I must thank YOU, dear flogstars, for your patience while I just don’t post. I hope you are getting your fix/keeping abreast of all things Imogen Maxwell over on my Instagram and Facebook, which have been more requently updated than this poor neglected flog.
I have been busy doing lots of exciting things, so I have lots to show and tell you – sadly I have also been very busy doing lots of shitey boring things like working, doing homework etc so I haven’t had much time to flog it all up for your reading pleaure.
This week just gone was the Glasgow School of Art Fashion and Textile show, held in the new Reid building.
Myself and classmate Angie were the ones liaising with the organisers at the art school on behalf of our class, and if anyone ever asks YOU to take that task on, I highly recommend you scream “NO” in their face and run far and fast in the opposite direction. My grievances are college-related and shall be detailed in GREAT detail in my evaluation of the whole experience, which is the final part of this assessment, so you shall be spared, flogstars.
Anyway. Despite all that, the end result – the actual catwalk show itself – was a resounding success, very professional-looking, and received national media coverage for days. The fashion and textile designs were stunning, and everyone behind the scenes (the fashion students, models, organisers, hairdressers) was a pleasure to work with.
Everything was alright on the night, as they say – and that’s all that actually matters. And ON the night, it must be said, I really enjoyed the work, the backstage atmosphere, and being part of such an interesting and creative production.
So here are some photos for ye. Annoyingly I don’t have the designers’ names etc so I’m not sure who did what, but these are just to show the overall feel of the show anyway. If you’ve come across this and know who I can credit for any of it, drop me a line!
space was at a premium so we ended up doing makeup in the corridors
walk-through to check timing
Angie doing between-show touch-ups
waiting to go on
view from the makeup room upstairs above the catwalk
Ciao for now, flogstars – I’ve got so much homework to do I think I might go and have a little cry and eat some chocolate.
Are you missing my face? Those lucky enough to be in Adelaide for the Fringe Festival right now -Go check it out in the Face Your Selfie pop-up exhibition at Gluttony. All details in the blog post below by Kassandra Lee!
Two days to go and this exhibition opens to the public in Adelaide, Australia at Gluttony. Please do check out http://gluttony.net.au for location details and the other amazing shows within this unique pop up venue during Adelaide Fringe Festival.
So for those who are checking in on this site, I recently put up on Twitter a great description of what to expect. Basically this is a pop up gallery in a marquee tent. Inside you will find selfie images displayed as they were sent to me, only two had a filter applied after with permission from the image owner to do so. Every photo represents a person somewhere in the world who allowed their image to be in this exhibition even though the majority are already online somewhere. There certainly were many people who weren’t so comfortable to share their image this way, interesting or a sign of the times?
I know I promised you a juicy flog post all about my long weekend in Denmark, but… The vodka and energy drink has erased my memory of most of it, and my camera had a nice relaxing holiday in Kastrup airport’s lost property office for the whole 5 days I was away, so there is no pictorial evidence either.
Apart from phone-photos. And this is the type of photo I take on my phone.
So today’s flog post is STORY TIME, from the What I’ve Learned archive.
This, flogstars, is a photo of my free ticket to the Steel Panther concert.
Irene and I didn’t have regular tickets, because we’re fucking hustlers and also really disorganised and forgot to buy them in time. So, humiliatingly, on the night of the concert we were stationed out the front of the venue, next to a bunch of strippers handing out flyers. (The strippers were handing out flyers, we weren’t.)
We were begging people on their way in to the venue. Irene and I were hoping people would have spare tickets to sell. One person had one. One. So we bought it for 250DKK, then swiftly resold it for 300DKK because we are dirty dirty scalpers.
We wisely used that 50DKK profit to buy two mostly-empty beers (pictured) from a couple who had already been inside, and they also kindly threw in a look at their wrist-stamp too. I scanned the stamp with my photo-laser eyes, took my eyeliner out of my purse and replicated it on our wrists.
Then we marched right on inside with our beers held high to signify that we had already been in, flashing our ‘stamps’, and quickly melted into the crowd.
we knew our place: up the back BEHIND all the paying-people, spending lots of money at the bar to atone
Stealing from performing artists isn’t cool, kids, but the fact of the matter is that I am practically a shareholder in the Steel Panther franchise, having paid to see them live thrice and having bought five copies of their first album and 3 of their second album (I’m not even kidding – copies for each vehicle in my fleet plus gifts to friends).
So while I’m not suggesting that you start pirating about all over the place, that’s how to sneak in if you ever have the need.
