My favourite photo. Ever

I love this photo. Well, to be more precise I love what this photo is not. This photo is not of a doll-like girl crossing a busy New York street. No. This photo is of a real girl, really in South Africa. This photo is the genius of Seagram Pearce (I asked him what his name means, I was expecting a cool story, but according to him Seagram is just Seagram *shrug*). When people think of Photoshop they think of no wrinkles and big boobs, but this photo proves how phenomenal Photoshop can be. Photoshop is magic!

Seagram is a Cape Town based photographer and his work is simply amazing www.seagrampearce.com. He had a trip to JHB planned and was looking for makeup artists to work with. After seeing this taxi pic I would have given body parts to work with him! But boy oh boy was I nervous!!! I had pictured a fairly serious middle aged guy who would take one look at my work and shout 'I can't work like this! Off with your head!'

I was pleasantly surprised. How do they package so much talent in such a fresh young container? And he's funny, real funny. Just take a look at what he does on other shoots with famous people
Fun huh?

Here is a pic from the shoot I did with Seagram, it's not the best of the series but I just love Thabi's shoes so had to post this one!

Seagram, I still have some body parts I'm willing to part with, let me know when you're in JHB again :-)

DISCLAIMER: I had nothing to do with the taxi photo, I wasn't there when it was taken, I don't even know the model. I just love the photo. A lot.

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My best makeover

We were shooting a lingerie catalogue in Germiston (aaall abooaaard, passports and vaccination certificates please) and we spotted this girl in a bad part of town. She had nothing, barely a scrap of clothing....


Something had to be done. We had to help her. I rushed over and a couple of puffs and brush strokes later she was transformed! My best work yet!


Sometimes a little eyeshadow and nipples are all a girl needs.


Photographer: Natasha Andreoni www.natashaandreoni.com
Model: Catia Rodrigues
Lingerie: Sin-til-late www.sintillate.co.za

Model Movember

Most times when a model brings her boyfriend to a shoot it creates tension and really is counterproductive. However, on some rare occassions the boyfriend actually contributes to the shoot and makes himself useful. And on the rarest of occassions he lands up entertaining the makeup artist! Okay okay so maybe I forced him a little....here is good old Mark showing his support for Movember:



I take no responsibility for what happened next! What is it with boys and their obsession with fake things?



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It feels like the first time, every time

I remember the first day one of my pics was published, it felt like Christmas morning! Oh the excitement!

Fast forward a couple of years and you would think the excitement would have worn off by now...but every time I see another one of my pics published I feel the same thrill and sheer joy as I did the first time! Seeing my work out there really boosts my pride in my work and gets rid of any doubt I may have about my skill.

Many of the pics I have worked on are sold as stock photos, so it's not often that I know where the pics are being used and it's pure luck when I stumble upon them as was the case at the recent Photo & Film Expo. I was walking around at the expo when something caught my eye... I know that girl, oh my god, it's Joyce, it's Luba's pic, it's my makeup, it's in a big shiny book, no wait, it's in TWO shiny books!



Photographer: Luba V Nel
Model: Joyce Nkonyana
The staff at the Jetline stand must have thought I was a lunatic! I squealed with delight when I saw the pics!
Jetline man: "Mam, would you be interested in a photo book?"
Lunatic: "No! But please take a photo of your stand and mms it to me, I left my phone at our stand and I NEED a photo of this!"

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Our families suffer for our art

Makeup artists see the world as a blank canvas, a canvas begging for a splash of colour and a stroke of fabulousness. We love to add beauty to the world, if we had our way all ugly buildings would be demolished and replaced with giant size cupcake replicas complete with huge swirls of icing and a cherry on top big enough to be seen from space, the world would look like a platter of sparkly yumminess from space!

But alas, we share this world with accountants and other equally grayscale people so we search for canvases closer to home - I can hear the collective nod of boyfriends whose eyebrows have been plucked, sisters who have been forced to wear lipstick, brothers who have been pushed into metrosexuality, friends who are unsure of the blue eyeshadow painted on their eyelids.

Desire De Goede is especially guilty of this crime. Her husband can name a MAC shadow quicker than I can, with 100% accuracy. And he built her a fancy mirror with lights. When she's done with him I'll take him off her hands! They became parents to a gorgeous little boy this year, I know I know every time a makeup artist gives birth to a boy a fairy dies.... but he really is super cute and he too suffers for his mother's art...

"I found this little baby giraffe wondering around in my garden.....I'm going to keep him! Happy Halloween everyone!!"

I heart muas!

Mike loves me

I love being loved. The greatest compliment for me is when people I have worked with want to work with me again.

