kisskissbangbang & photography exams...

So my last photography project o the school year has been handed in. I think now might me a good time to let you guys into my portfolio and see the final product!

The exam question I chose to work under was 'approaches to portraiture' and I worked around the idea of fashion photography (of course). I developed an brand called 'kisskissbangbang' which promotes itself as a vintage inspired clothes shop, similar to shops like Modcloth.

I shot 4 ads, inspired by the photos from H&M campaigns, one for each season...enjoy!

If you like them and want to see more then you can at my facebook page! There's the photos which I loved but didn't quite make the cut as well as others from my portfolio :)

I haven't put these up in order of season, so see if you can guess which is which :P Please give me feedback as I'd love to hear what you think!

-Grace x

Beauty Review times...

Went on a bit of a makeup binge the other day in search of a red lipstick...you never just buy what you need. I thought I might take some photos and give some feedback to the internets :)

The first thing I want to review is the lipstick, Dior's 'Rouge Diorific' in Rose Abracadabra.



Before, with lipliner and then lipstick.

The first thing was the tube. When I bought the lipstick I hadn't actually seen the packaging so I was just expecting a standard tubular...tube. But I was pleasantly suprised when I opened the box to find this weird little thing. Next thing, the colour. I'm quite pale so I have to be careful with reds, otherwise I'll end up looking like a clown. But this colour is great, not too orangy or pink. When I was in the shop the assistant put the matching liner on below my lipstick, but I didn;t feel like stretching to that so I just bought a cheaper equivalent in a similar colour from Bourjois Lip Pencil Coquette 13.

The lipliner is a little hard to start with but it works fine and stopped any bleeding around the edge of my mouth. I would reccomend it as a cheaper alternative if you're not willing to splash out on a pricier version (like me.)
The lipstick is great as well. I put one thin layer on and it was an even matte colour. When I blotted my lips not much came off, the pigment sticks really well. Throughout the day I reapplied 2 times, but not because it had all come off, the colour had just faded slightly. Really pleased I went pricey on this one!

The next thing I wanted to review was Soap&Glory's Thick & Fast mascara. When I got to the till at the Dior kiosk the sales assistant noticed my mascara, and rushed off to get me a sample of the Dior brand.Whilst I feel like she was horrified I went for a cheaper brand, I love free stuff. I thought I'd do a little comparison to see if my lovely sales assistant was right.

I love Soap&Glory's brand image. The packaging is really cute and vintage so I hoped the mascara would be just as good. I read some reviews and a lot of people have complained how big the brush is, but the box does say 'SUPERSIZE BRUSH' on the side...so I was kind of expecting that anyway.



To be honest though, the brush is a bit too big, and I did find myself having to clean off specks. The mascara promotes itself as 'volumising' and I think it did volumise. However it was a bit thick and clumpy and I found myself having to separate a few of my eyelashes after just one coat.

The Dior Extase also promotes 'volumising technology' in just one coat. On my upper lashes it was again quite clumpy, but on my lower lashes it worked really well. The brush shape is a lot more forgiving on top of that. I think they are both quite similar, but the Dior does win out for me in this case.

I wanted to end on a lovely photoshoot of me in my new lipstick and mascara, but after taking a few photos it became clear that wasn't the way it was going to go. So I will play you out to our attempts instead...