Neatorama had posted this a while back and I was immediately intrigued. Makeup + miniatures = awesomeness. Spanish photographer Juan Sánchez Castillo primarily works on high fashion campaigns, but a new series, Making It Up, shows a more playful side. Making It Up combines close-ups of a model's face with miniatures to create visually appealing and whimsical vignettes, inspired by his wife's love of miniatures and his own passion for beauty photography. He says, "My wife loves miniature figures. She used to have whole doll houses filled with little figurines and furniture. And I really love beauty and fashion photography. Whenever I find creative images of miniature figures on the internet I always have to show them to her. With our two hobbies combined, my collection of inspirational images became the beginning of this project. I came across several creative photography projects with miniature figures placed into landscapes and photographed with female bodies. My own creative project idea was then born in my mind. I have been longing to shoot some beauty images, but make them look like landscapes and place miniature figures into them."
Let's take a look.
Faceclimbers:
The Gardener:
Painters at Work:
Painters at Work II:
Playing in the Snow (my favorite):
(images from designboom.com)
The project took six months of planning, and they were shot all in one day. You can read more about the painstaking process of arranging the miniatures here.
I love this series because it captures the essence of what makeup application is about: the art of understanding the contours and planes of one's face to strategically apply cosmetics, determining where the shadows and highlights should go – it's essentially thinking about faces as landscapes with their own unique topography. Castillo's images express this concept literally in a fresh, fun way.
What do you think? I love closeups of pretty makeup application and I love miniatures, so this was a total win for me.