My agent said to me at the end of 2018 that my first job back in 2019 could be a Vogue India cover story – would I be interested?
I was! Firstly, it’s Vogue, and I was excited when I found out who would be featuring – Anushka Sharma, a huge Bollywood star and producer.
Anushka Sharma – Vogue India cover
I’d be also scoring favour with my cricket-obsessed sister and brother, as Anushka is married to the Captain of the Indian cricket team, Virat Kohli.
Anushka Sharma with husband Virat Kohli
The job was to be shot in Canberra, and I wasn’t complaining as we would be staying at one of my favourite Hotels called OVOLO NISHI – I love staying at this hotel – the restaurant, the bar, the overall look of the hotel and the rooms are fabulous, and the beds – heaven!
Georges Antoni was the photographer, who I always love working with and of course his team who have become like family.
Pete Lennon was the hairdresser – I’ve worked a bit with Pete over the last few years. Pete had spent the last ten years living in New York City and was now back in Australia. A beautiful big gentle tattooed bear who’s not only a very talented hairdresser, but a great guy to hang out with.
Anushka Sharma – Vogue India
Once we checked in, we met up with the crew from Vogue India, Ria the junior fashion editor and Divya the fashion bookings editor – both very cool and lovely. We all just relaxed and started laughing, eating a delicious breakfast.
naturally beautiful – a pure delight, and also an interesting and fun person
When you shoot celebrities there’s always a very strict time limit to the day and the magazine would like to get as many great shots as possible.
Anushka Sharma – Vogue India
The pressure is always on hair and makeup to be fast. You have to work together at the same time. This is always tricky, especially for makeup, as the head gets pulled and pushed around! Makeup is very fine work and you need to have stillness.
I liken it to doing makeup while driving in a car down a bumpy road. It’s also hard for the hairdresser because they need to be able to move and do their job as well.
The shoot location was at the National Art Gallery and outside by Lake Burley Griffin.
The brief was pretty straight forward – with this type of job unless specified I wouldn’t do anything too tricky.
Anushka Sharma – Vogue India
What I mean is that I wouldn’t opt to do say a blue eye or heavy makeup. This is about who the person is – so what I need to bring to the table is an artist’s eye for detail and an understanding of what needs to be done to unveil the natural beauty.
There’s never just one way to find this in someone. Sometimes it’s the slight corrections that fine tune the face. By that I mean for instance the skin could be quite dry, so I spend time on preparing the skin, exfoliating and hydrating to give the skin the lustre that its lacking. The face might require a light contouring of the nose bone or the eyes may be deep set so I may need to add light into the eyes to open them up and give brightness. There’s so many different subtle things that can be done to a face that can make a big difference.
Anushka arrived and she was indeed naturally beautiful – a pure delight, and also an interesting and fun person.
Once we finished the hair and makeup, we all made our way across to shoot in the Art Gallery and then later out by the lake where we spent the afternoon till the last rays of sun disappeared over the ranges of Canberra.
Anushka Sharma – Vogue India
It was a very successful day, albeit a long one as we had caught the first flight to Canberra that morning and now we were exhausted.
We had another very early flight out of Canberra the next day so once we packed up, we headed back to our hotel for one drink at the bar and then into that big comfortable bed for a short but sweet sleep.