Update your bookmarks and RSS feeds and all that jazz!

The new address for this blog is: Overdirected.com

I’ve already copied all the content from this location over there, and from now on, only Overdirected.com will be updated with new posts and videos and photos. The original blog here will remain up for awhile, but ultimately be replaced with a one-page notice that the blog has moved.

I think I should either close this blog down and turn it into an archive, or some sort of condensed tome of beauty school experience… Or keep the blog going and talk about the hair industry some more.

But I don’t know what I should do, and I need you to help me decide! Does anyone still read this blog? Leave a comment on this and tell me what you think I should do. It’s much appreciated.

Click me to get the full effect!

Ok, maybe makeup madness would be a more accurate title. Some sort of madness. This is a super duper, mega-long post that details the entire process from start to finished pictures. Click to read the whole thing (with tons of behind the scenes pictures!)

I was planning a big summery photoshoot last weekend. I got 2 stylists and a makeup artist, and 4 models all ready to go… And then the weather turned all crappy-like.

So goodbye nice, fun, outdoors shoot – hello smaller, indoors, more eccentric shoot. I cancelled everyone but a stylist friend of mine and one model. I did the makeup, colored the hair, and “directed” the hair – Meaning I gave my stylist friend an overview of what I wanted, and sat on my ass while she did all the hair work. Ha! I feel like a primadonna already!

It was a bit grueling, just due to the fact that it was only the two of us. I had originally wanted to do the hair and makeup and photos all myself, but that idea promptly went out the window. There’s just no way in hell I can feasibly do everything! It’s a question of time. Man oh man, the more experience I get the more I realize why even small photoshoots require a number of people and assistants.

So division of labor helped us get the shoot done in a mere 4 hours – 2.5 of those hours just doing hair and makeup.

Behind the scenes

From the start, we got my model situated in a chair in my living room, and my friend went to work with a mini crimping iron on her hair. Section by section, with hairspray and the iron. While she was doing that, I started applying the black face & body makeup. (I use Ben Nye liquid makeup – it’s the bomb diggity!). It looks very… umm… wrong… before I apply the metallic makeup.

Behind the scenes

After applying the black layer, I went over everything with a soft brush and the metallic paint.

Behind the scenes

I had already determined which side I was going to photograph from (I just checked her out and picked her good side), and as you can see in the photo above I didn’t bother applying makeup to the parts that wouldn’t be visible. This was half to save time, and half because I only had a little bit of the black makeup left.

After the hair was all crimped (except a few parts on the side we wouldn’t see, which was just pinned back in a knot), my friend pinned the hair up in rolls and I painted the metallic makeup over the hair.

Behind the scenes

Then on to the photoshoot! After everything was done, we shot about 100 pictures in my living room. Started using a backdrop made out of cheap foamcore boards taped together. I have 2 flashes, one which is old and you can’t adjust the light output – so it’s always set on “as bright as the sun” – and one I can adjust, but the zoom is broken so it’s permanently zoomed in like a spotlight. Those two lights, on cheap ebay radio triggers (Yong Nuo in the hizzouse!), both going through shoot through umbrellas (for a softer, more radiant look),

Following my work method, I set things up, dialed the settings in roughly, and started snapping pictures and adjusting. I put the always-nuclear-bright flash high up for my key light, and dialed my adjustable flash down to about 1/8 for a fill light. Set the iso to 100 and the fstop pretty high (out of necessity – the unadjustable flash kind of ruins my ability to play around.)

First snap:

Key light up+left, fill low+right

After checking the photo, I’m not digging it. It looks too…plain. Too evenly lit, like a sears portrait studio lighting set up. I move the key light over to the right side:

Key light high+right, fill low+left

Better. I’m not digging the foam core in the background though – I was hoping it would provide some fill and some bounce for the hair and silhouette, since I am handicapped with only 2 busted lights. Oh well, it’s not working and I don’t want to get hung up on making it work, so I move the foamcore off camera left and use it for bounce, and shoot my model against my living room wall.

I get one photo I like:

First photo I like, straight out of the camera

First Photo After Photoshop

After snapping a bunch of different poses and angles with the lights that way, I switch it up again. This time, I want to get some depth of field. That means a low fstop – the higher your fstop, the more stuff will be in focus. The lower, the less stuff will be in focus – but the more light will get into your camera. That means I have to turn off my bright-as-the-sun flash completely, or I’ll be shooting way overexposed pictures.

