Sarah Brown – The one light kind of girl – Part 2

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In this episode of the Fashion Photography Podcast
we meet 
Sarah Brown (@sarahbrownphoto).

Some of the topics in this podcast: Handling bad situations and Sarah and Virginia’s real stories…
How to pick the right MUA? Keeping the good vibes during a shoot.
Home studios, practicing light and battling creative blocks.

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Hello Photography Lovers and welcome to another episode of The Fashion Photography Podcast with me Virginia!

Big thank you to our producer, George, and also to you guys for being so amazing at your feedback about the first part of our interview with Sarah Brown.

If you’re listening to this podcast for the very first time, I really, really encourage you to go to listen to the first part of our interview with our guest today.

In this episode, we’re getting super, super chatty. And we share lots of stories from our experience. It’s basically just a one on one between photographers and I would even dare to say between friends.

Today’s episode is nothing like a social media post where everything and everyone is just happy and perfect.
Today we talk about handling bad situations and real stories, like for example, models being late or coming with really awful skin or how we had photo shoots failed because of the makeup artist or someone else in the crew.
So we’re just about to share  very, very big knowledge of how we managed to keep the good vibes during our photo shoot, even after moments like this.
And then our topics are, for example, having a home studio and ideas for practicing your light.

You’re about to hear how Sarah and I are battling creative blocks.

So if you’re interested in those topics, just stay with the show.

Virginia Y
I’m really interested how exactly you learned retouching.

Sarah Brown
I didn’t really learn it at uni. I mean, they kind of give us one workshop on like how everything works and everything. But with retouching. It’s a long process to develop your style, even like retouching beauty and retouching and fashion is completely different to me. So I feel like beauty retouching is a lot more. It’s a lot more work. It is Yeah, it’s gonna be touching is just a lot of dodging and burning and cleaning up. When I was at uni. I bought so many of these retouching classes, online courses. Yeah. And I’ve developed my own style now. And some of those things I learn. They were kind of just kind of ruining my images. And it was like mistakes I paid for. Which obviously, it’s not mistakes for everyone, because some people prefer working like that, which is fine. But I just feel like I paid all this money and it wasn’t me. So I just think YouTube is the way to learn.

Virginia Y
I think this is so cool that you’re saying this because many people, for example are doing in my opinion, exactly the opposite mistake when they’re buying courses, and sticking so much to them that they’re never even looking for their own style.

Sarah Brown
Exactly. Even me, I relied on stuff like that to kind of think, Oh, this is the way to do it. Like this is the way to learn. And it’s really not because I mean, there’s certain like work flow for retouching, but everyone does things differently. They really do. Absolutely. When I worked at Rankin, I used to Well, a couple of times I start with the researchers, one of my favorite researchers, Lulu, I used to sit with her quite a lot. There was four researchers and even those four researchers who worked together ranking, they did things differently. Like they all have their own kind of ways of doing the same thing, which just really opened my eyes to think like, Okay, I need to work on my own style. And that’ll just be me. I don’t need to buy all these things you really don’t.

Virginia Y
That’s the beauty of retouching. I think that there’s so many different paths to reach the final destination. And I really love that

Sarah Brown
100% it’s an art in itself really is. What do you think is the biggest mistake that we can do when we’re retouching? The thing I absolutely hate that people still use it, I really don’t want to knock anyone. So the thing I hate is just frequency separation, I just think it can really flooding an image unless you do it properly. And I think a lot of people go down that route. And they really ever do their images. And

Virginia Y
I hear that very often. But I must say that as you said, by the way, there are many people they’re doing it the right way, like not overdoing it, which is important. So as we said, this is one of the ways to reach the final destination. But you have to be very precise.

Sarah Brown
Yeah. Because you know, like people put the brush on like 90% of its just all flop. To be fair, I’ve used a couple of images recently. Just really soft landing is good, but it’s just people go down that route. That plastic route.

Virginia Y
Sometimes I use it for clothes, for example. Because if their wrinkles it’s super helpful.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, yeah, it’s good for stuff like that. Yeah. And like backdrops and all that, like that’s, it’s perfect for that. But skin, sometimes it’s just too much for me.

Virginia Y
And usually when you’re telling to your makeup artist, what to do, how to guide them?

