Fashion Photography
“Fashion Photography , I want to do fashion Photography”, said a boy in the brainstorming session of Photography Club and suddenly he grabbed the attention of the crowd, roaring with chaos. A deep silence bathed the whole room, all faces turned towards him, some were stumped, some had an expression of ridicule and some were just blank. The guy weighed down the implication of his statement.What possibly could have been wrong with his idea??? It didnt take long for the crowd to burst into action again. He said again but this time more emphatically “I am serious. I want to do Glamour Photogrpahy”.The crowd then adressesed the guy directly and what happened then is a story(though i wish to say a legend 🙂 )……… We will cut this story in the middle because I dont intend to tell you a story I wish to sing you to the experiments that i have promised .
Glamour Photography, what is so mystical about it which led to such a reaction as if some forbidden realm has been ventured? Possibly because when glamour photography is mentioned, spectre of nude women strikes mind or possibly getting models in a desert like Pilani seems impossible. But what people forget is- it is not just about glamourous women but capturing the true beauty of a women which lies in her demeanour and her expression of her form . No woman represents the quintessential aspects of womanhood better than an Indian woman. Its not just her form but the grace with which she conducts herself . Her blush and the depth & beauty in her eyes all sets her apart from the rest. There is a surreal quality to them seen in none. I am not a racist there is something magical about Indian woman and if God is a woman it has to be an Indian woman. ‘”Flash “‘ sorry for the digression into praise of Indian woman. In our experiments we tried to capture this very beauty of Indian woman. I couldnt upload my best collection because the females didn’t consent to it.
Despite Pilani being a desert, Bits Pilani can be regarded as its oasis and it is this place where the sidewalkers got their models . Sidewalker is a group of young but passionate photographers who dared to to do fashion photography as a project for their cultural festival Oasis. All they had was 2 DSLRs and determination .
HOW TO DO Fashion Photography WITH MINIMUM RESOURCES:
The first step, if you are new to fashion phtography, is to see a lot of photographs by the great masters of this genre and then try to understand how possibly they could have been shot. For this you can go through a lot of magazines and surf on the web.Try to visit personal site of many renowed fashion photographers.
These two steps are for your motivtion.
After motivation you need to conceptualise and visulaize of different ways in which you would like to shape your photographs. One must have a specific ideas for particular model being in mind. Discuss your ideas with your teammates, if you have any. Once brainstorming is done and you are full of ideas , figure out what background , clothes, lighting conditions -morning ,evening, cloudy,clear sky,indoor , outdoor etc is best for your photographs . It is very important that you discuss your ideas with your model so that you can know her comfort level and at times they come up with beautiful sugesstions opening new doors of creativity. Sharing ideas makes the model comfortable because the doubt and fear in her mind vanishes .
Fashion photography can be done both indoors and outdoors. Where indoor gives you the ability to photograph close shots with complete focus on the model ,outdoor shoots magnify the beauty by complementing model’s beauty with nature . Working indoors empowers you with the ability to regulate the intensity and direction of light highlighting specific focus areas but at the cost of expensive light equipment , a luxury ,unfortunaltely most amateurs dont have.But great wonders can be worked with outdoor lighting by controlling and redirecting them with the use of diffusers ,reflectors and screens .
Some Ideas to Try Out:
Outdoor Photography:
1: Place your model in front of a textured wall which contrasts with her colour this will bring out her features better.
2: Choosee a white wall and then have your model in white dress in front of the wall and and overexpose the shot. Over exposing the shot will bring the white better because the camera meter meters the grey area in photograph so it always white a bit underexposed giving it a dull appearance. Overexposing will burn most of the features in the wall giving it a slick appearance.
3: Collect dry leaves in buckets and have them sprinkled from the top over the model with her bathing in the leaf shower. You could also click her while playing with the water sprinkler or rushing out of a pipe with a beautiful smile to give it surreal quality.
4: You can have a setup on the terrace during twilight hours and have her relaxing on the bike with spotlights on her. Couple up with reflectors to bring the shine on the metal surface of the bike.
5: Click her with an Ice Candy. Boy I need not tell you anymore. This is the classic shot, treat to even the blue eyed boy. 🙂
6: have your model in a white dress in mid of a mustard field and take a wide angle shot in the evening with dramatic sky in the background. Preferably kneel down to get a lower vantage point.
Reflectors: Reflectors can be thermocols .There are two kind of reflectors hard and soft.Hard refelctors are used to reflect greater intensity of light compared to the soft reflectors . For making hard reflectors just paste checkered silver and golden paper on the thermocol.For soft reflector just use the thermocol. One side of the thermocol can be coverred with golden paper and other silver in order to reflect golden( tungsten) and silver(halogen bulb) light using the same thermocol or use one side as hard and other as soft .Reflect light where you want to highlight features.For example : if the sun is behind the subject then in order to expose both the subject and the background properly reflectors from the front to reflect light on the face.
Cutters: Again thermocols can be used to block light from where you dont want it to fall. For instance if you want ot avoid the sunglare you can use it a little above your lens.
Diffuser: A piece of cloth can be used as a diffuser. A diffuser reduces the intensity of light and as a genral rule soft light is good for photography than harsh light because latter burns the feature.
Photomaniacs 