Whether you’re photographing your chic outfit of the day for your Instagram account, trying to sell clothes, or trying to create shots that editors will want to publish, we have some fashion photography tips to help you explore this fun area of photography.
Lighting
When shooting fashion photography, lighting is a big deal. However, lots of great fashion photography can be produced with sunlight as the main light source. One of the most popular kinds of light for portrait and fashion photography is window light. Hanging a white sheet over the window at a 45-90-degree angle to the model will diffuse and soften the light. When you begin using additional lights, you can take good looking photos with nothing more than a single light source and two reflectors.
Camera
You don’t need a huge kit to shoot fashion photography, but it certainly helps if you have a high quality DSLR camera like the
Canon EOS Rebel T5 from Beachcamera.com. Fashion photographs need to be crisp at a high resolution, so your digital camera’s megapixel count matters a lot more for fashion photography than it does for street or artistic photography.
Lenses
Fashion photography is all about having the right
lens for the job. If you’re normally a landscape or sports photographer, put away your zoom lens and choose a
wide to medium angle telephoto lens from Beachcamera.com that’s adjustable to between 15 and 55 millimeters with a fast aperture. You should also have a
50mm fixed focal length lens with a very fast aperture, preferably between 1.2 and 1.8, to use for dark, low-light shoots.
Techniques
The photography technique itself is amazingly simple when shooting fashion photography. Keep your lens in automatic focus when shooting in a studio. This is because the distance between your camera and the model is constant throughout the shoot, and automatic focus is more accurate than manual control. Most of the time, you can stick with the same ISO, shutter speed and aperture settings throughout the photo shoot.
Editing
Rarely are fashion photos published without digital editing. From airbrushing over blemishes and wrinkles to making an overly bright photo feel natural, organic and warm, being able to use an editing program is essential for fashion photographers. Even if you’re opposed to airbrushing and photo manipulation, knowing how to use a program such as Photoshop will make it far easier for you to optimize your lighting and color to create photos that stand out from the crowd.
There are very few limits on what you can do as a fashion photographer. Now you can start creating some brilliant images for whatever direction you choose to take in this ever changing genre using these tips.