THE BLUE DRESS AND THE RING

A group of students from the Royal College of Art pose for photographs wearing Kate Middleton style engagement outfits they made themselves and engagement rings outside Buckingham Palace in London, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011. The group carried out the stunt for fun ahead of the wedding of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton in 100 days time on April 29, 2011
Jennifer Rusack 

http://www.thedailykate.org/?p=305

This is a link to the blog dedicated to life and style of kate middleton. some of the post are about the make up.
unfortunatly it states that kate regularly does her make up her self.
jennifer rusack

Harpers Bazaar

The following article was published in Harpers Bazaar, December 13, 2010.

"The first official portraits of Prince William and Kate Middleton were released over the weekend. Photographed by the famed Mario Testino at St. James's Palace last month, the happy couple cuddled for the camera (left) and posed for a more formal portrait (right). "I am very happy to have been asked to cover this historic moment that the whole world was waiting for," Mario Testino said. "They are in their prime and brimming with happiness. I have never felt so much joy as when I see them together." For the historical moment, Kate opted for bridal white — a blouse by Whistles for the casual picture and for the formal one a draped-collar dress by British fashion chain Reiss and white topaz earrings by Links of London — letting her stunning sapphire engagement ring do all the talking. The down-to-earth bride also did her own makeup for the shoot — her gorgeous tresses were handled by her hair stylist, James Pryce. As can be expected, Reiss plans to reissue the now-iconic "Nanette" dress in stores this January. As for the Prince, his v-neck is by Bruno Cucinelli (reportedly lent to him by Testino himself) and his suit is by British label Turnball and Asser."


Charlotte Woodend

Photo Direction

This youtube clip is a bbc interview talking to the couple about there engagement and the meaning of what their engagement photos will show for the future.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjaOdTJbpGc

From the clip I found that the photographer for the engagement photos were taken by Ian Lloyd. 

 Ian Lloyd is an Australian photographer who was born in Canada in 1953 and studied photography at Rochester Institute of Technology and Brooks Institute of Photography in the United States before coming to Australia in 1975. He worked in television and as a photographer for guide books before establishing his own photography and publishing company in Singapore in 1983.

So I looked into some of his previous work. But from looking at the photos hid did for the engagement and his past work it helped to think of the direction we wanted to take the photo shoot in.

 

Ian Lloyd

 Ian Lloyd's previous photography

 

 I then looked into past engagment photos that was out their, to try and compare it to the royal engagment.

 

Compareing the images really helped to gather a greater understanding of how we wonted our images to look like, but just to be sure I then looked into past photos taken of kate to see what looks and poses works with. 

 

     Opal xx

Props

Images taken on the shoot ; some of the props 

The CROWN 

Cup and saucer , Kate's ring 

Filled with sweets  

Royal themed props 

keeping it simple 

Megan Mandeville 
Charlotte oloughin




more PROPS ;

The Blue Hat

Inspriational aspects

Glass Bottol

Royal Props


Megan

Lord Lichfield, Royal Photographer.

Lord Lichfield was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst, and joined the Grenadier Guards in 1959. On leaving the Army in 1962, he began to work as a photographer's assistant, and built up his own reputation, partly as a result of having access to the Royal Family. He was selected to take the official photographs of the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981, and subsequently became one of the UK's best-known photographers. From 1999 onwards he was a pioneer of digital photography at a professional standard. He was chosen by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to take official pictures of her Golden Jubilee in 2002. He resided at the former family seat at Shugborough Hall, near Cannock Chase in Staffordshire although in 1960 he had gifted the estate to the National Trust in lieu of death duties arising on his grandfather's death. Nearby is Milford Hall, the estate of the Levett-Haszard family, who are related to the Ansons and who sit on the board of Shugborough.

Chloé Grayling.

Sweetie jewellery..

A few images showing the sweet jewellery used in some of our images..


Jellybeans..


Love hearts..


Hard candy..

Rachel

Newspaper Cartoon

This cartoon image of William and Kate has been published in the Chicago Sun Times.

The 1980 royal wedding of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer ignited a collectible frenzy. With the recent announcement of Prince William’s engagement to long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton, the collectibles market is in high gear.

Darren Davis, president of Bluewater Productions, which has found a niche producing biographical comic books, will release two graphic books on England’s newest royal couple.

I think the article really highlights our fun aspect to the royal wedding, we have moved forward from the collectable crockery and plates, teacups and mugs to fun comic pieces.

Charlotte Woodend

Edit ideas of final images..

A few examples of the first edits..

We decided to keep our images simple with a plain white backdrop. Incorporating the colour palette into the images is a nice effect as it makes it look more editorial.

Each image has font saying what we are showing, e.g. something borrowed

We decided on using Edwardian Script as the font as its subtle yet classy and ties in well with the royal elegant side of the photoshoot.

The sweets added in the images add a fun side to an image which has always been so serious (royal engagements).

For the 'something old' image we decided to use the actual engagement image without the man as in royal engagements its always focused on the woman. To play on the 'sweet fun side' we made the engagement out of sweet rings yet kept the rest of the styling very elegant.

For 'something new' we used a riding outfit as its an activity done by many of the royal family and we thought that since we are relating it to Kate, it will be an activity that would be new to her after the wedding, New lifestyle.

For 'something borrowed' we made it fun by using a crown made of sweets, saying that its her 'borrowing' the crown from the queen. We kept the rest of the styling very elegant again.

For 'something blue' we did our own version of Kate's engagement dress (the blue, long sleeved dress). We used a black silk dress teamed with a blue hat to incorporate the blue item. Her broach and necklace are all made out of sweets and the tea cup is full of them. 

Rachel

Mario Testino

Testino has shot fashion stories for Vogue, Gucci, and Vanity Fair. Celebrity subjects have most famously included Diana, Princess of Wales and her sons. Other subjects have included many actresses such as Emma Watson, Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, models such as Tyra Banks, Claudia Schiffer, Gisele Bündchen, Elizabeth Hurley, and Kate Moss, performers such as Britney Spears, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Lady Gaga, and public figures like Baroness Thatcher. Living in London, he continues to photograph the British Royal Family as well as contributing to the image development of Burberry, Gucci, Zara, Michael Kors, Dolce & Gabbana, Estée Lauder, Valentino and Versace.

Mario Testino has produced elegant, natural photographs of the royal family. His most recent being the shoot he created for William and Kates engagament.

Mario Testino’s images taken for Vanity Fair magazine turned out to be the last official portrait photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Mario Testino royal family images:

Charlotte Woodend