# Fashion Photography



## eye-capture (Mar 7, 2008)




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## craig (Mar 7, 2008)

I like the yellow coat and the model. The lighting is too harsh for my taste.

Love & Bass


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## Ajay (Mar 7, 2008)

I like these a lot!  I love the locations that you are using for your shots.  My only advice is to still be aware of what's going on in your background in relation to the model, such as the clock sitting on her head in #1 and the middle part of the door frame going up between her legs in #3.

Great job though!


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## eye-capture (Mar 8, 2008)

thanks guys


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## rob91 (Mar 9, 2008)

I like the idea but want to ask what your intention is. With your straight on angles and linear framing I would say you are going for something more stock, but some of her posing and the yellow dress that pops suggests otherwise. I recommend you get try to get more into it, play around with angles, come up with something dynamic.

And maybe it's just me but that doorway is pretty bothersome, it's always partially intersecting the girl.


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## photogincollege (Mar 10, 2008)

Very nice, just something to mention is that remember in fashion photography, its about the model and the clothes, the main reason I mention this is that in the last one, part of her dress is cut off by the dark line on the left.


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## crystal_lynn (Mar 12, 2008)

Try a shallower dof and a different background.  

Also, anyone into fashion would never wear nylons that are darker than their shoes.  The nylons should match or be lighter.  The only exceptions would be some punk, Japanese, and other more outrageous styles.

HTH


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## Alpha (Mar 15, 2008)

This is not fashion. It's not even editorial fashion. It's commercial, and barely that.

Let me tell you what I see when I look at these. I see a run-of-the-mill yellow coat, some black leggings, and some mis-matched shoes. No fashion there. I see flat hair and thoroughly underwhelming makeup. No fashion there, either. I see a model that is not well integrated into her surroundings. No fashion there. By contrast, I might add, fully separating the model from her surroundings would make for something closer to an editorial beauty shot. If you're shooting fashion and want to eliminate the background, you shoot in a studio. I see some unexciting poses and facial expressions that aren't communicative of anything. I see a missing hair-light. I see a relatively dreary setting. 

Editorial/location fashion work is about using your model as a coathanger and your environment as a story behind the clothing. Perfection is a must...you should aim for me, even as a photographer, to see nothing at all, but instead to respond with a visceral reaction to drool and grab my wallet. Great fashion work shouldn't simply elicit a "what a stunning wardrobe" response, precisely because the work is by definition commerical. The best fashion work aims to make the viewer think, "Jesus Christ I wish I looked like that....****....I could never afford that."


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## CanadianMe (Mar 15, 2008)

Alpha said:


> This is not fashion. It's not even editorial fashion. It's commercial, and bar The best fashion work aims to make the viewer think, "Jesus Christ I wish I looked like that....****....I could never afford that."



 Well glad your such a Fashionista, but wow your wrong. Fashion is very subjective and as I recall there is no standard on what constitutes fashion, are we talking Everyday Fashion wear of Haute Couture (Which no one in their right mind says oh I want to look like that, and gee I can't afford it, when was the last time you saw anyone wearing real Haute Couture or even craving the crap that has come out in the last decade or so?) Are you talking alternative Fashion or Ready to Wear?

 Nice work, if your happy with it, and others like which they seen to do keep up the good work and ignore those who claim to know fashion even if they are Designers, Models or Photographers. I can show you ten top people in the Industry and get 10 complete different opinions on what fashion is.


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## skieur (Mar 15, 2008)

CanadianMe said:


> Well glad your such a Fashionista, but wow your wrong. Fashion is very subjective and as I recall there is no standard on what constitutes fashion, are we talking Everyday Fashion wear of Haute Couture (Which no one in their right mind says oh I want to look like that, and gee I can't afford it, when was the last time you saw anyone wearing real Haute Couture or even craving the crap that has come out in the last decade or so?) Are you talking alternative Fashion or Ready to Wear?
> 
> Nice work, if your happy with it, and others like which they seen to do keep up the good work and ignore those who claim to know fashion even if they are Designers, Models or Photographers. I can show you ten top people in the Industry and get 10 complete different opinions on what fashion is.


 
Despite your rationalizations, Alpha has hit it dead on with an accurate critique.  Your post suggests a lot less experience than Alpha's and considerably less than mine.

skieur


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## CanadianMe (Mar 15, 2008)

skieur said:


> Despite your rationalizations, Alpha has hit it dead on with an accurate critique.  Your post suggests a lot less experience than Alpha's and considerably less than mine.
> 
> skieur




 As if you have any clue about what I know or don't, please show me where your vision is held by anyone who is someone in the business, and a strict definition from somewhere that matters and of course these opinions will be held as the "Norm" of Fashion across the industry as a whole. I hope those who post here really don't take either of you seriously would be a huge mistake on their part, ignore those who trash your good work to make it appear they have knowledge they obviously do not possess. It is not a critique when you try and shove an opinion on others, it is an OPINION. Seems many confuse the two and cannot differentiate between them. I do not recall him asking for anyones opinion on the definition of Fashion but for some very odd reason people think others want their definition of something that was not asked for in the first place.


