Successful Photography Explained: Portrait, Fashion and Advertising Edition

When working in the advertising and fashion industry, there are two main factors to consider: the client’s needs and your own vision. Sometimes the client may have a very specific idea about the way they want to showcase their product and other times you’ll be able to compose a project from scratch, depending of whether your work will be displayed in a fashion magazine, outdoor advertising (such as vinyl banners) or in promotional items.

In either case, creativity plays a major role to differentiate your work from others and get recognition from the industry.

If you’re looking forward to start shooting fashion and advertising photographs and need a quick guide of which elements you need to take into consideration when it comes to these types of pictures, read this quick and helpful tips that we prepared with the basics.

1. Experiment with Light

When choosing the focal point of your shoot, which most of the times will be the product, you need to find the way to use light to showcase it. Whether is a model wearing or a display specially created for the occasion, don’t be afraid to play with different types of lights and illumination settings.

2. Choose the Right Angle

As photographs, any product will always have a focal point, it’s up to you to highlight them and pick the angle that suits it. It doesn’t matter how coveted your product is, if you don’t make it the star of the composition, nobody will know what you’re supposed to be selling.

 

3. Engage with the Models

Models need to work on their poses according to the main theme or idea of the shoot, it’s your job to make them feel secure and get the best out of them. You need to guide them and direct them, as oppose to imposing your ideas, sometimes they will give you unexpected poses that otherwise you would have never thought of.

4. Use Props in your Advantage

Include other elements, besides your main product and make models play with it. Sometimes it can be something as simple as a chair that will change the pose of the model resulting in a totally different set of pictures.

5. Play with Emotions

Take advantage of those moments when the model is not posing and see if you can capture them for your project. Evoke different emotions according to your vision for the session, this will attract potential customers’ attention when looking at any advertising in a magazine or even something as big as a building sign.

6. Throw Composition Rules Out the Window

You don’t need to follow every single rule in the book when it comes to composition in fashion and advertisement shootings, sometimes an unexpected positioning of the elements can create a totally unique picture that will make it a hit.

Whether you’re looking to initiate a career as a fashion and advertising photographer, or you just want to include a wide range of pictures in your portfolio, consider taking all these tips into consideration next time you’re preparing for a photo-shoot. Let us know how it went, we’d like to hear from you.