Sarah Brown
I kind of do a lot of research before skin and browse. That’s the main thing I look for, and say as working with the maker party of the day, Sarah Hill, and she was saying more what you want me to do? Do you prefer covering this blemish with concealer or just leaving it so it’s easy to reach out? I was really taken back by that because she knew that like what’s easy to retouch and I was Yeah, I said I’m just leave it because it’s just easy to take out some of my favorite images. So the models don’t actually have any foundation on or anything. It’s just actually don’t really know what they use just kind of skin but they don’t use foundation. Honestly, it blows my mind. I don’t know too. I think it’s all about texture for me for retouching. If you have so much makeup on like caked on, it’s so much harder to retouch that then just skin. You want it to look like skin at the end of the day, don’t you? Yeah, exactly. You can always take out like little spots and you know color corrections. It’s it’s so much easier it is

Virginia Y
To have a final amazing image breathtaking one. You don’t need just a good makeup artist and a decent retouch. You also need the right model, right?

Sarah Brown
Yeah, totally. I love this color. But in the last in the past two years to be picky with models.

Virginia Y
Let’s start from the beginning. So ever since you moved to London, you’re on your own. You’re not assisting anyone, right?

Sarah Brown
Oh, yeah, I was completely on my own. No contacts whatsoever.

Virginia Y
Okay, and how did you build up those? First off with the modeling agency? Because in the port one of our interview, you already told us that you approached makeup artist and hairstylist through Instagram. What about your models?

Sarah Brown
When I was in Manchester, I kind of built up my own network. And I knew kind of a few models and agencies are quite good to me. But when I moved here, I was just completely on my own. like nobody would work with me. I just couldn’t even test like no one would give me more tools. And it was so it was honestly so hard. Because my boyfriend I had a great time at every week. I just wanted to quit. I feel like a lot of people go through that there. It’s a hard industry. But you were approaching modeling agencies like via email or something. Yeah, yeah. Hundred percent. Like all of them.

Virginia Y
Were they answering?

Sarah Brown
Some of them. Some of them just said we have no one available.

Virginia Y
Yeah, I no one in the whole agency.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I just kind of took to Instagram and and that is the best way. For me. I just started messaging people. And I kind of just built up from there. But it was hard going from having a network in Manchester. To start that fresh and just completely starting again, it was hard to honestly Oh, for sure. Very dark times. I thought about quitting so many times What kept you going? You know, my boyfriend was actually really good to me. He gave me a bit of self belief. Because like sometimes, like no one would reply to me. And then I’d get a really cool shit come in just like look at these two feelings. You’ve decided it’s going to be fine. And now I look back. And I just think like, thank God, I just kept going. There. The reason was, because it’s it’s a passion and you crave that feeling when you do a good shoot. It’s like euphoric for me. So that’s what kept me going because I love my job. Even if no, no, no work with me, I love my job. But thankfully they do now, so that’s okay.

Virginia Y
I think everyone who’s really in love with their job, sooner or later, they will get something out of it. Exactly. If you put that much effort into something, something will happen. It’s really nice that you stay there even in a bad situation. And it’s really surprising for me that you started with models from Instagram, and there were no sign in an agency, right?

Sarah Brown
Well, some of them kind of work, but they just didn’t tell her agents. So obviously the word models free but didn’t give me some actually some of the models they weren’t even signed. It’s just how you have to kind of do it.

Virginia Y
Yeah, but it’s quite risky because they can just decide not to come to shoot on the day. Here there with your whole team. I’ve definitely had that hundred percent.

Sarah Brown
Really, that happened so many times. I actually had to shoot in Brighton one. This is what I would do Manchester, actually. So Manchester is four or five hours from Brighton. And I drove the whole way to this Oh, shooting in this hotel. And the hotel owner just wasn’t there. Even though they said they were going to face and I couldn’t do the shoot and I driven five hours. Oh my god. Oh, that was one of the days I wanted to give up.

Virginia Y
People can be like that…
The other day I was supposed to have a beauty shoot with two models. One of them did not show up and the second one had really bad skin.
And I mean REALLY bad skin. I don’t know what you do in moments like that. Somehow my makeup artist managed to pull it off. But this is really bad situation.

Sarah Brown
So like on Polaroids or her portfolio, she was fine. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, it’s a shame. It’s a shame prisoner.

Virginia Y
Thankfully, my makeup artist is just so amazing that I’m I miss it. I’m super grateful. And again, we had to come up with a backup plan out of nowhere.

Sarah Brown
You just have to do what you can do.