Next in the What I’ve Learned series: How To Get Backstage. Here’s a sneak preview. Step one – have blonde hair and big boobs. Step two – just go back there, seriously, there’s usually nothing or no one to stop you, and if you’re not screeching/being a dick/stealing their beer, they’ll usually let you stay.
… but if, like me, you’re doing a shitload of TFP (time in exchange for pictures) shoots, you’ll be working with professional photographers, models and possibly stylists or other creatives, and at the end of the (long, hard day in the freezing rain) you all want the same thing – shit-hot photos for your portfolio.
models: Ieva at Model Team and Lauren at Superior Model Management makeup by me, photography by Bryce Powrie, threads by One For The Wall
All of us – the photographers, models and makeup artists – all need up-to-date pretty pictures to show off our mad skillz. Which is why lots of us spend half our lives running around like blue-arsed flies on these TF photoshoots.
They’re great fun, and there’s something nice about a wee gang of you working together with the same vision, not for money but for the love. Not to say we’re not all getting something out of it, but anyone doing anything for free is displaying some level of dedication, and that’s nice to be around.
All the pretty pictures for me are ending up in my portfolio, which is actually an official thing getting assessed at college next week. With an interview and all. We need a minimum of 8 photos from a minimum of 4 photoshoots. I’ve done 6 photoshoots and pics from 5 of those are going in my portfolio.
I think if I didn’t have a clear idea of what I needed, and if I hadn’t been lucky in landing shoots with reasonably experienced and professional people, that number might not be so high. As it is my final task for portfolio production is showing some uncharacteristic restraint and editing down my selection to best highlight my makeup work.
None of this putting photos in just because they’re cool and I like them. Is it a photo that showcases my makeup work, or do I like the photo because the model’s hair looks swishy or because there’s a cute puppy or because the clothes they’re modelling look really good? All wonderful things, and important components of a good photo… but FOCUS, IMOGEN!
doing the no-makeup-look on a guy is harder than you think, but you’re not even looking at him are you. This is an example of a photo that doesn’t reeeeeally do my makeup work much justice. photo by Bryce Powrie, model Nicolas Garcia-Minaur, puppy not mine sadly
Which led to me Googling “how to have a not-shit portfolio” which took me all sorts of interesting places on the internet. Here is one of the more useful things I read, copied and pasted because you’re more likely to read it if I do it like this, aren’t you.
A test shoot is a collaboration in which all parties involved should benefit from the pictures received. I don’t go in for contracts or think you should come across like a demanding diva when approached about a test shoot but you do need to discuss a few things with the photographer before the shoot so you can be sure what you receive later will be useful to you.
Here are some questions you should have answers to before any pictures are taken to insure that the image files you receive after the shoot are suitable for printing.
1. Can you get some close up shots of the makeup?
Always ask the photographer to get some close up shots of the makeup as part of the deal and remind them on the day that you need some head shots. A great beauty shot next to a full length image can look fantastic in your book and will show your skills as a makeup artist more clearly.
2. Can you start the day off with a really clean beauty look?
You should be focusing on clean beauty when you start building a portfolio so if you get roped into a test that doesn’t involve clean beauty see if you can do a quick beauty look at the start of the day which you can build on after to achieve something more adventurous. This way everyone should get something usable for their books right from the start and you get more looks out of a days shooting.
3. Will you get Hi-Res files?
Make sure the photographer is going to provide hi-res files so you can print nice sharp images for your book. Low-res files are only suitable for posting online so they don’t take too long to load.
4. Does the photographer have watermarks on all his/her images?
If the photographer you are working with uses watermarks on his/her images check that getting files without the watermarks won’t be a problem so you can print the images for your book.
5. How many images should you expect to receive?
Discuss how many images you should realistically expect to receive and whether these files will have been retouched. Unless you are shooting a big editorial story it is unlikely that you would really need more that 5 images from a shoot.
6. Will you have any input into the final picture selection?
Often all parties involved are looking for something different for their books so it’s great if you all have some input into the final image selection. If you are given a choice of images think about the composition in your book so the images you pick go together on a double page.
If you are unsure about any of the following points discuss them with the photographer in an email. Emails are great as it gives everyone a record of whats been agreed on to refer back to.
I stole that from http://whattheprosdo.blogspot.co.uk/ – which sadly hasn’t been updated in nearly 5 years, but still has loads of really handy tips for the nascent makeup artiste.
It’s a UK based site however a lot of the stuff on there would be useful for anyone starting out – things like what to think about when putting together your website and business cards, what to carry with you (bottle of water and a banana because no one feeds you on photoshoots – so true, and the reason my makeup kit is a suitcase is really so it can fit all the muesli bars in it that I require for a half-day on the go).
