Project evaluation

My favourite part of this project was designing the six different looks for makeup and hair, styling and creating the six different images for our portfolio which were fashion, beauty and editorial based which is my favourite area of makeup and hair design so naturally I was very passionate about these images. I thought it was also really great that two had to be catwalk/backstage catwalk style images, two were advert style and two were editorials as it meant we got a great range of different types of images that we would be working on if we go on to work in the fashion and beauty industries. I like how free we were to be as individual and creative as we liked with only a few things to take into consideration, for example Spring/Summer 2016 trends for the catwalk looks, day and night time inspired looks for the adverts and then obviously taking into consideration your brands style and aesthetic to be incorporated into the designs. I loved the hair practical lessons with Lottie as she covered so many important styling techniques and never lets us leave the class without having achieved something and feeling confident. During these practicals my confidence with hair styling has gone from not very high to pretty confident, especially with braiding which was the main type of hair styling I struggled with before. I enjoyed forming teams with models, stylists and other talents to try and organise shoots however due to all students being busy with deadlines I ended up taking most of the photos myself with post production and studio set up help from my friend who studies Fashion Styling. The experience of finding four models to be able to help create my images was a struggle as studio spaces were disappearing quickly and I had to make sure my models and myself could attend the studio slots available. As I have a job I found time management very tricky with the practical side of things however I enjoyed these photoshoots thoroughly and intend to do more collaborations and photo shoots for my portfolio next term and in the free time we will have after second year is officially over. Another positive for me that has come out of all these shoots is that I have noticed my makeup application improve a lot since first year which is very encouraging, I am being able to apply makeup looks a lot quicker which was one of my difficulties in first year and I complete them with a lot more ease so it is good to know my hard work is paying off. This project was definitely a lot of work and very time consuming having to organise and plan so many shoots but I am really proud of my final images and I think they are my favourite work yet, this project was my favourite experience so far at uni. If I could go back in time I would start shooting from the beginning of February as I now know how much work and time goes into organising, designing and completing a proper photoshoot.