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Lighting for Fashion – Tricks of the Trade

I wanted to give you a “Behind the Scenes” look into creating one of my fashion images. I am going to cover: LIGHTING, GEAR, TIPS for ON-SET, and how to get the BEST IMAGES from your PHOTO SHOOT. My name is Jodi Jones. I am a fashion photographer based out of New York City. I have been working full-time as a fashion photographer for the past 12 years. My work has been published in numerous magazines worldwide including: Vogue, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitian, and Time Magazine. I have begun this year to start teaching the craft of photography to others. Along with my workshops on breaking into fashion photography, lighting, and the business of fashion photography, I have also created this blog I call “DIARY” and an exciting new section called “FREE EDUCATION” where I share with you all kinds of great techniques for creating a successful fashion photography business. Here I peel back the curtain and take you behind the scenes of many of my photo shoots. I will show you how I create an image, and how YOU CAN DO THE SAME.

The Shoot

Here is a recent photo shoot I created for a client. My client, Oriett Domenech is a very talented fashion designer from the Dominican Republic. I have worked with her for the past two seasons. Last season I worked with her in creating a lookbook for fashion buyers, images for her website, an advertising campaign, and a creative video for her runway show.

The images below were just shot of her latest collection: FALL/WINTER 2013. Since photography is the art, science, and practice of creating images by recording light, I will show you how I created the light for these images.

fashion images with broncolor lighting

Casting

A lot of beginning photographers assume that to get magazine quality images, you have to do a TON of POST PRODUCTION RETOUCHING. While this may sometimes be the case, it certainly does not always apply if you pay VERY close attention to the LIGHTING and all the little DETAILS on set. The first step always when organizing a fashion shoot is to choose the best model you can get for the job. For this reason, I like to be involved in the casting process. It’s important that the model take good care of her skin, hair and nails. All of these things will show up in the photographs. For the shoot I will discuss with you today, we cast model Anna Fuller, of Muse Models in New York.

The Team

Secondly, choose a very strong supporting team. For this particular shoot, the producer/stylist was Oscar Montes de Oca. Oscar and I have worked together many times, and what I especially respect about his work is that he understands that it is not the retouchers job to “fix” the clothes. A good stylist makes sure that the clothing looks as good as possible on set. Being a good fashion stylist is not just about putting an outfit together, it is much more than that. It is important that the stylist understands proper tailoring and can work their magic quickly on set to show off the garments to the best of their ability under a variety of lighting. I say this because many times, a moody side light can bring out details in a garment (good or bad) that we don’t quite notice with our eyes, but will show up on film. Also, I always expect the hair/makeup artist to be standing just off to the side of the backdrop “set” with a few essential tools watching the model pose. It is their job to make sure that when the model moves and the hair gets messed up, that they can step in and fix it quickly. No shoes on the backdrop though, socks only!

Here is a “before & after” example so you can see what one of my images looks like straight out of the camera before ANY post production:

Photoshop before and after

Concept

For this particular shoot, I discussed the concept with the fashion designer, Oriett Domenech beforehand and we both agreed that we wanted the model’s skin to be slightly desaturated, but any colors in the clothing needed to POP. We also chose the direction of having the model pose very strong as if she was a drill sergeant or captain. A very sexy captain indeed. I also liked the idea of having the backdrop be a bit gritty in contrast to the elegant, sleek clothing. One thing that was a must was that the clothing needed to be well lit to show all the details without being flat or boring. We still wanted some shadows.

fashion images with broncolor lighting

Lighting

For the lighting, I chose certain tools that I thought would best accomplish the look I was going for. I used a total of four lights to achieve this look. Remember, MORE LIGHTS DOESN’T MEAN BETTER LIGHTING! Many times I light a shoot with just one light. Every time you add another LIGHT, you also add another SHADOW.

