Recently I received an email from Ashley Hardy, one of my very talented professional make-up artists. Ashley had a concept for something that was a meld between art nouveau, haute couture, fine art and high fashion photography. She wanted to see if I was interested in collaborating on it. Let me tell you, when one of my make-up artists tosses out an idea, I am not one to say, “NO!” 🙂
Ashley’s concept was to create images featuring a face-painted model with complementary outfit that played with earth elements. In this case, twigs. I loved the idea!
When Ashley and our model, Lane, arrived at the studio we talked a bit more about the vision and started refining and honing it. The original concept was a white face that faded to skin–a gradation of sorts. I managed to talk Ashley into going farther and completely covering our model.
Watching Ashley work is amazing. Ashley’s background in wig and make-up design really shines when she works on models and clients. Within 90 minutes, Lane went from being a stunning girl next door to a high fashion, almost aboriginal, model. The textures and application of make-up almost take me to the Australian outback when you view them up close. So awesome!
I played with a couple different background colors initially, but quickly decided that white on white was such an interesting statement. I loved the feel that it created and felt that it really pushed the images more into high fashion photography. It also began to border on fine art.
We ended up doing two looks that day. This one is by far my favorite for various reasons. I love that I gave Lane very little latitude (literally!) and she was able to work magic through expression. The make-up was incredibly heavy (Lane couldn’t talk) and I’m sure Ashley’s amazing bodice design was not the most comfortable piece of clothing. Yet, Lane hit it out of the park!
Here are some of my favorites from this high fashion photography look.
Acorn Studios | High Fashion Photography
Make-up / Hair: Ashley Rose Hardy
Clothing: Ashley Rose Hardy
Model: Lane Walkup
Art Direction / Photography: Kacey Baxter