I did a shoot with Mike Mullane and had a blast! He has a great sense of humour, fab Irish accent and the funkiest shoes I have ever seen on a tog!


Mike really is great fun, he let us drink wine and play loud music. And he indulged the clown in me by letting me try take a pic of him running and jumping in the air... my phone's camera is a bit slow so Mike had to jump many times in the hopes that I would get the mid air shot. He jumped many, many times. I didn't get the shot but had a good laugh trying to get it!




I also got an awesome arty shot of Mike while he was shooting, yip I have skills.


I got this message from Mike today:
Hi Stavvie,
hope all is well.. looking forward to working with you again so much for Michelle's shoot... We really missed you at last weekends shoot with Ashley, your energy,mischief and freakin awesome makeup skills as well as the support and encouragement fuelled by several bottles of grape origin... :D
I have a shoot on the 13th of November at the same studio and would really really love you to come and play, work, be you...
Can you make it?
Mike :)

I love being loved!

Here's a pic from the shoot:


Model: Kerry Visser

Dirty Girls

If I was a model and I knew I was booked for a photoshoot, I would start preparing weeks in advance. I would go for sunbed/tanning sessions, I would make sure my nails were perfectly manicured, I would have perfectly groomed eyebrows, I would defuzz everything that needed to be. I would arrive looking like a doll without ANY makeup on, that includes remnants of last night's makeup.

But alas that is often how models do not arrive to a shoot. I have seen some scary hygiene issues *shudder*. My pet hate is dirty hair. I don't like the fact that in this industry I am expected to do hair too, your face and hair are two very different entitities so why should I have to do hair?!? So I have this aversion to hair styling and then a girl with dirty hair sits in my chair, do you have any idea how sickening it is to use a hair iron on greasy hair? It literally melts into a flat disgusting strip. So gross. I used to grin and bear it and try not throw up a little in my mouth, but now I have discovered Dry Shampoo!!!

Its a spray that refreshes your hair between washes and makes it look squeaky clean, it really works, it will change your life forever! I now keep a bottle in my kit ready to fumigate any dirty heads.

I see dead people

I often get asked to help behind the scenes; I make a great reflector girl and am good at coming up with Macguyvery ways to solve problems. But there is a limit. Dead people are the limit.

We were shooting an instructional video for the SAPS Forensic Unit and after finishing the pretty detective's makeup I was asked to do some makeup for John (is it John? Maybe Ed, or Joe... I was too traumatised to remember!). I turned around and was presented with a human skull! There were numbers written across the forehead with permanent marker and could I please cover them up? Erm how about no? I feel very uneasy about dead people, especially dead people who were found in a veld with trauma to the head and who were never ever claimed by their family. I dont want the lost soul of a murder victim latching onto me as I rub its forehead like a magical lamp.

I squealed and whined so one of the real detectives (Detective McSteamy - more about him later!) took over the task. I must say he did a pretty good job!


Our dear John Doe did a great job that day too, he really is a natural!

We've been sniffing our brush cleaner

A certain makeup artist and I never seem to be clever at the same times. One of us is always confused, and the other one has a good laugh.

Recently I passed a wedding on to her because I wasn't available. I sent her a mail on the 12th of August with the date in the subject box and all the necessary details. I didn't check my mail again that evening and the next day I found 3 mails from her, sent a few minutes apart:

1st reply: "Hi, I dont mind helping at all but when is it?"
2nd reply: "Oh duh, just noticed your subject line in BOLD 11/09. Ok now I'm really confused wasnt that yesterday?
3rd reply: "Oh wait we are in 08 (August) LOL !!! I've been awake since 3am this morning (Isabella's teething) is that an excuse for my moment of extreme blondeness!!!!!!!

I heart muas!

Custom Kicks

I bought a whole lot of new nail polishes at the Professional Beauty Expo, it's a tough choice but I think my favourite of the lot is Custom Kicks by China Glaze. Its a beautiful bright teal with gold shimmer, the pics do it no justice at all! It is extremely vibrant and you could definitely get away with only wearing one coat. This may very well be the colour that forever reminds me of summer 2010! Let's see if it's the first bottle of polish that I manage to finish in a single season.


