I met Morgan Campbell though Model Mayhem and agreed to help her out with a competition she was running whereby the winner would receive a makeup and photoshoot.

We shot on a very wet Sunday afternoon in her garage not that you would know from the results. She had two girls that she made up as well as doing ball makeup for my daughter Samantha.

The make up was great and the girls were thrilled with the photos. I was able to use some lengths of fabric to emphasise the looks.

This was another shoot organised by Iris but this time for the hairdressing school. As part of the finals they had a competition for long hair. At time you definitely didn’t want to go into the salon with a naked flame given the amount of hair spray going round.

Like the makeup one we were expected to take head, upper body and full body shots. But unlike the makeup session, all of the students started at the same time and then we were given a 75 minute timeslot to take the photos before the judging was done.

We set up three stations with me using my studio setup while the other two photographers used a mixture of flash and natural light. Most students wanted to use the studio which meant I had to work quick.

Basically this is production line photography. The lights were set for a full body marked with an X on the floor. The model was put into position and the shots taken.

This shoot was set up through a friend Iris. We were shooting an end of term competition for the makeup students (MUA) at Weltec. They had been given the theme of “the seven deadly sins”. We were required to take headshots, upper body and full body. The MUA’s were given staggered start times so that each had the same total time from the start to the end of their shoot. After the shoot we sent the finished images to Weltec and the students used them as part of a mood board.

In addition to doing the make up the student was expected to style the models wardrobe and direct the shoot. There was two photography stations set up. I was shooting against a white backdrop and Mike was shooting against black. In theory the models were to be shot against both. In practise it didn’t happen because a large number of the models were dressed in black and so I shot everyone Mike got breaks.

The day was long and challenging. Some of the student s had a very clear idea of what they wanted while others had no idea. Some of the models had experience and enthusiasm while others didn’t have either a clue or a care.

We started shooting at 11.00am and shot until 5.00pm. I was buggered but most of the images were worth the effort.