CHANGING PARADIGM OF FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY

Fashion as a whole is not just about the fancy couture, accessories and exhilarating makeup. It’s a subject matter involving the changing trends, styles and reflects upon the people, a standard social behavior. Like the current fashion trend is all about 90’s comeback plus casual and easy-wear. The most important feature to keep fashion in the roll is to stay updated and therefore, fashion photographers play an indispensable role here. From advertisements to fashion magazines, fashion photographer has the potential to topsy-turve the entire paradigm of fashion theme. Fashion images call on the talents of art directors, fashion designers, models and stylists as well photographers, and considerably influences public taste as well trends. Photographers are required to have a detailed and strong sense of design, fine attunement to the fashion ideal of the moment and ability to stage-direct the models.

Indeed, the editorial pages of fashion magazines are filled with essentially similar subjects on similar themes. Usually, this means women’s dresses and achieving a different look in each set of pictures are something of a perennial problem. Normally each set, which may be shot in one-to-two-hour sessions over a period of several days, has a definite theme.

Fortunately, this theme may be suggested by the dress collection, for instance, a particular color combination or a new type of material. If not, one must be invented. It may be purely graphic: a compositional style, an overall color arrangement or a motion-blur technique. Alternatively, the theme may be built around a setting or a collection of props.

Beauty Photography almost exclusively features women.

As the principal work done is that of the make-up artist and hairstylist, the photographic emphasis employs set-off techniques that enhance facial attractiveness. Lighting techniques which are designed, in portraiture, to flatter, are developed here to a high degree of sophistication. As the make-up can take some of the photographer’s duty to shape the face, the lighting used is heavily diffused to give the make-up artist more flexibility.

A typical lighting arrangement employs a broad frontal light with a strong shadow. This gives an evenly lit area for the application of make- up even as it conveys some degree of structural form through very soft shadows.