Not Your Regular Baby Dolls

I love when I get to push myself out of my makeup comfort zone! I don’t know when the idea hit me but for the longest time I have really wanted to do a Baby Doll photo shoot, and not just any doll shoot but an incredibly creepy doll photo shoot. I wanted there to be an evident difference in dark and light, the broken and beautiful. The timing just never worked out for a model or a photographer. Timing is everything!

My main concern was that if I didn’t get the perfect photographer, perfect sidekick model, and the perfect makeup concept that the photo shoot would be a complete bomb and I would just end up not using the photos, but I must say that it all came together so incredibly perfect. As you guys know, when I come up with a photo shoot I usually go pretty dark in some way.For this shoot, the twist was unexpected even for me.

Here’s how it all came together: First I had to find a photographer. Call me the most random person on earth, because I am. I ask the most odd of questions to the most random of people, and basically what happened is my dance partner at the time (who I randomly asked him to be my dance partner) informed me that he did photography on the side and was actually going to school for business so he could officially run his own photography business. This planted the thought in my head that I could finally get my doll shoot. I wanted something more along the edgy side because of all the weddings and proms and I have yet to have met a Bride who wants to look like she is dying in her wedding photos, which I would refuse the request if it ever came up. I’m a professional here guys ;).

Then came finding the right model. I knew that I wanted to be in the shoot, it’s been my dream to look like a freaky and repulsive doll (I really hope that somehow you figured out the sarcasm there…) but I needed someone who wouldn’t mind wearing pointe shoes (mind you, I couldn’t provide lamb’s wool or padding for poor Kylie) and sitting around for hours while the shoot happened. I decided that I would ask my friend Kylie because whenever I would see her I would think of a little porcelain doll and she fit the part perfectly.

Doing the makeup: Kylie actually did the foundation on both of our faces as well the tears on my face. I was completely blown away by her stage makeup skills, the tears were perfection. For Kylie’s look I wanted her to look almost like she was glowing, which Jacob really caught in the photos! I love how her skin is incredibly radiant and even her light pink lips are noticeable. As for my look, I wanted it to look like I was a sick, broken doll. So my features were very dark and harsh. I did white liner under both of our eyes to create the effect of larger eyes and huge fake lashes. It was kind of funny because Jacob would tell me to look at the camera and not up at the ceiling.  He would repeat himself like 20 times, but I thought it was kind of weird because I was totally looking at the camera the whole time! But it turns out that because of the white liner and lashes it looked like I was looking up instead of at the camera. It was a really creepy effect because my eyes almost looked like they were rolling back into my head.

For the hair: I love teasing hair!! My first year of college I was wearing my hair teased probably 3 out of 5 days of the week. I love the look of just big, messy hair. I wanted this photo shoot to portray control and chaos so though Kylie’s hair was teased and HUGE, I still wanted it to look like she was well kept. So what we did on her hair was we teased it super big and put it in a donut (which was BLONDE! She is dark brunette… you can’t always win! Haha you just have to make it work!) and that was that! Super easy but it looks so fabulous I can’t even explain! For my hair I wanted a more disheveled look. I teased it, put it in a bun to the side and just straightened the bangs. I do have to say that I have this huge pet-peeve about my bangs when I straighten them too straight, they start like splitting and looking really dumb. Luckily my brother was on set with us and every time my bangs started looking really stupid he would fix them for me. His sentence of the night was “Wait Jacob, Melissa isn’t gonna like this picture because of her bangs.”

Speaking of my brother Michael, he was a huge help on set because he had some great ideas up his sleeve for how to position the models to get the best most effective shot. Literally all of the positions are all credited to Mike.

I would just like to thank everyone who participated in this shoot and who made it happen.  Who doesn’t want a creepy doll photo shoot for their portfolio? If you are looking for a photographer, contact me for his information or go to his Facebook page at Jacob Steckmann Photography.