So I swap my adjustable flash into the role of key light, set my fstop how I want it and adjust the flash to be correctly exposed for the fstop, and snap a few pictures. I like one of them.

Depth of Field Pic

I used a big silver reflector I made (out of stretchy metallic fabric, like they use in kids dance costumes!) to get as much fill as I could, but as you can see it’s pretty dark. I liked it though.

Took a few pictures from different angles with this setup.

Depth of Field

You can see the model is actually holding one end of the reflector, and my friend is holding the other end off camera.

Experimenting

I took a bunch of pics with this setup, tons of different poses and angles, doubles of anything I thought was good (just in case). Then I brought back the other flash, and set it up sort of like a clamshell set up. (Key light up top, angled downwards, fill light down low, angled up words, you shoot between the lights)

You can see some glare from the lights, something I kind of like so I decided to keep it for a few shots before I got rid of it.

Semi-Clamshell Setup

Semi-Clamshell Setup

I didn’t like how out of place her eyes looked compared to all the makeup and texture on her skin and hair, so I started taking pics with her eyes closed.  I immediately liked this profile picture:

Profile - Straight out of the camera

After some photoshop, it became this:

Profile - Photoshopped

And after even more photoshop, it became the picture at the top of this post. I snapped a bunch more pictures, and by now I felt I probably had a few good ones in the can, so we started to goof off a bit.

Random

Random

After that, I finished up and thanked the model for being awesome (super awesome!), started cleaning up my living room (Soooo much crap all over the place…), and then started going through the pictures on my computer.

I use Lightroom and Photoshop, and I wont get into that now because this post is already WAAAAY too long. But hopefully it’s interesting and educational for somebody out there!

Things I learned from this:

• Don’t try and tell yourself you can do everything yourself
• Get as much help as you can with everything
• Don’t cut corners!! (I didn’t wash her hair because I figured it was clean enough. I should have, it would have looked better!)
• Have snacks on long shoots
• Be really nice to pretty girls who let you spend hours painting crap all over them
• Be really nice to friends who help you out on photoshoots

But I wanted to give my official bump to an online shear/accessory store I’ve dealt with a few times now. Precision Shears. Check it out if you’re in the market for shears. I really don’t know what to write about the store, I tried thinking of stuff but it sounded like the stupid customer testimonials you see on other websites. Plain and simple, every time I’ve dealt with Guy at Precision Shears I’ve been impressed, he really stands behind his store and the service he provides. And they always have the best prices on the things I want, which helps too.

And for the record, I’m definitely not being paid or bribed to promote them, I’m giving them my seal of approval because they really did impress me, and whenever anyone asks me where they should order shears from, I always recommend Precision Shears.

How good are they? Well, I ordered my Kasho shears from them, in the  States… When I live in the same city as the official Kasho importer for North America, because they have a better deal than I can get locally.

Anyways, there’s the second of my only two business endorsements. (The other being Hair Maven’s instructional DVD’s)

Click for Biggerness

Just need a bit of fixing up. You know, a little oil here and there…

I got them for a couple bucks at an antique show, along with some nifty old school shaving gear.

And there was this NIFTY old barbershop chair there, but at $5000, it was a bit out of my budget:

Click for Bigger

I got the Hairmaven Modern/Classic and Mens Werk dvds a litte bit ago, and I’ve been meaning to do a write up for awhile now. They’re great.

I’ve seen a lot of dvds (Sassoon ABC’s, several Sassoon collections, Tigi, Rusk, Toni & Guy, Aveda, Pivot Point) and Hairmaven’s stand out from the rest in how much useful knowledge I came away with. It’s easy to dismiss hair cutting dvd’s, because after you’ve seen a few, you’ve usually seen them all – most dvd’s are just walkthroughs of a  few haircuts, and the ones that try to teach you something just don’t do a very good job of it. None of the “cutting system” type DVD’s I’ve watched have thrilled me.

But Hairmaven’s are an exception to the boring DVD rule! Watching his DVD’s, it’s almost as if he filmed a regular haircutting DVD (step by step taking you through various haircuts), and then decided to record a commentary that adds another ton of awesome info to the DVD. It’s not just some monotone, apathetic young british voice over girl describing the sections and partings he’s taking – it’s Russel describing what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, things that happened in the past when he tried different methods, anecdotes, and all sorts of good tidbits.

I’m giving the Hairmaven DVD’s my unsolicited endorsement. 2 thumbs up! Check Hairmaven.com and click on the link at the top that says Store (Just, you know, in case you couldn’t figure that out) to browse. I really particularly recommend the Modern/Classic DVD if you can get it.

