Beauty Test Shoot with Tia Lewis
I had the pleasure of photographing model Tia Lewis from Nevs Modelling Agency based in London recently on 23/08/22. We conducted a small beauty photography photoshoot at my North London photography studio with Makeup Artist Shivika Tiwari.
You can find their social media here:
Tia found my beauty photography via Instagram, where my previous beauty work with a Nev’s model had been featured on their blog. I found Shivika through posting on Assisting Work on Instagram, I find it very helpful when you need to connect with creatives for small tests.
For the first look, we chose to do something super clean and simple. Tia was looking to book more commercial and beauty jobs, so we didn’t want to go too over the top with any makeup that would disguise her natural beauty. Barely any makeup was used as Tia has such perfect skin and Shivika is so talented at creating that barely there beauty look.
The lighting set up for the first look was two bare bulbs directed at the white backdrop, where the light bounced off and gave the halo effect on Tia, highlighting her cheekbones and jawbone from behind. The key light was a white Profoto beauty dish without a grid or diffuser slightly above Tia, pointing down at a 45 degree angle. A white reflector was used under Tia’s face to fill in some shadows. I find the silver reflector is too strong and I don’t often use them for my beauty shoots in line with my style of photography.
For the second makeup look, our makeup artist created a fresh and fun look - pops of bright orange and enhancing Tia’s natural freckles. We thought that a blue background contrasting with the makeup would make for a good image for Tia’s Instagram, a bright image that would pop out on anyone’s instagram feed.
This is the third time I have worked with Shivika, she recently moved with her husband from India to London. She used to work on a lot of Bollywood movie sets. She is a dream to work with and a super talented makeup artist. Her use of colour and experimental looks are flawless. What I love most of all is her ability to create flawless no makeup makeup looks, which makes my job retouching the beauty images incredibly easy.
The natural beauty look was retouched by professional beauty retoucher Janey Renn who recently contacted me on Instagram. The second look was retouched by myself.