Virginia Y
Have you ever had and what about skin on a photoshoot?

Sarah Brown
It was actually for skincare thing as well. Oh, my God. I know. I know. Was it for a client? Yeah, it was for quite a big client as well. I did feel sorry for the girl. I could tell she felt uncomfortable with me being so close to her. But I’ve managed to kind of do quite well with the retouching. But it’s just one of those things that you just have to cast them. Like if it’s a skincare brand, you really have to custom model correctly and get up to date polos. I mean, things can happen. You can have a bad week, and you can get spots and all that. But at the end of the day you need to model he’s going to see the job. True, which is fine. Luckily, my retouching pulled up on that one.

Virginia Y
What about your makeup artists? Have you ever been with a really bad makeup artist when you had nothing else to do? And how to actually find out if our makeup artist is good or bad? And should we stick to them in the future?

Sarah Brown
Yeah, I have worked with a few make five who are just, you know what, maybe some virtue that would work for but for me, I just hate I just hate it when it’s just caked on makeup because it’s just the texture. It’s nice model of the most amazing skin and they just overly contoured caked on. It’s just not me. It really isn’t worth it. You do on that day. You have to kind of be polite. Yeah, till I work. But you just cut to say, this is how I shoot. Like, I know, it’s hard. It’s tough one you don’t want to offend people. 

Virginia Y
It’s true. For example, I had moments like this twice in my entire career. And one of the times it was a girl that is she just she wanted to do better. But she was unable to. I mean, this was the type of the knowledge that she had lots of makeup on. That’s it. Again, with retouch, I kind of save it, but you’re never going to see this on my website or anywhere. And I had a second time I think it was two years ago, when I worked with a brand new makeup artist. And she was again, just so prepared to put on so much makeup. And I asked her, I think four times to remove some of it. And she she tried to remove part of it. And again and again and again. And at the end, I was like, okay, you just have to remove everything and start over because this is just a complete mess. And she did it.
It wasn’t perfect, but it kind of worked. But as you said, it’s super important to stay nice to people even if it’s not your kind of deal. You just need to word it in a certain way. Don’t do like you just political like this is the way I shoot or

Sarah Brown
Yeah, I don’t know. You can’t be like your makeup.

Virginia Y
No, no, no, no, you can not go like this.
I think a good way out of a situation like this is to just take the model and be like, Okay, do you want to take a closer look? Okay, I’m going to make like a test photo for you to see how to make up song. You know, obviously see that it’s super bad. Yeah, do you to test open and that is personal website. Or if you already have portfolio like this, open your portfolio and just put another makeup artist work next to this photo. And trust me, they’re gonna go for? 

Sarah Brown
Natural look. Yeah, that’s actually a really good tip for me. That’s a really good way to do it without offending someone. Right? Yeah.

Virginia Y
Because they will be just so ashamed, then they’ll be like, well, I can probably pull it off.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, it’s because you don’t want to look at Part Five on a sheet as well. We’re coming as a really important thing for me. Like, I want the model. And I want the whole team to feel comfortable. And you don’t want to have any bad vibes. Definitely.

Virginia Y
Yeah, even if you’re in a really bad situation, super bad mood, you just have to stick to your core and to stay smiling. And afterwards, I’m always going to explain just pull my team together after we’re done and to tell them if there was something wrong, or I’m going to tell them sooner or later, but not during the shoot.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, exactly. Oh, you just do work with them again. Yeah, it’s easy.

Virginia Y
It’s another way out true. And just use it as a learning curve.
For example, I really hate it when my team is late. I mean, 1015 minutes. That’s kind of right. But it’s gonna take you more than that. I’m really going to go mad.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, cuz it’s your time, that could be your time and money.

Virginia Y
Right. And at the same time, if your stylist is a little bit late, and you still have to continue with the makeup and the hair, that’s kind of fine. But yeah, one of the very first few people that you need in the beginning, like the model the makeup and the hair stylist, or later, the skin really made me very angry.

Sarah Brown
Because we’re just waiting around for it to all kick off. Yes,

Virginia Y
Yes. And my motto is getting super tired for no reason because of sitting, shooting. So this can make me really mad. And recently, I had an example like this, and I just called the hair stylist. And I just told her not to come not at all, because I need that my makeup artist knows a little bit of hair. Yeah. And we needed something natural, nothing too much. So we knew that she will be able to handle it. And I just called and said just don’t come. It’s okay.

