door to the wonderful creature standing in front of me.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to work with the wonderfully talented Jane Victoria Burch Professional Make-Up Artist and the Splice Girl Crystal (The Only Mufinhead). Jane and I are collaborating on an instructional presentation geared toward photographers and new models about makeup for portfolio building. We spent several hours in studio documenting the process from natural (no makeup) to
natural looking (minimal makeup) through to glamour shoot ready.

It was, I must say, a very interesting experience. I watched, I shot, I asked questions. I won’t try to convince anyone that I followed many of the explanations; I was very much transfixed by the process. Jane and Crystal seemed to be in sync with each other, they had worked together before our studio set. I am no more ready to give up being male mind you, but I have a new found respect for the whole beauty makeup thing our women go through to meet our cultural definition of beauty.

If you ever have the chance to spent an entire makeup session watching the transformation that I, for the most part, took for granted; I highly recommend it. It’ll be an hour well spent.