Photographing Glossy Lip Models

by dav.d

I love it when team work comes together. I was the photographer for a model shoot for Nu Skin’s PowerLips Polish Duo Lip Shine. We shot six of the new colors for their glossy lip shine. We had two models, two makeup artists, an art director, and a lot of fun on the shoot. Oh, and we had a retoucher for the skin and another retoucher for the product.

Sell the look

Sell the look

The new product has a color shade and then a gloss portion that will add a shine and a polish to the lips. This contrasts with the matte shade the company released a year ago. We wanted to feature the glossy nature of the product since that is what makes it different.

PowerLips Polish on the Lips

PowerLips Polish on the Lips

It was up to our fearless art director to find models that could best feature the product. They must practice their posing because they get creative with the looks, poses, hands, holding the product. We were photographing above the neck and more specifically the lips. We would go as wide to include the eyes occasionally. So they really had to sell the PowerLips Polish with a limit canvas area. I think that is more challenging that a full length photo shoot. It is almost all expression of the face.

Creative posing

Creative posing

I will confess, it is nice to have a Photoshop retoucher that handles all the processing work. I shoot the images and hand the RAW files to the art director who selects the keepers. Those then go to the retoucher and the skin retoucher. It makes my life a lot easier.

So much gloss!

So much gloss!

PowerLips Polish on the Lips

PowerLips Polish on the Lips

And makeup artists are worth their weight in gold. They make sure the images look great right out of camera, and that helps everyone’s job especially the retoucher.

Holding the product is critical

Holding the product is critical

I hope I have more chances to shoot models in the future.

Models know all the looks

Models know all the looks

Glossy in action

Glossy in action

Duo Lip Shine

Duo Lip Shine

PowerLips Polish

PowerLips Polish

Demonstrating the Gloss

Demonstrating the Gloss

Lighting the lips to show the gloss

Lighting the lips to show the gloss

Light reflections a plenty

Light reflections a plenty

Demonstrating the gloss

Demonstrating the gloss

Here is the behind the scenes view of the photo shoot. I am using two strip lights to create that long highlight on the lips. With the glossy nature of the product you need to reflect the shape of the light modifier and a long strip light worked great. We had a test shoot the week before to see which light setup worked best. Hooray for practice shoots. They allow us to get up and running for an actual shoot and it makes us look like we know what we are doing.

Behind the scenes of a lip model shoot

Behind the scenes of a lip model shoot

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dav.d photo
dav.d is a portrait photographer based in Utah.