Sarah Brown
You know what that time as well, that could be another look, that could be under the exact idea that it’s it just all works like that isn’t that it’s true.

Virginia Y
So the next time there isn’t a time working with this girl, either going to be very concerned and tell her an hour that’s a little bit earlier. Yeah, I’ll make sure that she’ll be on time. Or I’m just not gonna work with her again,

Sarah Brown
I think punctuality is so important. Do you want to come across professional, and you want to come across like you really, really care? And I think it’s just a really good trait to have

Virginia Y
it is. I also believe the same and when we’re talking about these kind of situations, have you ever had a situation with the model with bad attitude? Oh, yeah, today’s like all about bad situations and how to handle them.

Sarah Brown
Oh, literally. It’s just like one big one. Just

Virginia Y
important, because for example, if you’re new to the industry, or even if you’re not, and you come across a situation like this, and you have no idea how to react, yeah, you can make a big mistake. And if you have, like an overview of our mistakes and worry about situations, you learn from it.

Sarah Brown
And you know, what you all you see on like Instagram and wherever, like all you see is the positive, right? successful parts of everyone. And you have to realize these things happen all the time, like these mistakes and things you can’t control. Exactly. Because we work with a lot of people relying on a lot of people, these things happen. They just do to everyone. And in this show, we are keeping it real. So hashtag be real. Yeah. Keep it real like that. Yeah, so I had a PC shoot. And the model was like an hour late. We have the whole team here just waiting around at least if the model was here, we could have got started on something. We actually was an hour late. And then apparently, it was like one of our first ships and she she just got here with not even apologetic or anything. And she was just like, Oh, it’s fine. It’s fine. Like we can just get started her

Virginia Y
attitude. And if we feel annoyed, I can totally relate to then. Once I had a model she was super, super young kid was fortunately just a test. She was calling her mom constantly asking for pizza for dinner. And her mother bought something else. So she got really mad and super upset during the shoot and was just so unprofessional. And I was so grateful at the same time because oh god is just a test. Yeah. And I was so happy that this was all gone.

Sarah Brown
She must have love pizza a lot.

Virginia Y
Yeah, she’s probably a big fan of pizza. I thought and I’m a big fan of pizza, but I would never do this.

Sarah Brown
Next time order pizza!

Virginia Y
I should have just order some pizza on set, you are right! 
You said that you having your own studio? Yeah. Which can be quite expensive in London.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, I mean, I kind of live in it as well, which is so great. Oh, nice. It’s a home studio. Yeah, it’s like a live work kind of five. So nice to have like a mezzanine on top, which is where I live. And the whole bottom bit is my studio. So I’ve kind of taken over the whole flop, which my boyfriend depreciating for you know, you gotta do you gotta do in photography equipment, all parks down to nothing. So we can play beer pong when fuck around in the studio.

Virginia Y
Sounds great. Yeah, he does. And it’s also giving you a lot of freedom to do your own projects. I bet.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, you don’t The best thing about when I first got my studio, I mean, I can develop my own kind of lighting now. But because I just had my own studio, I could just practice whenever I wanted. Yeah, it’s I used to just practice my lighting on my voice.

Virginia Y
Yeah, of course.

Sarah Brown
Yeah. And I just used to, like, try different things and just see what works for me. And I was very lucky to do that. Because normally, if you do have a studio, you just have to kind of do it on set with different tests and all that. So I was I was very lucky. I just keep going and do that. Like every day. Yeah, I feel like I found my style, though. 

Virginia Y
I don’t know if you just caught this hint. But practicing is a big deal.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, hundred percent. You can teach someone like you can tell it to them. But the main thing is just doing it in real life. Just keep doing it. And you’re bound to get better?

Virginia Y
Absolutely. Since your portfolio is so full of color. And you by the way, very good with color. You’re always so bright and vibrant. Oh, thank you. Yes, they are definitely do you have any tips on colors, and especially when we talk about skin. Because sometimes, for example, skin can go really Fred dish.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, I used to wear my problems. I she and I adjust it. This is gonna sound really weird. But I actually put the saturation down about two stops on capture one and then Photoshop, I kind of use like a correcting saturation layer. And I put the saturation down a bit. I don’t know how I know this, but I can see which bits over saturated and I just mask them out, which I think people forget to do. Because different parts of the skin are more saturated. And I think little things like that. They really help with the overall image. It’s all about the details. I think

Virginia Y
This was an amazing tip!

