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Project: Egyptian Goddess
Production: VERTEX
Photographer & Retoucher: Jeff Thomas
Model: Mari Deleon
Makeup Artist: Meagan Brown
Modeling Agency: Sky Talent Management
Behind the Scenes & PA: Colton Brandt
Location: San Diego, CA
Egyptian Goddess
Many people tend to think that a photographer’s work is solely based on the photographer alone. But behind every photo, you’ll find a team of creators contributing to the overall image. In all of my work, I’ve always sought to collaborate with other artists who I have connected with on a creative level. That connection is valuable because it allows the creative process to really accelerate. Being able to refer to a hairstylist, makeup artist, model or whoever I’m working with helps me see things from another point of view, and trains my eye to think differently.
Meagan Brown is a talented makeup artist who I have worked with on several photoshoots in the past. It’s always been a great experience working together and we both have wanted to collaborate on more personal projects this year. Meagan mentioned that she wanted to work on a beauty shoot and with me having limited dates to prepare for the shoot I felt this was something we could put together easily. We didn’t really know exactly the direction we wanted to go in at first, but we knew we wanted to experiment and play around. It was important for me to have the flexibility to take the project in any direction Meagan and I felt inspired to go in, so I went to Joann’s fabric store and purchased a ton of different backgrounds and textures so that our options were readily available at any moment.
The focus of this shoot was keeping things minimal, yet intriguing and dynamic at the same time. Meagan would apply different looks on the model, and I would shoot it with different textures and colors until we both felt right about it. The Violet photo was the first one we completed. The first look is always a challenge because you’re not warmed up yet and it sets the tone for the shoot moving forward. This is why I normally test with one of my assistants before the model is ready.
With personal shoots, I always want to push the boundaries and do something different. On my personal work, I have a tendency to go more abstract, but for our first look we kept it clean and built from there. For our second look, I knew I wanted something gold, so Meagan came up with a simplistic but edgy look on the spot. It satisfied my need for something conceptual, but clean. The challenge was choosing a background that wasn’t too chaotic, but still added some dynamic qualities that wouldn’t distract from the makeup. Originally, I wanted to have a blue background, to balance the complimentary colors but it didn’t feel quite right. A moment clicked and I grabbed my 5 in 1 reflector for the backdrop and it fit perfectly with the look.
I have a love/hate relationship with beauty shoots. Unless we are doing a nude shoot, we are limited from the chest up which restricts a lot of my compositions. Beauty shoots also tend to lack a story or complexity. They are often times against a simple background which is often pretty boring. While at Joann’s, I had bought these strange looking cubes and figured they could come in handy to make the shoot more dynamic. I had no idea how I was going to use them, but figured worst case scenario I will just return them. We were already happy with our previous images, so Meagan decided to take the look to the next level to fit the surreal look I wanted to go for with the cubes. The model had to leave within 20 minutes of starting the 3rd look, so I had to shoot quick. With the image being a partial composite and being limited on time, I didn’t really know how it would turn out until I retouched the photo in post production.
There are so many images out there and I never want to create something that people have seen a million times before. It’s not just about creating beautiful photos, it’s about making people stop and having an experience with my work. These photoshoots really take me back to my roots. Experimenting without knowing what you’re going to get is how I learned and gained a lot of my experience as a photographer.
– Jeff Thomas
Behind the scenes