Here is a “behind the scenes” shot of me doing a lighting test with my model, Anna. She is still in her street clothes for the lighting test. Adam Rodriguez, my talented videographer is shooting some behind the scenes video footage of the shoot. Shot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

behind the scenes of a fashion shoot

Here is a lighting diagram my awesome intern created for me:

lighting diagram for oriett domenech

Gear

CAMERA – When shooting for a client that has such amazing detailing and texture in her clothing, I couldn’t imagine shooting any other camera than medium format. A medium format camera with a digital back, and an 80mm lens. While the extraordinary detail in the garments may not translate here in these web images, seeing them in print and on my large iMac the quality is quite apparent.

LIGHTING – 2 Broncolor Scoro S 1600 Packs, 4 Unilite heads and a RFS Radio Slave.

The main “key light”: a Broncolor Unilite with a Para 88 light modifier was placed high above the model tilted down on her at roughly a 45 degree angle. I placed a silk difusser on the Para 88 to “soften” the light.

I placed a second light, my “fill light” also at a 45 degree angle to model. This second light is in what photographers sometimes call position 2 lighting, where the light is slightly lower than the first position light. I placed my fill light quite a bit lower, more at her chest level to fill in any hard shadows. This second light is lower in power to the main key light.

The 2 “Background/Side Lights” are Broncolor Unilites with Umbrellas. These were added to give a little more soft light on the background and also to slightly spill onto the model from either side to make her “pop” and give her seperation from the background. I think these extra lights give the photographs that extra punch.

I chose Broncolor lights for this shoot because I find they give me the best quality of light and I find them to be really simple to use. The assembly of the Para 88 lighting modifier is much quicker and easier to put together than most softboxes and this is the most diversified lighting tool I have ever used. I can focus or defocus the beam to get the exact hardness or softness I want with the light as well as how much spread of light I want.

fashion images with broncolor lighting

47 Essential Photography Tips for Beginners

Photography is a fun and fascinating process. It’s easier now than ever to get started too. Long gone are the days of needing portable darkrooms or waiting hours to take a single photograph. You can dive in and start snapping away at anything that piques your interest.
Since the technical barrier to photography has been drastically reduced, we have much more time to focus on how to take good pictures. We’ve compiled 47 photography tips for beginners that show quick ways to improve photography techniques without overcomplicating things.
There’s lots to take in as a new photographer, so we’ve also broken the list down into five categories. Jump to the sections you need the most help on below. With this in hand, browse our photography rentals to find gear that’ll help boost your skills.

Quick-fire Photography Tips

1 – Learn all the rules so you can break them later

Photography rules are essential because they provide a foundation for more advanced photography tips and tricks later on. Learn the rules first, so you have more creative control when breaking them later.

Learn as you go — don’t let it prevent you from picking up a camera.

2 – Expose and focus first, then frame your shot

An improperly exposed or blurry picture is unusable, but one not precisely framed may still be saved. For this reason, you should always focus on and properly expose for the subject before adjusting the frame.

This is something that happens more often when you have extreme lights and darks in the same scene.

3 – Focus on the eyes

We are always drawn towards the eyes in a photograph, since eyes are a natural focal point that we connect with.

When taking portrait photographs at any aperture, make sure you nail the focus on the eyes. As long as the eyes are in focus, both you and your subject are more likely to consider the picture to be properly shot.

We are always drawn towards the eyes in a photograph, since eyes are a natural focal point that we connect with.

4 – Make lots of mistakes, then learn from them

The more mistakes you make, the faster you’ll learn and improve your photography skills. All professional photographers once started without an understanding of anything on a camera.

The real value is in turning mistakes into lessons that build your skills. So try a technique or style you haven’t done before and expect to make many mistakes along the way.

The more mistakes you make, the faster you’ll learn and improve your photography skills. All professional photographers once started without an understanding of anything on a camera.

The real value is in turning mistakes into lessons that build your skills. So try a technique or style you haven’t done before and expect to make many mistakes along the way.

5 -Perfect the exposure trifecta

Getting proper exposure in photography consists of balancing three things: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings. You can start off by shooting in automatic or priority mode, but to get full control and shoot with manual camera controls you’ll have to understand the relationship between these three things that each directly affect the exposure and quality of your image.

