Killer tips for preparing your fashion shoot
August 16, 2019Fashion photography is one of those niches which thrives best on a beautiful combination of careful planning, creativity & commercial knowledge. Your fashion images are a visual representation of your brand & the most powerful part of communicating your looks with your audience. Combining the elements of your shoot together perfectly will tell the story with the greatest impact. The better planned you are & the greater clarity you have will result in more ease come shoot day. In this post, we are going to take a look at some tips to ensure that your fashion shoot is a truly successful one.
1. Determine the purpose of the shoot
Most fashion designers need 3 sorts of images: 1) Lookbook style images which show off your product on a model on a fairly neutral background 2) Editorial images which give a flavour of the lifestyle of your brand. Potentially shot outside or in a house/warehouse location & communicate in an emotive way. 3) Flat lay product shots showing the detail of the product. Lookbook & Editorial shots can be combined on the same shoot day/s & product shots are usually shot separately in studio. What will these shots be used for - website / social media / PR / Brochures / Editorial / Ads? What size & will the images be used in landscape/portrait? Having clear and well communicated goals will set you up for a super great result.
2. Create a mood board
Visual references are the most effective way to communicate your vision for your concept & therefore mood boards are utilised at all levels of fashion photography. Pinterest is a great way to go & you can share your moodboard with your photographer, art director (if using) & stylist who you may wish to receive input from too. Or simply copy & paste images into a document or photograph images from books/magazines using your phone & input into the document also. Digital documents are best for ease of sharing with your team.
3. Colour Palette
A bit like the property show ‘location. location, location’. If I had a fashion photography show it would be called ‘colour palette, colour palette, colour palette’. The best place to start is with the pieces which are the central aspect of a commercial shoot & build out the colour palette for the images from there. Pay attention to the background (walls/grass/meadows/cityscape), location, Chairs/props, the models skin tone, hair & eye colour, accessories, boots/shoes, hair pieces & anything else you’d like to appear in your images. The colours can either beautifully clash, be purposely busy &/or match in tones. It’s important to plan this so that the shot looks carefully crafted & conveys the message you’re going for.
4. Create a brief
My top three questions for my clients are: What the conceptualisation for the range initially? Who is your audience who would wear your range? What top three adjectives would you use to describe this range? The answers to these questions will demonstrate the concept and story of your range & it’s crucial to communicate this is the whole team involved on the shoot. Your brief gives you a great opportunity to cover all aspects of your shoot such as logistics, location, aesthetics, props & equipment. AND of course the team needed to make your vision happen - photographer, stylist, make-up/hair artist & of course model/s.
5. Location
With your colour palette, brand/range stories & audience in mind it’s time to arrange a location for the shoot. There are many websites dedicated to shoot locations whether that’s outside, in a house/warehouse or studio. Your photographer, art director or stylist may also have some ideas about great locations or will be able to prepare some options for you. In an ideal world you will also have scouted the locations & taken some test shots to ensure they will deliver the right shots. It’s wise to think about lighting on location too & where the light will fall if doing an outside shoot.
6. Gather your team
Now, you need to gather your team. Hosting a model call is the perfect way to cast models, it gives you an opportunity to see them in your clothes & also gauge how willing & natural they are in poses that you’d like. It’s a big plus point to have happy ‘can do’ personalities on set. Meeting your photographer & stylist is key to share ideas & create a team all positive in achieving the looks which you want for your brand. Ensure you have make up/hair artists with right skill level to bring your vision into a reality. Discuss & agree all pricing upfront with your team & to ensure smooth running on the day & afterwards. Choose people who you resonate with & share your passion.
7. Scheduling
Plan your looks well in advance. Each look needs it’s own card detailing every aspect of the look from the garments to accessories to hair & make up detail. Ensure you prepare a shot list to ensure you come away with the shots you need detailing outfits & crops for images. Think about the shots you’d like with models together & singularly. Whether you’d like any movement ie walking/dancing/laughing. A visual representation of model poses on the moodboard is great to have on shoot day. Ensure you leave enough time for each look to be shot & experimentation to be explored especially for editorial style shots.
8. List everything you need
Last but not least, you need to make sure you bring all of the equipment you are going to need for your shoot. After all, the last thing you want is for things to fall behind because you forgot something you needed. It is also a good idea to put together a call sheet with all of the important information & timings for the day for everyone involved to reference.
So, 8 steps which will help you immensely whilst preparing for your upcoming fashion shoots. What’s the biggest point for you to bear in mind? What did you learn here that you haven’t thought of already? Feel free to share with your designer buddies to help their shoots run ever more smoothly :) Let me know if you’ve got any other useful tips which you’ve used to get your shoots running to a ’T’.