Flashing lights and energetic music filled Algonquin’s photo studio as second-year photography students teamed up with beauty guru Melody Lafelice for their first Fashion Workshop on Feb. 5.
Professional makeup artist and beauty expert from CTV Morning Live, Melody Lafelice, has 22 years of experience under her belt. She was eager to share her knowledge with the students, who got a glimpse of a real world production process in the fashion industry.
It was the fifth year the program gave its students a chance to work with professional models and makeup artists on set to bring their skills to the next level.
“It’s a great learning experience and it’s nice to have professionals come in, who really know what they’re doing. I didn’t know how demanding it is. So it’s worth it,” said photography student Ryan Vilaca.
In the Fashion Workshop, the students were not only able to work with the real world experts in a studio environment and improve their lighting and composition skills, but also to practice in professional communication within their teams.
“Team work is huge for this project, because they are working in teams of four to five and each person has a role that rotate through the day,” said Denine Wrixon, the second-year program coordinator, who organized the event. “So they could have one person as a photographer, another person as a lighting technical, another one will work specifically with the model.”
In addition to the students, the workshop involved 10 models from the MIM agency and four makeup artists, who volunteered their day to take part in the event. But bringing them together was not an easy task for Wrixon.
“It’s a lot of organization to get all the parties on the same day because it’s a long day, so people are giving up their income for the day to come in and do this and we really appreciate doing this for us,” said Wrixon. But it’s a lot of fun, it’s a great experience for students, because a lot of them never worked with models before.”
Melody Lafelice was one of the volunteers. She spent the whole day on set, first preparing the models for the shoots and later directing them to achieve the best performance in front of the camera.
For Lafelice the workshop was a way of supporting young talents and passing on her knowledge to the next generation of photographers, models and makeup artists.
“Someone was there at my beginning and I’d like to be there at someone else’s beginning,” said Lafelice.
But passing her knowledge was not the only thing that attracted the makeup artist to the Fashion Workshop.
“One of the biggest things that excited me about this project was that everybody was coming together and it was mutually beneficial for everybody,” she said. “Everyone had something to learn, everyone had something to gain from and I think we’re all really really enjoying doing it.”
The workshop, despite its voluntary basis gave something to everyone. Students got precious experience, makeup artists and models – pictures to supplement their professionals portfolios.
After the work is done, the students will be retouching the images and delivering the final product to their teacher, who will be assessing both their work and the progress they’ve made.
“As a teacher, what I personally love about this workshop is to watch my students really rise above for this, because they realize that it’s a real world situation and they really try to push themselves a little harder than they normally would. It’s really nice for me to watch them do that and be successful at it,” said Wrixon.