Friday, March 22, 2013

Makeup Artists Are a Model's Best Friend


When it comes to glamour models, it isn't diamonds that are a girl's best friend. It's makeup artists. And when it comes to glamour photographers, makeup artists are a shooter's best friend too.

Melissa Murphy is a makeup artist I've worked with a bunch of times. Most often, when I was shooting regularly for Vivid Entertainment. As a makeup artist, Melissa is good. She's really good. She's self-taught and takes her job very seriously.

Recently, Melissa gained some notoriety when a number of news outlets stumbled on her Instagram pics. It seems Melissa has been snapping before and after photos of her subjects, mostly adult entertainment models, for some time.  Melissa's snaps went viral.  All of a sudden, the fantasy girls of adult entertainment became more human, more ordinary, less different from so many other girls. Leastwise, in terms of their natural appearance and excluding their perspectives on sex. Personally, I think it's a good thing. Instead of being women who appear very different from so many other women, they became, in Melissa's pics, who and what they are: Regular looking girls instead of fantasy sex goddesses.

Melissa, when all made up, looks like a model herself. For that reason, she included before and after photos of her own face on her Instagram account. It was the right thing to do and I credit her for doing that. All the models knew why Melissa was snapping those photos and they agreed to allow her to reveal them.  If you look at some of them, you'll likely find the models' transformations amazing striking. You can see some of Melissa's before and after pics included in an article published by the Huffington Post in their "Style" section by clicking HERE.

The pretty girl at the top is Jennifer. I snapped that one of Jennifer a few weeks ago. MUA was Melissa Murphy. Here's Melissa's before and after pics of Jennifer... altho they weren't snapped at my shoot two weeks ago.


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