Shooting Fashion (Again)

Asia - Fashion Editorial Shoot
Originally uploaded by Ame Otoko

A little known fact about me is that when I was in college, one of my dreams was shooting fashion in New York. Looking back, I have no idea how I came up with this idea and how I intended to make it happen. I did, however, work at a portrait studio part time and shot for a high school yearbook photography studio after that, so I had access to the equipment I needed and put together a modest portfolio that was never going to get me to New York.

Fast-forward to today and I have realized that if there is money to be made in the portraiture business, you must also gain an edge in your presentation. And no style of photography is quite as edgy as fashion.

To me, fashion is about wardrobe, styling and location all coming together to create a theme. The best fashion photographers know instinctively what a model should wear, how a model should be made up and what location to shoot in. A mistake can be as tragic as wearing a polka dot tie with a striped suit.

Recently, I shot my first fashion shoot in, well, let’s just say a very long time. The model is a friend, so she was easy-going and generally went along with whatever I wanted to do. I had her pick wardrobe and she selected a very elegant gray dress.

I selected a location that would work with the elegant, classic style of the dress. At our local college, I found a couple of newer buildings which combine a modern architecture style while embracing the historic style of the rest of the college which was built in the late 1960’s. I picked specific locations with a lot of glass, concrete and steel, which I felt complimented the wardrobe style.

Finally, once I got the images home, I chose treatments that were cool (as in blue hued) with muted tones, that gave the pictures an even more retro-modern feel. A couple of the close-up images I decided to do in B&W as I felt the dress had a classic style that would work well in B&W.

Being able to shoot fashion is another tool a photographer can use to add to the style of images he/she can deliver to a client. As I found out, it takes practice and experimentation to come up with great fashion images, but in the end, it was a lot of fun and I’d like to be able to do more in the future.

Here are a few of the other images we captured on that day.

Weekend Challenge: Macro Photography

The “real” end of Winter is finally coming. After what seemed like an endless month of rain, we finally had some reprieve and although we didn’t really have sunshine, a break from the rain was welcome.

So much rain made for some interesting growth in our yard, but not just on the big scale of flowers and grass, but a small scale. I found a little cluster of mushrooms and decided I would take the Macro photography challenge, 10 macro photos shot around our yard.

Fortunately or unfortunately, my kids decided they wanted to have some play time with Dad, so I put down my camera before I got all 10 shots. A man needs his priorities! Here are the five shots I was able to capture:

Lunch Hour Challenge: 50mm

Today I took my first lunch hour challenge. The rules are simple: at least 10 interesting photos around a theme, style or piece of equipment, all taken during my lunch hour.

This week’s challenge was centered around a piece of equipment, my trusty 50mm f/1.8. I’ve had this lens since I started shooting on the Nikon 8008 almost twenty years ago and it’s the only lens I have used on every camera I have owned. So it absolutely makes sense to start my challenge off with this, my favorite lens of all times and one of the sharpest Nikon has ever made. So here are my 10 shots from this Lunch Hour Challenge.