Photography department collaborates with cosmetology students
A team of eight photographers from Saddleback College’s more advanced photography class, Photo 190, gathered equipment and made their way to the Advance Beauty School to do a photo shoot on Oct. 31.
“This is the first time that the photography department worked with the cosmetology department to do a photo shoot,” said Jim Langford, 57, lab technician at Saddleback. “We shot the Halloween extravaganza.”
Langford said the photographers were able to effectively work with the cosmetology department and get names of those interested in doing makeup for other future projects. He recently won the People’s Choice Award in the Student Photography Gallery exhibition as a student and then was hired on as the new photography technician.
“I was humbled to receive the award and it was also published in the ’Wall’,” Langford said.
Langford said his goal is to get students in the field to work as a team on projects that resemble real life situations.
“The fact that we had a band of photographers work together in a group helped all of us because each person had a different skill that we could learn,” said Shirley Marin, 24, anthropology/photography. “We got the experience of working as if it was real and collaborated together to build our portfolios.”
Marin is the president of the new Saddleback College Photography Club and said the most important skill she learned during the photo shoot was how to work in a small space, which sometimes was the only space available, and then try not to miss a moment because each second counts. She said that the club’s main purpose in the future will be to prepare for working in the field of photography.
“The hardest challenge was to try and not get in the way of each other,” said Bernard Macaya, 21, photography. “The best tip I can give someone is to come prepared, know your equipment and be confident.”
Macaya is the Saddleback College Photography Club treasurer and said the event was fun, but busy.
“It was hectic to work in a small area but good to connect with other people that want to work with makeup,” said James Phan, 25, photography. “Because I do a lot of portraits that derive from my imagination, I like creating fantasy sets.”
Phan said that his one word of advice is to bring equipment and lots of it. He suggests pocket wizards, sync-lights and little stuff like that because there’s never enough.
“The most challenging aspect was judging the contest but it was successful and everyone had a good time,” said Karissa Fett, 25, cosmetology instructor.
A whole day was dedicated to the photo shoot and Fett said they had to combine scheduled classes at Saddleback’s Advance Beauty College. Palettes of makeup were set on top of mirrored workstations and large amounts of glitter dust was flying through the air.
“For us [cosmetologists] it was also a contest to win beauty products donated to winners,” said Jessica Rowley, 20, cosmetology. “I was an alien with a third eye and my biggest challenge was using a fishnet stocking to put the scales of an alien on my face.”
Rowley said she used a circle patterned fishnet stocking held up to her face like a stencil while brushing powered eye shadow on top of something that adhered to make it stick. She made sure to have a cape on to avoid staining her clothes.
“Everyone was working in teams and beginning to transform. I created the Cheshire cat from a picture I found on Pinterest because it was the first time I did costume makeup,” said Kacey Crews, 22 cosmetology. “I used a black eyeliner pencil for the mouth to draw lines, and found that it works better to use a liquid eyeliner so it doesn’t run.”
Crews said students learn the basics of color theory for makeup in training, but other than that not too much has been taught on the subject. It was a contest/photo shoot with real judges.
“Make sure you have enough time, stay organized and be prepared and always be confident,” said Hayley Lorden, 20, cosmetology.
Lorden was in costume as a dead Barbie. She gets her inspiration from watching scary movies and said YouTube is great for editorials.
“Pushing someone to their limit just makes them better and when I started helping someone with their idea, I ended up taking over,” said Chynna Gilreath, 18, cosmetology. “I learned anything is possible and this project opened up another door that day within myself, all because I agreed to help.”
Gilreath, who won for best Halloween make-up, suggested always using white base on the face to make color pop and by using blue-on-blue, the color will be drawn out.
“I discovered that I have good students and didn’t expect the students to have so much creativity and passion,” Victoria Dorfman, 70, cosmetology instructor, whose specialty is hair.