It’s been a couple of years since I did a Pantone colour of the year shoot. This year in collaboration with Safy B’s in Aylesbury we produced a set of images inspired by this years colours. The colours this year are Illuminating (yellow) and ultimate grey.
For this shoot we enlisted the talents of Rebecca Butterworth for the makeup and modelling skills of Jordan Ebbitt and Harriet Stokes.
This was pulled together very quickly in about three days, which is probably a good thing as only a couple of weeks later we were into Lockdown again. I feel like I have spent most of the last year in lockdown, which is not quite true but with salons being so restricted it has really impacted the number of shoots. Hopefully 2021 will be better once this latest lockdown lifts.
I wanted a backdrop that would contrast and compliment the colours so I went with a light blue lit from one side to give fade to a darker shade. For the lighting I love using a beauty dish directly in-front of the model, just above their head. I position it to get a great catchlight in the eyes. For these i also wanted to reduce the contrast so I used a strip soft-box as a fill light. It created a kind of i catchlight which is kinda cool.
From there it was over to models to do their thing and boy did they. I wanted to get some movement into some of the images and we used a board to waft some wind into the hair. This is quite a skill in itself, getting the correct direction and strength takes a bit of experimenting. It can be better than a fan or hair dryer as it allows the hair to move back rather than just being away from the face.
Hair: Saffron Burton @ Safy B’s, Aylesbury Hair Assistant: Emily Wood @ Safy B’s, Aylesbury Makeup: Rebecca Butterworth Models: Jordan Ebbitt & Harriet Stokes
