"The Linchpin" - behind the scenes

Sharon Don, thought leader, entrepreneur, artist, grandmother, conservationist, and loyal friend.

This portrait below is of my amazing friend Sharon, who is seen here emerging out of the top of mountain skirt in a lush tropical and surreal setting. While on holidays in NZ in January, I had a vision of her as an earth goddess/mother emerging from a mountain, where the mountain was her dress. Her story is as intriguing as it is complex, and involves lost love, serious physical injuries, and the endurance of pain, both physical and emotional, that has shaped the woman that has emerged out the other side, and also out of this mountain. (I am also restricted in publishing the full image as I have entered it into competition with very strict entry guidelines).

More of this fascinating story and the full image will be revealed at the series completion in a book titled “Unearthly” scheduled for 2016.

The very beginnings...

Here is the Pinterest board that I used to start collecting styling ideas and inspiration for the portrait.

To create the background image for the earth goddess portrait, I combined a number of photographs taken in beautiful New Zealand. Here you can see the mountain, and the stream as four separate images, and then combined and transformed in Photoshop to create the final background image.

Four images (above) used to compile the final background image (below).

The Photoshoot

Below are some of the photos from the day of the photoshoot for the earth goddess portrait.

Before the makeup application begins. Still looking good Sharon!

Kirra, the lovely makeup artists, begins to work her magic.

Check out that eyeliner! Looking more like a swinging sixties hipster than an earth goddess!

Applying some finishing touches.

 
Ready for the green lipstick application...

No earth goddess is complete without the green lippy. #LookingGood

On with the flower crown to complete the look.

 
Emerging like a true earth goddess.

Ready for the shoot.

Capturing those golden locks.

Here is a snap shot of some of the final photos taken on the day at Jane Earles photostudio, after deleting any unusable shots (i.e. out of focus, out of frame).

More Before and After

Getting down to business. The before and after photos of Sharon as the earth goddess. Actually, the after and before. OMG, the hair was so incredibly hard to create!! I had to photoshop parts of hair from other images and blend them in.

A close up of the work in progress, nearly complete.