So there you have it flogstars, a bit of practical know-how for ye.
Here’s Steel Panther with The Burden of Being Wonderful. Watch it and next post I’ll tell you all about the weekend I’ve just had in Denmark partying at them. Not with them. At them.
You know, I’m writing this in bed, and myself and the laptop aren’t the only two things in here.
I’ve got next to me a foot-high tower of books (half of them about David Bowie, half of them about makeup), a teetering pile of folded laundry, the suitcase I am currently using as my makeup kit (not even kidding), two supermarket bags full of groceries, and … nah, I’m not putting that last bit in, on the internet for all you sickos to see for all eternity.
In my makeup suitcase, I have a brush roll, and in that brush roll there are several makeup brushes by Crown Brush UK. If you, too, would like several Crown makeup brushes, buy ’em online and enter this code – FINAJ2014 – for 10% off your order from http://www.crownbrush.co.uk for the month of February.
When your brushes arrive, you can create artfully massive overdrawn lips like the ones I did on Shinnerz here.
And not even the whole week. This is just Friday and Saturday! Like I’ve said, I’ve been a busy beaver, flogstars.
Friday was the early early call time of 8am to do makeup for a short film being made by Barrowland Ballet.
I went along with two of the Belfast Babes (Saoirse and Magda) to do the very neon makeup of 4 lovely lady dancers.
Oh my god it was cold in that warehouse. It was also cold on Saturday in the studio where I did a bit of bodypainting on a 3-months pregnant model, but I wasn’t the one in the buff so I shouldn’t really be complaining about the temperature.
not sure what your WiFi’s like Chris, but this is for you 🙂
I realised the other day that I’m not worried about money. This isn’t to say that I have enough money or that I shouldn’t be worried. My mind’s just been on other things. Also currently not overly fussed about bum size. What’s going on?
It’s true that the early risers, by default, have ended up setting the schedule for the rest of us dreamers. We were too busy snoozing to stop them. Which is kind of annoying if you think about it. I think there should be a revolution to overthrow this cruel regime in which people are expected to BE PRODUCTIVE in the morning. Mornings are for eating croissants and taking your sweet time waking up, don’t you think?
or pancakes
The problem with the ‘morning people’ is that they say things like “I just can’t stay in bed past 8am, even on the weekends! It feels like I’m wasting the day.” When people say something like that, what I hear is “I am terrified of being alone with my subconscious, and I am also oblivious to the fun that can be had in a bed at any time of the day”.
And ‘wasting the day’ – what pish! What about wasting the deep, dark, glorious night? You’d have to be a bit evil to go to bed at 7:45pm so you can bounce out of bed at 5:30am the next day for no reason other than to lord it over everyone else.
Or maybe the morning people aren’t sinister at all, maybe they’re just scared of the dark, maybe they just like first go with the newspaper before it gets big splodges of jam on it. Who’s to know? So long as they can mask their amusement/disgust at my genuine emotional agony, as I stumble around the kitchen, blind, bloodshot and whimpering, seeking the coffee by smell and touch alone.
Anyway. The reason I’m telling you all this is because I have to BE somewhere at 8am on Friday for a (work experience) makeup job. I say ‘somewhere’ because I don’t know where it is, all I know is it involves a train-ride (sounds miles away doesn’t it) which will mean leaving home at … what, like 6:30am potentially? That’s the middle of the fucking night! But it’ll be good. This comes at a time when lots of fun and interesting makeup work experience opportunities have just sprung up.
On Monday just gone I helped out at a photoshoot that a handful of photography students from my college were doing…
me doing mega-babe Victoria’s makeup
DSLR magician Sharon shooting up a storm
being really helpful holding the light reflector thingy
In fact there are quite a few fun and exciting shoots coming up, so brace yourselves for some … significantly more professional-looking photos of the makeup I do. It’s funny, just recently I was really freaking out about where to find the models and photographers I knew I’d need to whip up a decent portfolio. Now it seems, uh, doable. It’s because I’m so well-connected.
Don’t worry flogstars, the photos might get more professional, but we’ll still be playing it pretty fast and loose here at Imogen Maxwell Dot Com. No matter how fancy and professional the photos become, they’ll still be accompanied by my sparkling banter and a bit o’ not-related classic rock or hair metal. Which brings us to tonight’s tune… oh what shall I pick?
A bit o’ not-related not-classic-rock-or-hair-metal! I heard this lil number whilst meandering around WordPress, and it’s been stuck in my heid for a few days, which as you’ve probably noticed is the most important factor in deciding what goes up on the ole flog here. ENJOY.
digital imologue 