Friday was the big Harper's Bazaar beauty shoot, but let's not start there.
Because Thursday was another shoot, for another magazine. And boy, what a difference a day makes.
Thursday came with the idea to do 2 beauty stories, which are the close up beauty shots you might see in a fashion magazine, detailing and showing the latest makeup looks for the season. As a makeup artist, these are hard to get. Why? In every magazine, there will be maybe 3-4 fashion stories, but only 1, if any, beauty makeup story. Shots that show detailed up close images showcasing your work. To get that one, is a gold mine.
So Thursday's shoot started with two models that were beautiful, makeup applied, and then shot, to only get, so so shots. As in, what the camera sees is not always what the eye sees. Your eye sees beautiful faces, the camera sees bug eyes, closed eyes, deer caught in headlights eyes. Not too good. Lighting kept getting changed around, and nothing really worked out. No matter how hard you tried. It didn't have that 'magic', that wow factor. The shot that makes your heart light up and go, 'wow, did I do that?' So with heavy heart, 2 beauty stories got shrunk down to 1, if any at all. And I went home, already exhausted, but ready to face the next day. The big day. The Harper's Bazaar photo shoot, hoping and praying the same wasn't going to happen again.
Friday, the day. Woke up bright and early (thank god!), with a happy heart, thanks to a glorious phone call from my folks the night before. You see, I believe in signs, signals, little things from the universe that tell you you're on the right path, or maybe not! ;) And the night before I got a sign.
You see, in my family, my parents taught us to believe that whenever you see a ladybug, it's good luck. And if you make a wish on a ladybug, it will come true. It started with my mom in her early years and she passed it on to us. It's quite a story, with it's own happy ending (let's just say a ladybug brought my parents back together, after they had broken up for 6 months in post war WWII in Germany.. a wonderful romantic story I hope to write about one day as a fiction novel.) So to make a long story short, whenever my dad finds a ladybug in the garden, he'll bring it in so my mom can make a wish, and on every anniversary, he'll bring chocolate ladybugs he buys at the German market as a romantic remembrance of years gone by. And yes, on their 52nd wedding anniversary, there were 52 chocolate ladybugs for my mom. (sigh, doesn't that just make your heart sing?) So back to phone call. From my dad, to tell me, that yesterday, as he was moving my car (which is at their place while I'm gone), he found a ladybug crawling on the roof. And he felt it was a sign from the universe, telling me good luck for my big shoot that he had to call me and let me know. I was in tears. Thank you little ladybug!
And yes, it was a sign.
The shoot was
un
be
lieve
able.
They say the energy of the photographer rubs off on their team. It's true. And our photographer was calm, precise and very trusting. After going through many model cancellations (apparently Chinese Harper's Bazaar is not a big enough deal to the modeling agencies) we got two new girls that, well, I had to wonder how'd they'd do. After makeup, hair, lights, camera, action, it was wow. This photographer knows how to light. They looked amazing. Giving us the chance to peek at her digital camera viewfinder, you could tell immediately, this was a great shot. This was it. She made them look fantastic. So 10 hours later, and two magazine beauty stories shot, and countless makeup looks put on and taken off (thanks to my hardworking makeup assistant that day..) I went home. Exhausted, happy, tired, with both feet killing me from standing on hard cement floors all day. I don't think it will hit me until the magazine comes out. Because it was another shoot, another day. But I have to keep telling myself. No, this was Harper's Bazaar.
This was the big time.
And I'm ready for whatever road it will lead me on.
I can't wait.
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