Fashion Shoot Planning 23-03-2013

Fashion Shoot Planning

I had planned to shoot some fashion images this weekend and had organised a Fashion shoot in the college studio on Saturday 23rd March.Unfortunately, due to adverse weather conditions I had to cancel the shoot as the college was closed due to heavy snow and freezing temperatures

I now need to re-arrange another date to complete the shoot as all of the planning went out of the window

Planning is a key part in organising a photography shoot and it's critical that everthing comes together for the few hours that a model will be posing behind the camera lens for you

These are the elements that I had to manage and control to bring my shoot together:

Arranage and hire a photography studio
Arrange and hire a model for the phtography session
Arrange for a lighting and prop person to help out with changing of sets and lighting configurations
Plan lighting setups in the photography studio
Research and plan detailed shots and poses of various fashion models

Shown here are some images taken from the Internet which i have used for ideas and inspiration

I was inspired by this very excellent London Fashion photographer Jarek Duk,shown here are some of his images

Inspiration London fashion photographers

I am in the process of studying various photographers especially those that live in London and those who are in touch with the latest fashion scene and everything en vogue

I came across this photographer from London his name is Jarek Duk and I found his photography to be exceptional, with excellent lighting techniques,great models,locations and an excellent website. Shown below is some of his work from his website

It's essential to look at other photographer's work's to gain more knowledge and to acquire a better understanding of styles,lighting techniques,modeling/models,poses equipment etc

I would like to emulate this standard of photography and I have to analyse the elements of this persons photography to ascertain how he has achieved such a high standard of work

These are the key elements that I assume has helped this photographer to produce such stunning photography. 

Fantastic Locations

Great looking professional Models

Lighting. Most of the shots here would have been produced using portable studio lighting

Camera, possibly medium format Hasselblad's etc

Posing and composition

Excellent post production

On analysis of the the images above it's plain to see that all of the images were produced using various addititional lighting which enhance and embelish the subjects even further

Recent Portraits

I have recently been increasing my knowledge and understanding of portrait photography by shooting some different shots of various friends and family within my conservatory studio. This is not an ideal location due to it's size but is fine enough to produce some good head and shoulder shots

I have been using a mixture of flash and studio heads to produce the various results and shown here are some of my latest portraits

Here I used 2 Bowens 500 heads to achieve this shot, the main key light was set at a power level 2 using  an F Stop of F8. The second light I used at power level 1,whch was used as a fill light also at F8. It's very impotant to try and keep the catch lights in the eyes at either the 2 or 10 o'clock positions. This mimicks the natural light of the sun whch gives a more natural looking effect to a portrait

I used to 2 umbrellas for the shot, 1 used as a shoot through to give a nice soft difusion and the second to defuse the fill light whch gave some quite pleasing results

Again I used the same setup as above but introduced some colour to the hair using layers in Photoshop. I enhanced the image even further using various software's to smooth the skin tones of the model

The shop above was taken using 2 Canon speedlightlights whch I think gave quite pleasing results. They lack the power ang light quality of studio monolights but still give outatanding results

I have recently purchsed a new lighting system whch will enable me to shoot in studio or out on location as the system is portable. I will be mixing these new lights with speed lights and I am hoping to increase my lighting experience even further. I hope to be shooting lots more portraits outdoors when the weather gets a little warmer and the days become a little lighter