6 – Always be ready

Be as prepared as a boy scout and always be ready to snap a shot. Most digital SLRs have nearly instantaneous startup times, and it takes almost no extra battery power to leave your camera on.

Keep your camera on one of the semi-auto or full automatic modes for unexpected pictures before your subject flies, drives, or runs away. You can always switch back to your preferred mode when you have time to adjust for a stationary subject. Sometimes you only have a split second to capture a great shot.

7 – se a wider aperture for portraits to make your subject pop

Aim for an aperture size around f/2.8 to f/5.6 to make the background behind your subject more blurred out. This will help remove distracting backgrounds and make your subject stand out. You can experiment with even wider apertures, but take care to keep your subject’s eyes in focus.

8 – Prevent blurry pictures by

matching shutter speed
to the lens focal length

For example, if you’re using a 50mm lens you should use shutter speeds of 1/50 sec or faster to be able to capture handheld images and keep them sharp. Longer lenses are heavier and more difficult to keep steady — making the shutter speed faster helps avoid camera shake.

9 – Straighten and crop when editing

You should try to straighten shots by looking through your camera’s viewfinder before capturing an image, but it’s not always easy to get this perfect on the first try.

The viewfinder or the preview on your LCD is quite small compared to full-screen editing so you may realize it needs adjusting once you see it on a bigger screen. Simply rotate your images in post production software and crop out the empty spaces.

You should try to straighten shots by looking through your camera’s viewfinder before capturing an image, but it’s not always easy to get this perfect on the first try.

10 – Avoid camera shake

Camera shake can render a photo unusable. Increasing your ISO and opening up your aperture allows for quicker shutter speeds, reducing the chance of blurry images. However, this is not always an option if you’re trying to maintain other specific qualities of your image.

Start by doing what you can to reduce camera movement, which begins with learning how to properly hold a camera.

11 – Keep both eyes open when looking through the rangefinder

This has a few advantages. When shooting portraits, your subjects will be able to ‘connect’ with you by seeing one of your eyes. Without this, many subjects can feel a little bit uneasy like you’re hiding behind the camera.

Secondly, keeping both eyes open lets you monitor what’s out of the frame so you can predict when your subject will enter the frame. This is important for capturing sports, animals, or any kind of action shots.

12 – Learn to use exposure compensation

Sometimes you’ll take photographs that don’t properly expose your subject—they are way too bright, or way too dark. This can be a combination of a few things: which areas of the scene your camera measured for exposure, and how different in brightness the light and dark areas are in your scene.

You can quickly fix these images by using the in-camera exposure compensation to make your subject look just right.

13 – Photograph what you love

Focusing on what you love will make photography more enjoyable for you. If you are passionate about nature, people, pets, or something else entirely, start learning by taking pictures of it.

This will keep you interested in photography and allow you to overcome learning obstacles without breaking a sweat.

14 – Make use of reflections

There are lots of unique opportunities if you pay attention where most people don’t. One of the things to look out for are reflections.

You can find them after (or even during) rainy days, in puddles, in lakes and even in swimming pools. Water isn’t the only source, try mirrors, big glass windows, and chromed out fixtures.

There are lots of unique opportunities if you pay attention where most people don’t. One of the things to look out for are reflections.

You can find them after (or even during) rainy days, in puddles, in lakes and even in swimming pools. Water isn’t the only source, try mirrors, big glass windows, and chromed out fixtures.

Tips for Common Types of Photos

15 – Utilize the photography “golden hour”

Lighting is paramount since it dictates the shape, texture, contrast, and shadows in your images. The golden hour is about a one-hour window briefly after sunrise or before sunset.

The longer shadows and especially the more diffused light during these periods provide much more flattering light. Since the light is diffused, you’re much less likely to ‘blow out’ highlights or lose detail in the shadows that are difficult to avoid during the strong light available during most of the day.

This golden hour tool calculates the golden hour for you based on your location.