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I… just… can’t… do it Captain

Many people think that modeling is easy, after all how hard could it be to sit and look pretty? However, shoots are mentally and physically exhausting, for everyone involved. The photographer/ makeup artist/ stylist/ anyone present can’t help but act out the pose/expression required from the model:
Tog: ”Lift your chin”
*all chins in the room lift*
Tog: “Bend your knees”
*all knees in the room bend*
Tog: "Give me a smile"
*colgate smiles all around*
It’s a subconscious thing, and before you know it we've all had a face and body workout.
But sometimes we consciously make the model uncomfortable. Generally, the more uncomfortable a pose the more beautifully it photographs. And the photographer never gets it right with one click, never ever.Tog: "Beautiful, now hold it, hold it,*click*, one more, hold it, *click*, hold it, one more (for the record, it's never just one more, never ever!), hold it, hold it.


Model: "WHY AREN'T YOU TAKING THE PICTURE?!?"

Photographer: Matthew Rademan
Model: Celeste Mellett

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Porno pickle

I did makeup for a wedding and absolutely loved how they presented their rings; a nice change from the usual rings-on-a-cushion approach.



It was only when I transferred the pic from my cellphone to my laptop that I noticed the background.... does anyone else see what I see?? Maybe I need to wash my mind out with Sunlight soap.

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Magic - 2 for R9

I bought Magic Clips. They are magic because the fong kong packaging said so -and at R9 for 2 who can't afford to add a little magic to their lives? I am now a huge fan of Magic Clips! These nifty little things hold a model's hair out of her face while you are doing her makeup and they dont make a goonk (technical term) in the hair like normal clips do. So what exactly is a magic clip? Erm, its kinda a trade secret.... okay I lied, its just a piece of velcro - the hooky side not the afro side.




But wait! There's more... you can even brush hair with them!


These pics are from a shoot I did with Kat Grudko (photographer, although she is gorgeous and should rather be in front of the camera) and Els Van Mol (a school friend of Kat's, she's an actress and needed some new headshots). Els is full of character and I can't think of anyone else (har har no pun intended) who would have made a better Magic Clip model, she really should endorse them. Here are the actual pics from the shoot, can you see the magic?

You want me to wear...that?

I was asked to be part of a shoot for the cover of Living Well magazine. The photographer, Matthew, explained the magazine's target market... he could have just shown us the outfits chosen for the shoot....take a look, a picture says a thousand words!
------->

Our lovely model (Theresa) and I looked at each other, blinked, and hoped Matt wouldn't take offence to our comments on the granny clothes. We pulled and pinned the outfits in all sorts of directions to try make them more flattering - maybe Theresa should eat more! I must confess that some of the outfits actually looked quite nice on her, yes I know Mrs Brown down the road is 'nice'.

I wasn't convinced that our target market would approve of the outfits but some of the ladies who work with Matt decided to sneak a peek and boy when they spotted the outfits it was like feeding time at the zoo! They called the other ladies to come have a look and started trying the outfits on. If we were selling those clothes we would have made a small fortune right there and then. It just goes to show that there really are different strokes for different folks.

Here's the cover, nice hey?

Photographer: Matthew Rademan - http://www.modelbase.co.za/11217
Model: Theresa - http://www.modelbase.co.za/12929


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Junk in her trunk

I shot with Timme (tim mee, timmy, get it?) *focuses* I shot with Tim Hulme and Natalie Simmonds and am so pleased with the results, the pics are very Guess ad campaignish. Natalie used to model when she was younger and has decided to give it another go, the purpose of the shoot was to update her portfolio and show them she's still got it. We showed them alright!!

I also styled her hair for this shoot and it worked like magic. I consider my hair skills to be very average, but this day I had my A-game and her hair was super obedient.

Of course like every other super gorgeous model I know, Miss Natalie has a hang up or two about her body. While she was complaining I noticed a rubbish truck had parked outside the window, from the angle I was sitting at I could just see it peeking out from behind her bum. I had to take a pic. This is the closest that girl will ever come to having junk in her trunk!


And here she is with no junk (of any kind) in her trunk:


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Makeup that will last forever

One of the biggest concerns my clients have is how long their makeup will last. A good application should carry you through an entire evening with minimal touch ups. But maybe one day I will specialise and then my applications will literally last FOREVER!



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Why it's good to have a gay friend

I did makeup for a wedding and one of the bridesmaids was convinced her dress was too low cut and that her boobs were going to pop out. We all sympathised and swore we would be on nipple alert, what else could we do?

A gay friend of hers arrived and within seconds of hearing the dilemma he had undone the bow on the front of her dress and hey presto converted it into a halterneck! Ingenius! Those boobs were going nowhere, she could have entered the Trampoline Championships if she wanted to. Clever boy.




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Alter Ego

This is one of my favourite photos taken when I was just starting out in the makeup industry. All makeup artists go through a phase of sticking things on the models face, it's a rite of passage.

