Fashion shoot from today (something different)

[thomasdang]

As some of you will know, I've got nothing in my portfolio except for glamour shots. Well, today I had the pleasure of shooting with a fashion model.

Obviously having never shot a fashion style shoot, I didn't quite know what I was doing in terms of poses. Luckily for me, the model is very experienced and has featured in catalogues for Myer, Supre and many more.

She helped me along with the poses (hers not mine) and gave me some really good feedback along the way.

Here's one of the quick edits (if you can call 3 hours quick).

Let me know what you think?

[!nsane]

Brutally?

I think the skin is overdone, especially on the face. whether its softening, or dodging/burning, not sure, but I think its slightly overdone.

I think it looks like a fashion model doing a fashion pose in a glamor shot, not sure if that's what you were going for or not, but the focus is on the girl not the clothes.

Dan

[Geej]

Whenever I'm going to make a criticism I wait until someone who knows more about it than me makes a similar one but yea, I was going to say the skin smoothing is over done

[thomasdang]

Originally Posted by !nsane

Brutally?

I think the skin is overdone, especially on the face. whether its softening, or dodging/burning, not sure, but I think its slightly overdone.

I think it looks like a fashion model doing a fashion pose in a glamor shot, not sure if that's what you were going for or not, but the focus is on the girl not the clothes.

Dan

Appreciate your honest opinion, but I'd really also appreciate if you could give feedback on how it could be improved as well...

When leaving others with criticism, I do try my best to explain how it could be improved from my point of view. So in turn, I'd like feedback as well.

As I've mentioned above, this was the first time shooting a fashion style shoot. I'm not expecting to be a Harpers Bazaar photographer based on this, so it's obviously a learning curve for me.

Edit: Here's before the skin smoothing:

[!nsane]

Originally Posted by thomasdang

Appreciate your honest opinion, but I'd really also appreciate if you could give feedback on how it could be improved as well...

When leaving others with criticism, I do try my best to explain how it could be improved from my point of view. So in turn, I'd like feedback as well.

As I've mentioned above, this was the first time shooting a fashion style shoot. I'm not expecting to be a Harpers Bazaar photographer based on this, so it's obviously a learning curve for me.

Edit: Here's before the skin smoothing:
image

Ok no dramas mate,

It's probably not the smoothing, but maybe something else, or a combination of things, that just drew me straight to looking at the face and saying that it's overdone. looking at the before smoothing picture, it might be the dodging and burning of highlights on the face and then the smoothing on top of it? Not entirely sure.

I think for the fashion aspect, the colours are quite saturated for a black dress to start with, it means the dress will never be the focus of the image.

I think personally that fashion is a mix between selling a lifestyle/image and selling clothes, and you need a mix of both in fashion images.

Not expecting you to be perfect at it first time of course.

Cheers,

Dan

Edit: also just to be picky to fit into the rest of the forum, the top of her left foot is extremely splodgy and strangely shadowed, and her toes on the left foot look oompaloompa orange.

[BuD]

from a fashion studio workshop i did recently i did the same thing as you. I posed the model then got stopped in my tracks by the instructor and was told this is fashion not a glamour shoot why did i pose the model and forget about the dress.

Ok so from this " experience " from the workshop i would have to say you have hidden the dress and the designer would be going bananas

From the clothing companes point of view you wouldnt have shown off as much of the outfit as possible

being a short dress they woudl want it to show how it hangs, if its frilly you will need to show off the frills ect. If there are buttons, certain patterns, markings get them in view of the camera as best as you can. Then you can pose the model to accentuate the clothing once the clothing is primarily in place. its hard and i was horrible at it during the workshop as i kept going into glamour posing mode

i am super tired so hopefully i didnt babble on to much and some of it actually maks some sense

when you give it another go get a mag on teh style of clothing the model is wearing and see how they are posed ect which is what i endevour to do next time

[thomasdang]

Originally Posted by !nsane

Ok no dramas mate,

It's probably not the smoothing, but maybe something else, or a combination of things, that just drew me straight to looking at the face and saying that it's overdone. looking at the before smoothing picture, it might be the dodging and burning of highlights on the face and then the smoothing on top of it? Not entirely sure.

I think for the fashion aspect, the colours are quite saturated for a black dress to start with, it means the dress will never be the focus of the image.

I think personally that fashion is a mix between selling a lifestyle/image and selling clothes, and you need a mix of both in fashion images.

Not expecting you to be perfect at it first time of course.

Cheers,

Dan

Edit: also just to be picky to fit into the rest of the forum, the top of her left foot is extremely splodgy and strangely shadowed, and her toes on the left foot look oompaloompa orange.

Cool - thanks for that.

Here's another edit where I've brought out the dress a bit more.

Originally Posted by BuD

from a fashion studio workshop i did recently i did the same thing as you. I posed the model then got stopped in my tracks by the instructor and was told this is fashion not a glamour shoot why did i pose the model and forget about the dress.

Ok so from this " experience " from the workshop i would have to say you have hidden the dress and the designer would be going bananas

From the clothing companes point of view you wouldnt have shown off as much of the outfit as possible

being a short dress they woudl want it to show how it hangs, if its frilly you will need to show off the frills ect. If there are buttons, certain patterns, markings get them in view of the camera as best as you can. Then you can pose the model to accentuate the clothing once the clothing is primarily in place. its hard and i was horrible at it during the workshop as i kept going into glamour posing mode

i am super tired so hopefully i didnt babble on to much and some of it actually maks some sense

when you give it another go get a mag on teh style of clothing the model is wearing and see how they are posed ect which is what i endevour to do next time

Cool - yeah I definitely wasn't thinking about the dress at all, but more so of how I could pose the model to make her look good.

