The Trends In Fashion Photography: From Styled To Shot
Why hire a professional fashion photographer? You may be working with social media influencers to capture your fashion photography as you get your business off the ground. Influencers have a personal style and built-in audience than make this an integral part of many up-and-coming fashion brands. Eventually, however, if you want to break into new markets and expand your sales, you will need to hire a professional fashion photographer.
Commercial photographers have the expertise to capture the images you need to really get your product moving. From the basic e-commerce, or catalog views to the more eye-catching styled editorial shots, fashion photography is a tried and true method to drive sales. A professional fashion photographer will offer a wide range of services to find the perfect solution for each individual brand’s needs. So if you're looking for the best fashion photography services, you need to understand what options are available to you. In this article, we will talk about the trends in fashion photography, as well as the pros and cons of each type of fashion and apparel photography.
What is Fashion Photography?
Fashion photography evokes visions of highly stylized, beautiful images with gorgeous models. These pictures define a brand’s aesthetic and inspire customers to align with the feelings evoked by the photos. This type of fashion photography can be used for advertising, editorial content in magazines, social media, and on the company’s website as banners or splash pages. Fashion photography of this type takes time to produce, and is a true collaborative effort. Shot with a variety of different camera settings and lighting techniques, fashion photography can be very difficult to pull off successfully because the images need to look effortless and unexpected to be truly successful, yet the process is quite involved.
It begins with the casting. The producer works with the brand to identify what sort of model the brand would like to represent their brand. These specifications are communicated to model agents, who send their talent’s e-portfolios for a first pass review. From those portfolios, a short list is compiled of talent that suits the client’s specifications, and those models are invited in for a casting.
Casting is an integral part of the process because it allows the photographer to ascertain what sort of energy this model will bring to set. All models have good angles and can look gorgeous in a photoshoot, but not every model is right for every job. Each photo shoot will have its own set of parameters that help to define which model will be a great fit. It is a good idea to have the models try on 2-3 looks to make sure the fit samples are working with as few alterations as possible. This also allows the photographer to see how quickly the model changes into the next outfit, how they handle themselves on set, and how comfortable they are with posing. For a high end fashion shoots the models need to be very creative and have a wide variety of poses that work well for the camera. For e-commerce fashion shoots, it’s more important that the model changes quickly and photographs well from every angle.
How is Fashion Photography Different from Commercial Photography?
Commercial photography is any type of photography that is to be used to sell something. It is the commerce in an e-commerce shoot, it is the catalog pictures that help a customer decide whether to purchase a product. This type of photography is typically shot in a studio setting with a predetermined plan and style. Each website will have it’s own look for the virtual storefront that is a website. All white everything is the defining look of many websites, but it is not always the case. The current trend is a light color background, typically variations of grey. Some brands may incorporate a sparsely designed set or simple props, but nothing should draw the eye away from the garments themselves.
Fashion photography for advertisements and media are highly styled. In fact, it may be difficult to see the details of the garment. Only the mood really matters in this type of editorial fashion photography. The idea is to inspire buyers to align themselves with the lifestyle that is depicted in the images. Often, the model and location are featured more than the clothes.
For commercial fashion photography, however, the product must be shown in such a way that the customer will understand the fit, color, and features of the garment. For that reason, standards are designated in advance of the shoot to make sure that each item is accurately and clearly represented and that the website has consistency from item to item as the customer scrolls through. These parameters being identified and defined in advance of the shoot allows for maximum efficiency, as everyone knows what the end product should look like.
Planning a fashion photography shoot
The first step in planning a photo shoot is to determine how many garments will need to be shot, and the best ways to capture those items to maximize brand recognition and time on set. It is typical to plan a portion of the shoot for e-commerce imagery and a portion of the shoot for editorial fashion photography. It may be that the e-commerce is shot in studio and the editorials on location, or the editorials may also be in studio but with more dramatic lighting than the e-commerce images.
The editorial photographs produced in the shoot will be utilized by the client for advertising, social media, and banners and splash pages on the website. The model chosen for an editorial day might differ from the model chosen to shoot the e-commerce. If a clothing brand has one day of photography is in the budget, we typically reserve a portion of the day to do some more creative looks.