Photographer: Tim Hulme http://www.timhulme.co.za/
Model: Stephanie Viller http://www.modelbase.co.za/5710



As a rule, photographers throw a huge wobbly if anyone dares edit their pics without permission. Don't try this at home unless you want all the wrath of the light gods sent your way. Let the record show that I don't necessarily agree with what Stephanie did next...... but DAMN it looks so frikken fabulous! *gets a cold shiver and just knows Tim is giving her hairy eyeballs* erm, I mean, never ever edit a togs pic without their permission.




So cool.


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Oh baby

I did a really natural look for the mom which is not at all the focus of this pic. So why did I post it? Look at the baby's itty bitty lips, I just want to pull them off and wear them as earrings!

Photographer: http://www.digidotlee.co.za/

Surprisingly simple

This is one of my favourite nail pics in a long time. It was really quick and simple to do. Did I mention I really like it?


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Moooooooo!

I know this computer geek (okay fine I admit he's actually my friend and we call him the gross wine guy - thats a story for another day), anyhoo we were at a friends house and he offered to make coffee.
His face lit up and his teeth sparkled like a colgate ad as he handed me my mug and said 'you get the cow mug because you're a mook up artist... moo cup... get it?'

*laughs and coffee snorts all around*

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Soccer Fever

No I am not a real soccer supporter. Yes the only players I know are half naked in my inbox. I like to see it as 30 days of activism. Soccer fever is definitely contagious, I want to be at the next World Cup in Brazil (na na na na na na na naaaaaaaa). I want to be a tourist and not have daily routine and work interfering with the intense vibe felt all across the country at the stadiums and fan parks.

South America, Soccer, Samba, Stavvie... its meant to be

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Never leave your kit unattended

I once made the mistake of not packing my kit away before my nieces came to visit. Little girls + unattended makeup = mayhem!

A year later and I still cannot get the kiss marks off my pillow cover, and to think we use products like this on our faces! I'm surprised none of my models have grown a twin in a lip or sprouted an extra head...


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French Twist

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Thou shalt not steal

I was working on a shoot for the Wine Laid Bare competition with Robert Russell and Myla Radicchia (spelling?). Essentially the aim of the competition is to shoot an implied nude and somehow incorporate wine into it, the proceeds go to a Breast Cancer charity. So the tog had some wine chilling in the basin and a jug that he was using to refill or empty the model's glass depending on the angle of the glass in the shot.... I walked past the basin and naughty ol me decided I deserved a sneaky swig of wine...
*looks around to see if anyone is watching*
*takes a long sip of vino*
BLEEEEGGGGHHHHH!!!
The tog had diluted the wine with a lot of water!! Apparently diluted wine photographs better.
So gross.
*spit spit spit*
Thou shalt not steal.


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Fab nails are the new black

Is this a wedding or a tea party?

The bride, the bridesmaids, the mother of the bride, the mother-in-law and even the hairstylist were drinking tea as if it was going out of fashion. The staff at the venue had to go to the venue across the road to ask for more tea bags, and we had only been there for about two hours! I had visions of the staff member returning empty handed and being faced with an angry mob (not very weddingy at all): "More tea, more tea, MORE TEA!!". And they say coffee is addictive


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Behind-the-scenes: the not-so-glamorous life

People who don't work in this industry often imagine it to be very glamorous; they imagine bright lights and big names dripping in glitz and glam! Once in a while it is. But more often than not you are leaning against a door to keep it open in the hopes that it will help create that one perfect shot. Thank goodness for sms/facebook/twitter/(insert boredom alleviating cellphone application here)

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A worthy opponent

I heart every mua I have ever met, we are just the nicest bunch. I have not met Alexa Wilson (yet), but I am certain when I do I will heart her too. She is a mua based in Johannesburg and has a blog called Shiny Pretty Things (see we have to love her, she's one of us!). Her blog is entertaining and her writing style is right up my alley. Here is an edited version of her first post:

Hi my name is Alexa, and I’m addicted to shiny pretty things…
25Feb10

So… my first blog entry and I thought to introduce myself to the group, I’d share a little about my addiction. I love shiny, pretty things. As simple as that. Give me sparkling and bright and gorgeous anyday of the week.



This is me in disguise.

I’m a makeup artist and horrific makeup hoarder. I love fashion and beautiful glossy magazines with all the gorgeous people plastered on the pages. I love statement rings, and chunky jewelry. Having said all that, I’m not really that shallow, I do love the simple things in life too! Oh all right… it’s an addiction and these are my confessions.

Hope you enjoy what’s to come!

Alexa

xx


Follow her blog to stay up to date with all the shiny pretty things http://alexawilson.wordpress.com/

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