For professional practice year two we are expected to and tasked with putting together a professional portfolio to take out into industry to showcase my work and can be constantly adding to it every time I do a shoot and create a look. After looking at some of the previous years portfolios it inspired me to get more creative with mine, making it eye catching and aesthetically pleasing. I really enjoyed this module as I feel like it will benefit me the most when I go out into industry, and it has allowed me to be creative and come up with my own looks without following a theme. This module gave me a chance to think about the career path I want to go down after university and what style I enjoy doing the most, editorial make-up style is the area I am strongest in as I enjoy getting creative and coming up with looks no one has seen before. The career path that interests me the most and what I would love to do would be a fashion, runway make-up artist, I am truly inspired by the looks that are produced on fashion shows, they’re editorial, Avant Garde style. Having my future career path in mind I wanted to keep the editorial, fashion looks consistent throughout my portfolio to really reflect what my style is and hopefully catch potential employers eyes. I chose this style to showcase in my portfolio because it is my main strength in make-up and it gives my portfolio some colour, creativity and relevance.
This module and task also improved my research skills, finding new ways of looking for inspiration and ideas. Having a mood board ready before a shoot is important and very helpful, it shows photographers what I what the final images to look like. It also comes across more professional and that I am prepared, and that I’ve thought about what I wanted to do prior to the shoot and creating the look. The main research source I would use to find ideas and inspiration for my shoots is Pinterest, this is one of my favourite resources for collating ideas as it allows you to create a digital mood board and is easily accessible at all times whenever it is needed which I think is handy when needing to email ideas to photographers, etc… as it is already on your phone. Another research source I used were magazines, ‘Glamour’ in particular. Magazines are a perfect way for me to find inspiration for my looks I want to do because they are editorial, fashion style make-up looks. I like to save all my magazines because they always become useful at some point and contain lots of inspiration, I also like to create physical mood boards from the pictures I find. Instagram is another research source that I find most of my inspiration and ideas, it’s a popular social media platform for creatives such as; make-up artists, photographers, hair-stylists and stylists to showcase their work. I follow a lot of make-up artists that inspire me so if I find a piece of work I like I will save it to my page, which makes it easy to access when needed.
I feel really positive and happy with how all my shoots and final images turned out, they all fit my editorial theme really well. These shoots have really improved my portfolio since last year as they relate to my career path and are looks like I enjoyed creating, showcasing my skills, where as before they where themed looks that had to be done for certain modules that I didn’t particularly like and where not relevant for my chosen future career in the make-up industry. For future shoots I do need to get in contact with professional models to work with to switch my portfolio up so that I can show that I can work on different faces and it doesn’t look repetitive using the same model. As I do not have a Facebook account I can’t access the Manchester Models page that allows to you get in contact with models and arrange shoots, so for the purpose of my make-up career, setting up a Facebook page for this is something that I need to do if I want to develop my portfolio and make it become more appealing. It also gives me a chance to work on different, genders, races & ages which is key for a make-up artist going out into the industry. I also should have concentrated on the hair styling a lot more on some of the shoots so that the looks would fully come together as show off my hair skills as well as my make-up skills as I believe that I am strong in this area; for example, for the ‘Glowing Model Look’ I created a sleek styled hair style and added clips to the front, this gave it a really professional feel and came together with the make-up look. Being a make-up artist at this current time it is usually required to have hair styling skills on top of make-up skills so that you are able to offer both for clients, this would make me stand out from other people going for a job interview, so for future shoots I would need to showcase my hair styling skills more and employers can see what I am capable of in my portfolio.
My understanding of photography, lighting and professional photography has improved massively from Year 1, Studio Practice, it’s not perfect but I am able to make my photos look professional and how to get the perfect lighting to match with the make-up and make the skin look flawless. I took all the images for my portfolio myself, I feel like my camera/photography skills have got much better so I was confident in doing it myself as I know what I wanted, I enjoyed doing this. Although looking back, I think I should have collaborated with some photographers for my shoots to achieve the most professional photographs for my portfolio. This is important because collaborating with creatives such as photographers will be something I am required to do most of the time, so being able to communicate with photographers using the correct terminology is important and would be helpful, it also means getting the best photos possible, communicating with the photographer to get across exactly how you want the photos to look like, they can also give their own tips and ideas on your shoot.
Carla Sykes Blog 