Photography series · Beauty

Skin and Silk

For: Cosmetics brand
Location: Paris, France
Scope: Photography · Editing
Published: 15:15:00 26/08/31

Woman lying on a bed in soft daylight, looking at the camera

A beauty session shot soft and slow with one large window and white linen. No strobes, no retouching beyond dust; the make-up artist and the daylight did the rest.

Close-up of a blue eye with dark lashes — The detail the brand ran on the cover. Photograph by Tommaso Scalera.

Black and white portrait of a woman lying with her eyes closed — The same afternoon, on film, with the shutters half closed. Photograph by Marylou Fortier.

Slow

Beauty work rewards patience more than equipment. We spent the first hour on nothing but where the light fell on the pillow, moving the bed twenty centimetres at a time until the shadow under the cheekbone was the shadow we wanted.

The model read between frames. I photographed her reading and those frames are in the edit too, because a face at rest is the reference for everything that follows.

One window, one bed, one afternoon. The budget for lighting went on lunch.

Thin trail of incense smoke rising against a black background — The room at the end of the day, when the incense was the only thing still working. Photograph by Abhishek Ajith.

The edit

Forty-two frames delivered, six retouched, none of them for skin. The client asked what software makes daylight look like that. The answer is a north-facing window and a wall painted the colour of the sheets.

Slow

The edit

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