Long Time no Face!!

Hey guys!

It's been a loooooonngggg time...And there are WAY too many reasons for that to go into here. I've missed this blog! And now I'm back! I just thought I'd jump right back into the mix and post the follow up photos to my last post...The Mannequin Shoot.

This was an awesome shoot, easily one of my favourites. The concept was that a mannequin in an abandoned storehouse comes to life but is all alone, with only the other mannequins, who are not alive, for company. The girls - Tara for hair, Rebekah for posing direction, and of course, my partner in crime, photographer Alyson Holder - were all fantastic, Cathy is a fantastic model, even though she isn't a professional model and has so little experience. Perhaps that worked in her favour....she was extremely receptive to all help and instruction, she didn't ove rthink her poses, and she absolutely NAILED the mannequin-like poses while still looking alive and kind of sad, which was the idea. We shot this at my late grandfather's house which is full of old fashioned furniture, closests, crockery and ornaments. This house was built in the 1930s and so had the perfect feel and look for this 20s-30s fashion-themed shoot.

The Mannequin comes to Life

Alyson's Mum, Aunty Sis, Made the dress. Aly and Aunty Sis designed the dress, and it was made of satin and tulle. Cathy was a trooper because it was  August - in Barbados, August is one of the hottest months. It was around 33 C (about 92F) and around 98 % humidity. poor Cathy was absolutely MELTING in that closet, and the makeup was a challenge to get it to not slide off!

 The makeup was less shiny than in the test shoot (which was also photographed with my little Nikon point-and-shoot digital). We erased the eyebrows using the glue trick, which was actually quite difficult because of the humidity and heat that day - each layer of glue took forever to dry. since there was nowhere to buy latex in Barbados at the time, I had to keep to the glue stick. The makeup took nearly two hours to complete. The erased eyebrows took around and hour and then the highly polished, perfected, almost-plastic skin took another hour. I used 4 thin layers of L'Oreal True Match Foundation in N4 - Natural Beige on her skin, allowing each layer to set completely. Cathy doesn't have oily skin, and so I set the foundation with a fine layer of MAC MSF Natural in Light/Medium to give a glow, and I highlighted with MSF in Soft and Gentle. The eyeshadow was from the CS 88 palette and more Soft and Gentle. Eyelashes were Ardell Babies on the bottom, and some synthetic lashes on top. I really cannot remember what brand they were. Tara gave her a finger-wave style, but it wasn't perfect. We loved that we could see the bobby pins, it kind of deconstructed the look. We created the head piece by gluing feathers layer by layer onto a round piece of fabric and then we pinned in into her hair.

Cathy has the most amazing bone structure!! 

This photo from the shoot won a few awards and got a lot of attention at a few exhibitions. It is a soft, touching protrait of the lonely Mannequin. Here you can see the really highly, arched, pencil thin eyebrows. They were drawn on with a light brown powder and defined ever so lightly with a darker brown. MAC Omega and Charcoal brown would be good replacements for those two colours, though that's not what I used.. 

The Mannequin sits down to a tea party with her friend. I just erased her lips with  concealer, powdered it, and added a 20s flapper lip shape with a dark red lipstick. I think it was Wine Not from Black Opal, and Avon Glazewear in Real Red to top it of and give it a slick shine.

So there it is! I'm so sorry it's been so long! But I'm back! I hope you enjoyed this one, and I've got a back log of stuff to post so keep looking out for more!

Love, kisses, and cupid lips,

mandy

**All photos courtesy of Alyson Holder, 3rd EyE Photography. Makeup By Mandy Cummins, About Face. Hair by Tara Thompson, Hair By Tara**