As part of my research I wanted to speak to somebody that has taken part in a few of these competitions so that I could find out what it is really like and what is involved. I chose to interview Niki Mullin, she Models and previously won Miss Shrewsbury and also took part in Miss England.
Interview questions
1. What competitions have you taken part in?
"I have taken part in Miss Shrewsbury which I won and Miss England"
2. What is involved in these competitions?
"It involves modeling, talking and dancing"
3. When did you first get interested in modeling/competitions?
"Back in school round year 10-11 I think"
4. Why did you decide to take part in these competitions?
"I decided to take part when I got scouted at The Clothes Show, so I just thought I would go along"
5. What preparation is involved for these competitions?
"Finding outfits (main one being a ball gown), finding a sponsor to pay for you, diet is a big thing, hair, nails, tan...sooo much is involved"
6. Why do you think so many girls choose to take part in these competitions?
"Girls want to take part because they want to model i think really, its a step into the industry. To been seen and to make contacts for further careers"
7. What did you enjoy most about participating?
" Probably the Miss England final which we had rehearsed for, for ages. In front of a massive crowd, loads of adrenaline. So Glamorous, loved it!"
8. Would you say there is a certain 'type' of person who takes part?
"Erm the type of people to take part are hot hot hot haha! No obviously they are usually very pretty girls erm alot of the girls are very competitive, they really wanted to win. But generally a good mix of divas haha"
From speaking to Niki i feel i learnt alot more about what is involved in the competition and the preparation, its not as easy as most people probably think it is. The girls put alot of work, time and effort in.
For this fourth set up we used two normal lamps either side of the model and a beauty dish in front of the model, the lamps were quite a distance away from the model so they created quite a soft light on the model with much less unwanted shadows as some of the previous set ups.
This is the third light set up we created, this is a similar set up to the previous one. we still used the beauty dish and the polyboards but we used the white side rather than the black. I quite like this effect and this it could work well for simple portraits or beauty shots.
This is the second light set up we created and the image i produced with it, here i used a beauty dish and two black polyboards in a V shape. The lighting is quite harsh on her face and there are some bad shadows cast, i dont think that this test was that successful but could be tailored to work better.
This image is an image i took for PH2000 liverpool Biennial assignment, i included it in this blog to show how i have used this skill in further work.
These images by Melodie McDaniel are something i found really interesting when looking at images of beauty queens and pageants. McDaniel documents the contestants in different situation and also different aspects of their lives, overall she gives us an insight into what it takes to be involved in these competitions. In the series she not only takes photographs during a competition she also takes portraits of them at home, and snapshots of their rooms and things to do with the competitions.