Sarah Brown
Yeah, actually,I can’t even remember like how I thought to do that. But if you look at image and just I’m looking at one right now, and you just see which bits of more orange or which bits of they stand out too much and they shouldn’t be tends to be like the forehead or like kind of run the hair just must get out and do such a bit.

Virginia Y
something so small, but so significant. Yeah. Do you ever do anything in black and white? 

Sarah Brown
I have a little bit to actually be like shooting black or white move out. Obviously more shooting color. Sometimes the makeup is just so good. I don’t want to kind of get rid of the cover. But sometimes it works so well. It I think it depends on like the sheet you’re doing the black and white sheet I did this the one with the good it happened. And that’s it’s just like all about props. I think I just worked for that. But I should do

Virginia Y
some more. Where do you feel better when you’re shooting in a studio or outside? Oh, hundred percent of studio?

Sarah Brown
Why he should leave you for answering exactly the opposite? Really? Oh, God. No. So I love the studio. Because you can just control the light. And there is no external limits external problems. There always is that like there’s no external problems like people telling you you can’t shoot here. I just think it’s so much easier. And they work from home. So I don’t have to travel out of bed.

Virginia Y
The perks of having a home studio.

Sarah Brown
True. Exactly.

Virginia Y
Well, it can be a little bit tricky when you’re constantly in the studio, because for example, you can stick to the same poses or just run out of ideas. And in your case, especially Oh, yeah, when we talk about beauty photography, correct are super important and also poses. Yeah. So what’s your way of not sticking to the same poses and crops? And which you ever suggest to beauty or upcoming beauty photographer to crop afterwards?

Sarah Brown
Yes, so I actually do crop afterwards. Because I like to work with more than I have. Because I kind of get like a different I after I shoot and things like that different angles and different rotations. And I think it’s always better to shoot more than you need, even if it’s just a little bit. Because you can just play around with it. I think I do kind of get creative flux a lot as well. And I’d be like all my work is the same. But with beauty anyway, I like poses where you’re pushing on the skin. So it creates different angles. And it is hard because everything’s been done. really true. I do have a macro shot, though. I love a macro shot.

Virginia Y
Once you have this amazing portfolio, you’re probably at the moment to purchasing some brands, I bet.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, so I’m a fashion and beauty photographer. But I do want to market myself as more of just a beauty photographer because I think that is my stronger half definitely. And I enjoy it more, I just enjoy it more. My goal this year is to just try and get more beauty campaigns because that is just what I want to do.

Virginia Y
 I just want to be a campaign after campaign so far.

Sarah Brown
Yeah, I’ve had a couple of, I’ve literally just finished a campaign for real techniques. It’s like the makeup brushes, which is fun. I had a couple of PT campaigns, Primark, which is March and I just can’t get your slot. That was my first campaign I’d like saw on Oxford Street. And I just couldn’t believe it.

Virginia Y
How did it happened?

Sarah Brown
They actually contacted me, I have no idea how they found me

Virginia Y
I have some sort of idea probably because of your social media,

Sarah Brown
I get most of my work from social media, to be honest. But it just is really nice that people have that kind of standard like that, at that height of the industry are looking at me, because I just take photos, and I didn’t really think about stuff like that. And it’s just really nice to think that people do like my work in this profession. And I’m actually doing what I want to do. It’s nice.

Virginia Y
And if you guys want to follow her journey, you can go to her Instagram account to which is Sarah brown photo. And I want to say big, big thank you for being part of our show today. And we are definitely going to keep an eye on you. Thank you so much for being our guest today. It was a big honor to have you here.

Sarah Brown
Big, big thank you to YouTube. I’m just honored to have asked me to come on here, honestly.

Virginia Y
And that was it, part two of our episode with our brown as over and just like every super super yummy cake, you might get the feeling that it’s gone too fast. But don’t worry, because we’ve got you covered next Wednesday will be here within the our guest and another portion of inspiration, insights and ideas. So I’m just going to call it the triple I sorry about my bad humor today. But I really really hope that you enjoyed this podcast. And if you do, please consider visiting photography podcast.net where you’re going to find a big donation button, and just for $1 or two per month, you can support our show. And of course you know that we love giving back so there’s some cool perks that we have come up with. Thank you guys so much for being with us today and I cannot wait to see on Wednesday.

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