Fire and Water—the 12th Extravagant Makeup Championship

The Extravagant Makeup Championship took place a year ago. At the time, I photographed the winning makeup created by Karolina Zientek. That shoot happened before the championship; this year, ahead of the next edition of the competition, we did the same. 

The theme of this year’s competition was “Fire and Water.” We came up with the idea of holding the shoot in a salt cave that would look as though it had been carved from ice. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one nearby, so we returned to the same place as the year before: the Tropical Garden in Nakło.

For a long time, we couldn’t find a date that worked for everyone. I was traveling around Poland, the makeup artist had many clients, and when the two of us finally had time, our model, Klaudia Danch, left for Italy. Eventually we managed it: we took the photos on my last free day before leaving Poland.

As an interesting side note, a problem arose some time after the shoot. Karolina won the championship again, but the model who posed for our photos wasn’t allowed to enter the competition. Another woman therefore had to be found, which also meant changing the makeup.

The shoot

I didn’t want to take heavy equipment to the shoot. Not only is it difficult to move around, but it also takes a long time to set up. I chose one studio strobe, a Jinbei DPsIII 800 Ws, which I would describe in detail in later posts. Speedlights completed the setup. My main modifier was an Aurora Firefly XL 90 cm softbox with a grid and deflector, which turns the softbox into a beauty dish. I wrote more about it in the Zombie post. You could therefore say that I lit the shoot with a 90 cm beauty dish—only a lightweight one that was easier to transport.

The women at Le’Prestige had already prepared the hair, while Karolina did the makeup on location in the tropical garden.

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1.4 EX DG HSM | f/2.2 | 1/125 s | ISO 200

This is the most important photo from the shoot. I intended to take it with a 35 mm lens, but after several tests I switched to 50 mm. First, I had trouble achieving focus; second, the photos simply looked better at 50 mm. I set the shutter speed to 1/125 s to capture just a little ambient light. I needed it to reveal detail in the areas the flash couldn’t reach.

I lit the foreground with the Jinbei and Firefly, but two black areas in the background needed to be brightened. I could have allowed in more ambient light, but that wasn’t an option. The main light created the atmosphere, and more ambient light could have ruined it. The first underexposed area was the cave, which the flash simply couldn’t reach. A speedlight placed inside a plastic shopping bag solved the problem; I used the bag to protect it from the water flowing and dripping everywhere. The second dark area was the waterfall, which was better kept visible given the “Fire and Water” theme. A second speedlight illuminated it. That was the entire setup. There was no rim light, fill light, or any other “hair light.”

The next shots used almost the same lighting arrangement and were created because “we ought to take a few more photos”:

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1.4 EX DG HSM | f/2.2 | 1/125 s | ISO 200

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1.4 EX DG HSM | f/2.2 | 1/125 s | ISO 200

Since this was a makeup shoot, it couldn’t be complete without a beauty photo.

Nikon D700 | Nikkor 135mm 2D DC | f/10 | 1/160 | ISO 200