A Year of Beauty- Photography Challenge- Year 2

[Samtian]

September/October is here so break time is over!

Time to start with some fundamentals. Photography has it's own set of "rules". Which of course are meant to be broken, but it's really helpful to know some basics. Starting with the rule of 3rds in composition. What you do is place your subject on one of the "imaginary" lines that cut a photo into thirds ( 9 sections). I do this rule often, but sometimes parents don't like it in their pictures and want the subjects centered. Included is images with the lines showing. Just basic set up so you can see it. One of the easiest ways to get something on one of the lines is to crop it down. When you crop an image you usually get the lines that show up, using those lines tells you where the "thirds" are, and just line your subject up with one of them. 

If you want to get really technical I encourage you to look up the Golden Ratio and learn about it. It has many names and it is way too mathematical for my brain to comprehend. To my knowledge I don't think I have ever taken a golden ratio image. I have golden triangle but not ratio. Check it out! photoworkout dot com/golden-ratio-photography/  

Hopefully you can see the lines...I should have thought it out and used a dark background. 

What a great first year we had!! Even if I dropped the ball sometimes! I decided to change things up this year with the themes. They will be a little more challenging this year.

2023-

April- DOF 2 images.

May- Flash/Artificial Light.

June- What you see vs. What I see

July- Break

August- Break

September/October- Rule of 3rds.

2022 challenges-

April- Lipstick

May- Eye Shadow

June- Primer/Foundation/Concealer/CC/BB

July- Highlighters

August- Brushes

September- Sheet Masks

October- Hair Care

November- Fragrance

December- Nail Polish

January- Blush/Bronzer

February- Candles/Wax Melts/ Diffusers

The challenge and "rules"-

1. Flat lays and staged photos only. I'll post examples below. But no faces or people allowed in your photos. (Though you can include photographs).

2. All photos you take must be your own. 

3. Post as many images as you want, you have a whole month to get creative with each theme. Post one, post everyday, doesn't matter.

4. Let's talk gear and products! Tell us about your image. List the products and colors, talk to us about your concept and how it came to be, taken with your phone or DSLR? 

Here are some helpful reads- digital-photography-school dot com/flat-lay-photography/  and digital-photography-school dot com/tips-for-getting-started-with-still-life-photography/

Here are some of my example images I've taken in the past-

Gucci Bloom Eau de Toilette with Jasmine, Tuberose, and Neroli 1 oz/ 30 mL 

Floral Street Sunflower Pop Eau De Parfum Travel Spray 0.34 oz/ 10 mL Eau de Parfum Spray 

[Samtian]

And I really really love the staging and decor. 

[Samtian]

Here are my last entries for the Lipstick month! Yeah sorry about that compression. I had wanted to do a vintage looking lipstick or at least a vintage red with some old black and white or sepia family photos but I couldn't find where I put them. So I pulled out a pin-up art book I had and went this route. This is Tom Fords Alejandro lipstick. 

[fatimamummy]

These are so cute and fun @Samtian 

[Samtian]

@fatimamummy Thank you!!

[Skunk12puzzola]

This is adorable 💖 I love vintage pictures....also, this one is in french I see....very nostalgic vibe to it. But then, you see the TF lippie and bam!! It becomes even cooler....fun idea @Samtian !!

[Samtian]

@Skunk12puzzola Thank you so much!!

[Saradestin]

I love it @Samtian ! So creative and colorful! Beautiful way to close the lipstick challenge month! 💄❤️

[Samtian]

@Saradestin Thank you so much!

[Buootiful]

Vey cool retro theme! Let me guess, a man obviously painted these. Cuz yes, oops my skirt got caught on the top drawer 🤣 @Samtian 

[Samtian]

@Buootiful Yep! Al Buell did. Lol to be fair if I wore a skirt I'd probably do the same, I get caught on everything. 

[itsfi]

@Samtian, this is so fun! TF Alejandro looks like a perfect match to the lippies the ladies are wearing. Love it!

It's funny how you can never find what you're looking for when you need them - I was looking for a few items too for this month's challenge and I'm having a heck of a time figuring out where I could have possibly placed them if not in what should be their usual places. 😆 If you find the materials you were looking for and end up taking photos, I'd love to see them. 

[Samtian]

@itsfi Haha it always seems to work that way! And I will!