Booking the crew
So far we’ve talked about casting for a model, and coming up with a standard to shoot the clothing line. These decisions will impact the contract negotiations with the model agency. Typically, a full day rate for a model starts at around $2,500 plus 20% agency fees. This buys one year’s usage for internet only. In the event of going to print advertising, additional usage fees must be negotiated. Occasionally model agents will offer newer talent at lower rates, or they may be willing to negotiate lower fees for smaller brands that are still in their startup phase. One way that brands save money on model fees is by going “unrecognizable” for their e-commerce images. Unrecognizable saves money by cropping the image just under the model’s nose. This choice lowers the fees as the model’s face is not seen. For some brands this is a stylistic choice. Studies show that some buyers have an easier time selecting garments when they can’t see the model’s face. For others, unrecognizable may be perceived as a less elegant approach. It depends entirely on what standards have already been established on the website and what look the client feels is best for their customers.
Once the model is booked, it’s time to hire the crew. The hair and makeup artist that we book is an indispensable member of the team, and is chosen based on the model or models that we book. All artists will have their own style, and some will work more with men or with women, some will specialize in different skin tones. Some will be able to do both hair and makeup, but some are makeup only. If a makeup artist truly specializes in makeup only, they will be more accustomed to working on editorial fashion photo shoots. For artists who focus on e-commerce, they will be more used to doing both the hair and the makeup.
Equally important to the success of a shoot is the stylist. A stylist partners with the client representative and art director or creative director to implement the style guides unique to each brand. A made-to-measure menswear line is going to need dress shoes, ties, and belts whereas a surf line might need flip flops, sneakers, and caps. Once these decisions are communicated, the stylist will have a day in the budget for purchasing the styling pieces that will tie into and support the brands’ own pieces. Sometimes brands have all of these items in the line itself, and in that case the stylist may only need to pick up essentials such as socks, undergarments, and the like.
The stylist’s job the day of the shoot is to make the clothing look it’s best, both by preparing the garments for photography and by pairing the items together with shoes and accessories to express the style aesthetic of the brand. Brands vary on how they like to have their garments displayed, so in the event of line sheets provided with pre-determined pairings, the stylist will work with their assistant to make sure this direction is carried out. Stylists are selected by their specialties and typically work with an assistant who helps to keep the photo shoot moving forward in an organized way.
Other crew might include production assistants who help the shoot to succeed by taking care of all of the incidentals – assisting the producer by handling small jobs that pop up throughout the day and making any necessary runs whether it be for meals or last-minute supplies.
Typically the producer places crew on hold for planned shoot days until the details are fixed. Then a booking email goes out, and in advance of the shoot day itself, a call sheet providing details of call time, location, parking info, and anything else the crew may need to arrive on time and ready to work.
The Day of the Shoot
A typical photo shoot day is 10 hours start to finish, but a model’s contract stipulates 8 hours unless additional time has been negotiated with the model agency. With a call time of 7:30 am for the crew, the model arrives at 8 am. At 9 am we are set up and shooting light tests with the model. This gives us a chance to see the hair and makeup on camera and make decisions from there. Is the lip too bold? Do the brows need more of a lift? What looks good in person may not read the same on camera, so this is when we make final revisions. By 9:30 am we are in our first look of the day, and continue to shoot until noon. An hour break is taken for lunch, and the model is back in hair and makeup at 1. By 1:30 we are back on set and shooting until 5 pm.
A shoot day that stays on schedule is a shoot day that has been carefully planned and prepared for. The stylist may need a “style-out” ahead of the shoot day. This is in the budget to allow the stylist to get all of the garments organized and paired up with shoes and accessories so that the flow of the photo shoot can proceed efficiently. Some styling decisions can be made the day of, and with an assistant on set, steaming the garment prepping can happen throughout the day as well.
Identifying how many pieces we need to get through, how experienced our model is, and how elaborate the client’s style guide is allows the photographer to make an accurate prediction as to how many looks can be accomplished in a day. Even posing choices can wind up impacting the schedule. When it’s more important to get through numbers, it’s best to have a system in place that allows for quick progression. If capturing mood and unique poses for each garment is part of a client’s style guide, then they can expect less items to be shot in a day. Every shoot has it’s own priorities, and we work together as a team to generate the pictures that we need.
Trends come and go, but one thing that remains constant is the need for fashion photography that stands out from the rest. With a combination of creativity and technical expertise, professional fashion photographers create images that impress clients and inspire followers. Want to see some examples of editorial and e-commerce fashion photography? You can also visit Sonya Bowman Photography for ideas and inspiration.