Why the people who should be publishing good stuff aren’t:

#1. There really aren’t as many hairdressers who are really good, and very artistic, and professional, and intelligent as most people think there are.

Most just have one or two of those qualities (a great hairdresser but being unprofessional crosses you off the list, being professional but a crappy hairdresser crosses you off the list, etc…)

#2. With very few exceptions, the people who meet all the criteria in #1 are really busy, all the time.

#3. It takes more time and effort to put out good “hair stuff” into the ether than most people think.

You have to plan it, find models, or take the time to write something, either find a website up to your standards to publish on, or make your own – and that is like having a part time job. And the people who pass point #1 will get stuck here because of point #2.

Why you get a mountain of @#%$ when you google anything related to hair:

#1. Hairdressers don’t support good hair websites, magazines, or publications.

In one of the seminars I attended at NAHA last year, the speaker asked the crowd (of about 300) how many people knew about a bunch of popular hair websites (including hairbrained) – myself and 2 others raised their hand. That’s it.

#2. Hairdressers do support crap. BTC is what it is because hairdressers made it that way.

There aren’t any good trade publications because hairdressers keep supporting heavily endorsed magazines, or magazines published by salon supply companies.

#3. Hairdressers are greedy.

They have this mentality that if they break a sweat doing anything, boy they better get big bucks for it! If it takes actual effort to make something, they ain’t just giving it away – but they will give away vacuous crap dressed up as good material. Look at any other trade. Any one, and you’ll see websites and forums where the level of information being passed back and forth is at a much higher level than in our trade – and in those other trades, it’s done seemingly for the love of the trade.

The way a photographer lit that shot that he took for a magazine cover is an integral part of his ability to make money – but he’ll draw a diagram and explain in detail how he conceived and executed the shot, and share that information with other photographers freely. And that behavior results in a higher level of conversation within the trade, and elevates the skill of the trade as a whole.

When’s the last time you saw something really well put together, really useful, that you didn’t already know, that improved your skill as a hairstylist, given away for free?

Now ask yourself this: When’s the last time you saw something kind of ramshackle and poorly put together, moderately-to-not-very useful, that you did already know, that didn’t effect your skill as a hairstylist, given away for free? Or that you actually had to pay for?

That’s just about every hair related video I have ever seen on the internet, anywhere. In fact, Josh Flowers, DJ Muldoon are the only ones I can say have given away real content for love of the craft.

#4. Hairdressers aren’t on the inside of their own trade.

We’re outsiders – all the publications that are supposed to be “inside” the industry treat us like marks. There is no difference between how companies and publications treat Joe Schmoe on the street, and Joe the Hairstylist. They’re just selling their wares, but at least they’re honest about it when they’re selling to the hair muggles – when they’re selling to people within the industry, it’s more like a con game. They con hairdressers be telling them that they’re getting special information, treatment, recognition, etc.

And hairdressers eat it up for some reason. We aren’t going to get good magazines or websites until we stop feeding the ones that are just cleverly disguised merchandise catalogs.

#5. Hairdressers just don’t care.

I think this is the final nail in the coffin. Do you know how many people I’ve met that have ever bothered to look up anything hair related? (on the net, in a magazine, in a library, anything at all)

I can count the number on one hand. I’ve yet to meet a single stylist who has ever participated in the culture of hairstyling – by that I mean been active on a website like this one, read anything hair related, watched a dvd, read a book, or hell, even googled for hair stylist stuff. What does that say?

And it’s not because they don’t know it’s out there. On the contrary, anyone who’s met me most definitely knows it’s out there. They just don’t care. They’re satisfied with only being exposed to the limited range of things they see daily in their own salon, and maybe once a year doing a class taught by someone who’s from the same city they are in.

It’s a sad state of affairs.

I found it from a link a friend posted on Facebook, they found it from a link their friend posted on Facebook, and so on. I started watching immediately, told all my friends, and within 30 minutes everyone was watching – and 30 minutes after that Hairbrained.me had found out about it and put it on their front page.

Now that is some real social networking at play. It was very cool, and really made me feel like I’ve come to this industry at the perfect time. It’s all shifting, adjusting, and redefining – and it’s fun to be involved while it’s reconfiguring itself to what the industry will be in the future!

But all my blabbing aside, go here and click on archived videos to watch what they were broadcasting live last night.

DJ said at the end that they’re doing another class on the 27′th – hopefully it will be broadcast too!