Photo Shoots

Creating hair for fashion shoots and advertising campaigns is very different from creating hair for a client behind the chair. Since you’re often working with a brand or magazine on these projects, it requires more of a collaboration than some artists are used to. The difference is that you will have to manage different demands from people on set, which can range from creative directors and wardrobe stylists to models and managers.

For Kevin Hughes, a Los Angelesbased editorial hairstylist and global artistic director for Moroccanoil, his journey started on his own accord through collaborating, assisting and taking every job he could, and he recommends that others do the same.

“I needed to create a portfolio to send to agencies, so I started collaborating on shoots with other hairstylists, makeup artists and photographers to create work for us to showcase,” he says. “I was able to network and build a lot of connections that way, too.”

There are many reasons to consider becoming a session hairstylist, and for Duplantis, she pursued a career because of her love of finishing hair. She says she would practise updos on anyone who would let her, which led to her working on her own photo shoots.

“Doing hair for editorial is very different because, in a picture, your vision and work changes,” she says. “When you’re creating hair for an image, it’s two-dimensional versus three-dimensional. This can benefit you because you can do things that give off an illusion in the photo, but it can also be difficult at first because you aren’t used to thinking about how hair is going to look from behind the lens of a camera.”

“When you’re doing hair for fashion or editorial shoots, it can be really loud,” adds Robin LaChance, a hairstylist at Tinted Love Hair Studio in Barrie, Ont., and an educator for Schwarzkopf Professional. “In the salon, the hair kind of whispers or talks to you, but for photo shoots, it’s more of that artistic expression, so it’s screaming at you in a way. Editorial work allows you to take those shapes and silhouettes that you like and exaggerate them to make them more creative, fun and eccentric.”

Part of the process of creating editorial work is training your eye to see what a camera sees. Luckily, in a society where cellphones are at our disposal, this can be done in many ways. When scrolling through magazines or social media platforms, take note of elements like lighting and angles and how those affect the hair in the image. Another great way is to start photographing your own work, even with just your cellphone, so you can see the differences between what the hair looks like on camera and what it looks like in person.

PRO TIP

DUPLANTIS SHARES THAT “LESS IS MORE” WHEN IT COMES TO PRODUCT USE ON SET. IT’S A LOT EASIER TO ADD MORE PRODUCT TO THE HAIR THAN REMOVE IT. KEEP IN MIND THAT PRODUCT CAN SHOW UP IN THE IMAGE, SO YOU DON’T WANT TO USE TOO MUCH.