[itsfi]

I didn't have enough time this month to work on all the ideas I had in mind for the photography challenge, but I've made a note of them and will try to work on them at another time. After first hearing about the mono-on-mono photography approach (not sure that is the right word) on this thread and seeing @Samtian's beautiful first photo with the red-on-red, I was interested in trying my hand at it. My attempts at mono-on-mono were a learning experience, that’s for sure, and that’s fine by me. Here are a few snapshots of my efforts, and the lessons learned from them.

Monochromatic: Orange Lipstick Edition - Take 1 🎬

Spoiler

Product(s):	Fenty Beauty by Rihanna Slip Shine Sheer Shiny Lipstick 03 Tang Thang
Background + Prop(s):	Orange clutch bag
Lighting:	Natural indoor lighting, immediately after sunset
Editing:	Cropped photo to show less of the prop

This first attempt did not come out how I envisioned it in my head. The colors of the product and the prop were not close enough to give me the look I was going for. So that led me to mixing it up a little bit on the fly (I used the cap of hair mask and a piece of orange construction paper) and I came up with this deviation:

Monochromatic: Orange Lipstick Edition - Take 2 🎬

Spoiler

Product(s):	Fenty Slip Shine Sheer Shiny Lipstick (03 Tang Thang)
Background + Prop(s):	Orange construction paper + cap from Garnier papaya hair mask
Lighting:	Natural indoor lighting, immediately after sunset
Editing:	Rotated photo so that it was right side up

Even though it's not what I had planned, and it's not a mono-on-mono look, I do like the look of this one, though there are definitely things I could learn how to do to make it better. Goes to show that sometimes things that don't go the way we want aren't so bad after all. 

While I was generally happy with the shot, I still wanted to try to get my original vision for a mono-on-mono shot that day before I lost whatever light was remaining out, so here we have:

Monochromatic: Orange Lipstick Edition - Take 4 🎬

Spoiler

Product(s):	Jason Wu Hot Fluff Lipstick (Apple Pie)
Background + Prop(s):	Orange clutch bag
Lighting:	Natural indoor lighting, after sunset
Editing:	None

Spoiler

Product(s):	Jason Wu Hot Fluff Lipstick (Apple Pie)
Background + Prop(s):	Orange clutch bag
Lighting:	Natural indoor lighting, after sunset
Editing:	Color adjust

And finally, the last photo from that evening and one from the following morning to show the difference that lighting can make:

Monochromatic: Orange Lipstick Edition - Take 8 🎬

Spoiler

Product(s):	Jason Wu Hot Fluff Lipstick (Apple Pie)
Background + Prop(s):	Orange construction paper + clutch bag
Lighting:	Natural indoor lighting, after sunset
Editing:	Cropped to get better view of the product

Monochromatic: Orange Lipstick Edition - Take 9 🎬

Spoiler

Product(s):	Jason Wu Hot Fluff Lipstick (Apple Pie)
Background + Prop(s):	Orange construction paper + clutch bag
Lighting:	Natural indoor lighting, mid-day sunlight
Editing:	Cropped to get better view of the product

[fatimamummy]

Absolutely beautiful photos @itsfi  Every one of them is very well composed. I like how you share details about your process. I’ll try to do that for the ones I could remember. I am loving them all specially Take 2 and Take 8 

[Buootiful]

I love your learning process! The take 2 pic is absolutely fabulous and each pic gets better and better 😍 @itsfi 

[itsfi]

Thank you @Buootiful! 😊 I found that I really enjoyed the learning process a lot with this challenge, both with taking the photos and with seeing everyone's photos here. Looking forward to seeing what the challenge will be for next month!

[Titian06]

This is great, @itsfi !  I love seeing your creative steps or thoughts.  I keep going back to No. 2 because it's so colorful. 🧡❤  No. 4 follows right on its heels for a lovely monochromatic look with great texture! 🥰

[itsfi]

Thank you so much @Titian06! 🤗 Not getting the original take to photograph the way I wanted actually turned out better and a lot more fun! 😃

[Samtian]

@itsfi Ooh I love all the different variations. You have far more patience then me! Mono-on-mono works just fine 🙂 Monochromatic is the word I use. I really really like the creativeness behind take 2. 

[itsfi]

Hahaha! Of course, I botched up the name @Samtian! 🤣 I'll go back and edit it another day. Ha! Me patient. That's funny. I spent a lot more time on this one than I do with most things, but for some reason, I was just really stubbornly determined to get a monochromatic look that night. 

Take 2 turned out better than I imagined. I thought "well, let's just see what happens..." 

[Skunk12puzzola]

@itsfi 👍💕👍