[vindicator]

Originally Posted by BuD

Ok so from this " experience " from the workshop i would have to say you have hidden the dress and the designer would be going bananas

From the clothing companes point of view you wouldnt have shown off as much of the outfit as possible

being a short dress they woudl want it to show how it hangs, if its frilly you will need to show off the frills ect. If there are buttons, certain patterns, markings get them in view of the camera as best as you can. Then you can pose the model to accentuate the clothing once the clothing is primarily in place. its hard and i was horrible at it during the workshop as i kept going into glamour posing mode

In my experience they don't care as much as was made out to you.

Good fashion editorial is about presenting an aesthetic.

Think about this first and foremost.

Who was the stylist?

[joe_sixpack]

In regards to skin smoothing etc...

I personally prefer the look of her natural skin tones on her upper body (in the non-edited pic you posted as opposed to the original pic)... However her legs and, to a limited extent, arms look natural-ish..

Of course take my comments with a grain of salt as I'm not a fan of the really plastic look..

[thomasdang]

Originally Posted by vindicator

In my experience they don't care as much as was made out to you.

Good fashion editorial is about presenting an aesthetic.

Think about this first and foremost.

Who was the stylist?

Stylists were unfortunately myself and the models. They provided their own clothes. I'm quite happy with my first attempt - and do realise that there's a whole lot of improvements that can be made.

Originally Posted by joe_sixpack

In regards to skin smoothing etc...

I personally prefer the look of her natural skin tones on her upper body (in the non-edited pic you posted as opposed to the original pic)... However her legs and, to a limited extent, arms look natural-ish..

Of course take my comments with a grain of salt as I'm not a fan of the really plastic look..

Ta. A lot of people aren't a fan of the plasticy look. But it certainly has its place in magazines for certain shoots if done correctly... I certainly did apply my glamour editing to the image (whilst still trying to make it less glamour and more fashion). Skin smoothing was one of the things that I put through my normal processes...

FWI the model was absolutely stoked with the results, enough that she's getting it printed for her portfolio. Mind you, I did send through a version where I lessened the skin smoothing by about 40%, to hopefully give it a bit more texture on her skin when printed.

[GaiLeDouche]

First post:

A few things with the posing. Right leg, turned a bit more, show the shoes on both sides. Right wrist, the bangle should be lower, the wrist lump rarely looks good.

For a fasion shoot, it doesn't really show off the dress. But it could be showing off the accessories.

I find it hard to do 'fashion' shoots unless I have a clear idea (be it real, or imaginary) of what the focus of the clothing is. If it is a cap, or a dress or a ring.

With this photo, I would assume the focus is the accessories rather than the dress. Lose the rings on her fingers, make sure the accessories are shown in the best positions.
Am I making sense?

[xishnik]

2 things bugging me about this otherwise great image.

There seems to be colour/exposure difference between upper body and legs.

The strands of hair "blowing in the wind". Have you though about filling in that space to see if it will improve the image overall?

Otherwise I am not surprised she loved the photo and is using it for her printed pholio!

EDIT: GaiLeDouche => I assumed it was a shoes shot as they dominate the focal attention in the image. Could be just me I guess.

GK

[Arch-Angel]

pose and perspective are great - very editorial.

Skin has a little green cast, but could just be this monitor I'm using at work.
If it's an added cast, then I would suggest history brushing the correct colour back into the model's skin.

[thomasdang]

Originally Posted by GaiLeDouche

First post:

A few things with the posing. Right leg, turned a bit more, show the shoes on both sides. Right wrist, the bangle should be lower, the wrist lump rarely looks good.

For a fasion shoot, it doesn't really show off the dress. But it could be showing off the accessories.

I find it hard to do 'fashion' shoots unless I have a clear idea (be it real, or imaginary) of what the focus of the clothing is. If it is a cap, or a dress or a ring.

With this photo, I would assume the focus is the accessories rather than the dress. Lose the rings on her fingers, make sure the accessories are shown in the best positions.
Am I making sense?

Ta thanks. There was no real direction, more of just a fun shoot to get some nice images. I know that 'nice pics' don't really cut it in the industry, whether we're talking about fashion or glamour. But it was more of an exercise to give me a bit of a taste of what I can do and now I can go have a look at all the mags and find out who my favourite tog is and start to emulate their work - obviously with my look and feel about the image.

Originally Posted by xishnik

2 things bugging me about this otherwise great image.

There seems to be colour/exposure difference between upper body and legs.

The strands of hair "blowing in the wind". Have you though about filling in that space to see if it will improve the image overall?

Otherwise I am not surprised she loved the photo and is using it for her printed pholio!

EDIT: GaiLeDouche => I assumed it was a shoes shot as they dominate the focal attention in the image. Could be just me I guess.

GK

Ta. exposure difference was from the light coming pointing down and hitting mostly her fact and creating harsh shadows on her legs. I usually go fixing exposure differences, but felt that doing that would not add to the image - I could be wrong, as I'm happy to admit I know nothing when it comes to fashion photography.

Originally Posted by Arch-Angel

pose and perspective are great - very editorial.

Skin has a little green cast, but could just be this monitor I'm using at work.
If it's an added cast, then I would suggest history brushing the correct colour back into the model's skin.

Ta. Skin seems fine on my monitor and also the monitor at work...


Thanks for the comments guys. As I've said, I'm very inexperienced when it comes to fashion editorials. All this helps and hopefully I can improve on this the next time I do a fashion editorial style shoot.

Cheers
Thomas