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## sarallyn (Mar 15, 2008)

to be honest I don't like the model.. or the clothes... I don't find them "fashionable", either. I find leggings to be more and more tacky by the day.

but I like the lighting -in some of them...

it's just that the pictures seem like they're straight out of JC Penny or some generic store... it's not my thing, but hey, it maybe yours.

edited --

I just looked at your flickr -- I just had to say that I really like "Tired of Tires"... a lot!


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## Sw1tchFX (Mar 16, 2008)

The light is way too hard, and the specular highlights from the surroundings are very distracting. 

You need soft light with women and basically everything alpha said.


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## Hertz van Rental (Mar 16, 2008)

Alpha said:


> Editorial/location fashion work is about using your model as a coathanger and your environment as a story behind the clothing.



That would be most people's assumption but it is not actually true.
Fashion/Editorial is more about projecting a life-style image where the clothes are reduced to accessories rather than about the clothes themselves.
And this has been the case for some time.

(Warning: Some images of nudity in the links)
If you look at the work of Horst P Horst, one of the greats in fashion working from the late 1940's, or the work of Nick Knight, one of the greats of to-day, you will see that the fashion shots are more about image than the clothes in most cases.
You buy the clothes because you connect them with the image you want to have.
This is how all Advertising works, and Fashion/Editorial is just advertising when you get down to it.

The first three images suffer worst from the lighting. The model has dark hair/dark hose and the background is dark so a lot of the model disappears into it.
The other problem is that it has clearly been done on a shoestring. If this was a serious commission then you would have a make-up artist/hairstylist, a stylist and an Art Director or (even worse) a Fashion Editor all doing their bit. It makes a big difference.

It's not a disaster, but the photographer does need to think a whole lot more about what he is doing and how he's going to do it.


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## Alpha (Mar 16, 2008)

That's precisely what I meant when I said the environment has to serve as a story behind the clothing in editorial fashion. You're exactly right that it is a lifestyle thing. However, while you are working to simultaneously sell the lifestyle, the clothes themselves have to be equally impeccable and enticing in the shot.

Hertz, I might add I think you're right about editorial fashion, but not all of high fashion. Studio work, I think is a good example where there is fashion but not lifestyle. Then again you already know that.


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## Alpha (Mar 16, 2008)

CanadianMe said:


> Well glad your such a Fashionista, but wow your wrong. Fashion is very subjective and as I recall there is no standard on what constitutes fashion, are we talking Everyday Fashion wear of Haute Couture (Which no one in their right mind says oh I want to look like that, and gee I can't afford it, when was the last time you saw anyone wearing real Haute Couture or even craving the crap that has come out in the last decade or so?) Are you talking alternative Fashion or Ready to Wear?
> 
> Nice work, if your happy with it, and others like which they seen to do keep up the good work and ignore those who claim to know fashion even if they are Designers, Models or Photographers. I can show you ten top people in the Industry and get 10 complete different opinions on what fashion is.



Your response to my critique is thoroughly misplaced. I have no idea what your experience in the industry is, but it's clear that you do not understand the psychology of marketing high fashion. As Hertz pointed out, editorial fashion about selling the lifestyle. If your line of reasoning whereby high fashion and all of its intents are reduced to subjective nothingness, were true, then high fashion would cease to be high fashion at all. You're welcome to go on being an artistic rebel, but you can rest assured that no one would ever hire you to do one of these shoots because the AD is counting on you to understand and to convey the very things you reject.


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## Hertz van Rental (Mar 16, 2008)

Alpha said:


> Studio work, I think is a good example where there is fashion but not lifestyle.



That seems to have gone the same way.
You are still trying to sell an idea not the clothes. This is what branding is all about. Look at Nike, D&G, Armani, Dior and all the others. The clothes now have to fit with the image of the company and so are designed to reflect the image of the company.
It's become like Hollywood in the 30's where you are selling a dream.

I think the only place where the ideal of the clothes being central still holds true is catalogue work


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## Alpha (Mar 16, 2008)

Hertz van Rental said:


> That seems to have gone the same way.
> You are still trying to sell an idea not the clothes. This is what branding is all about. Look at Nike, D&G, Armani, Dior and all the others. The clothes now have to fit with the image of the company and so are designed to reflect the image of the company.
> It's become like Hollywood in the 30's where you are selling a dream.
> 
> I think the only place where the ideal of the clothes being central still holds true is catalogue work



Well, I think the distinction between editorial and non-editorial fashion is simply a matter of context. And I don't really see the lifestyle aspect of studio work, except to the extent that the lifestyle _is_ the clothing. I think real editorial work takes that a step further. I'll give a couple examples since I happen to be looking back through this spring's NY Times Style Magazine. There's a black and white St. John ad with Angelina Jolie wearing a black dress and carrying some black shoes as she gets into an elevator. She's looking back, out of the elevator. There's clearly some story here...she's on her way to some fabulous party and is perhaps waiting for someone coming down the hall- probably a drop-dead gorgeous boyfriend. A couple pages later there's a Jil Sander ad with a model against a white backdrop. She's wearing this unbelievably stunning dress that's really flowy and looks like it's made of three carefully assembled giant scarves. Her hair is wet for no apparent reason. This is high fashion but it's not editorial, because there's no story. As far as I'm concerned, non-editorial fashion is identical to beauty, except in the former the clothing and accessories are the center of attention, whereas in the latter the model is. 

As for where clothes might still be central, as I said I think studio fashion (where there are no mock-environments) serve that purpose. Runway, as well.


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