16 – Get a low cost reflector to drastically increase your options

Having a reflector will let you better control light on your subject. You can even use foam core board at a craft store that’s black on one side and white on the other for less than five dollars.

Foldable fabric ones are also available at photography stores. The black side lets you block or reduce lights, while the white side can be used to fill in shadows. These two options give you much greater control with positioning and angles instead of being limited by the main light source. If there is too much contrast in your scene, use a reflector to fill the shadows on your subject. Adjust the reflector’s distance to your subject to control the intensity of the fill light.

Having a reflector will let you better control light on your subject. You can even use foam core board at a craft store that’s black on one side and white on the other for less than five dollars.

17 – How to photograph fireworks

Fireworks are an amazing sight—it’s definitely one that captures well on camera too. Be prepared and set up ahead of time to increase your chances for great results.

18 – Portrait photography tips

If you’re just starting out, chances are you don’t have a studio or fancy lighting equipment.

Your best bet is to use window light. Turn off all the lights in the room and move near a window with some curtains so you can play around with diffusing the light.

Turning off all the lights includes the pop-up flash on your camera too. Make sure you focus on the eyes, make your subjects feel comfortable, and give it a shot!

19 – Pet photography tips

Pets are full of personality, and capturing that on camera can require different techniques depending on the individual pet. Dogs especially tend to reflect your emotions, so act accordingly depending on the photo you want.

Some pets can be very active too, so a short telephoto lenscan help if you’re backed up against a wall. Shoot in shutter priority mode and hover around 1/125 sec to 1/500 sec depending on the pet. Lastly, similar to human subjects keep focus on the eyes sharp.

20 – Landscape photography tips

Landscape photos usually capture vast spaces. The most common you’ll see is landscape photos in nature, but this applies to cityscapes too.

These images can trigger powerful responses with the stories they tell or the scenes they portray. But first you want to make sure you’re ready with proper gear and technique.

21 – Party photography tips

You can have fun at parties and get great images without futzing with your camera all night. Most parties will be indoors or in darker settings. Choose a wide zoom lens, with the widest range being about 24mm for photos in rooms with limited space and for group pictures too.

Avoid using the built-in flash since it creates unflattering images. Opt for an external flash or a mounted one you can direct to bounce off ceilings or walls.

22 – How to paint with light

Drawing or painting with light in photography is really fun and interactive, so it’s easy to get other people to join in on this too.

People are usually receptive to it because it’s very relatable to drawing. You can get pretty creative with this too, depending on how many people are drawing, and your source of light.

Photography Equipment Tips

23 – Start off by purchasing a digital SLR with a “cropped” sensor

Entry level and prosumer level digital SLRs typically have a smaller sensor than “full frame” cameras. These allow the cameras to be smaller, lighter, and more affordable.

The tradeoff is usually quality and low light performance and it will affect focal length of lenses you choose for specific photographs. It is relatively difficult to tell the difference in quality, so when it comes to the price savings, a smaller sensor is a great choice for folks just starting out.

24 – Use a prime lens for better creativity

A prime, or fixed lens does a few things to help your photos. Not having zoom will force you to get up and move around, increasing the likelihood that you’ll find a new or creative perspective.

Using a prime lens also makes you consider your framing more since you’ll be forced into situations where there will be obvious things you want to include or remove from the frame. Finally, fixed lenses are usually faster and aren’t confined to aperture limitations at various focal lengths.

25 – Don’t try to clean the

inside of your camera

This includes not blowing inside the camera too. Unless you absolutely know what you’re doing, both the sensor and the mirror can be very difficult to clean and it’s more likely you will make it worse than fix whatever is wrong.

Leave it alone and take your camera to a local Borrowlenses for cleaning.

26 – Push your gear to its limits before buying more

As a new photographer, you simply won’t need a lot of gear since you’ll have lots of learning to do before your skills surpass the capabilities of the kit lens.

It’s easy to get sucked into buying fancy new gadgets, but take time to push your current gear to the limit so you’ll be better informed of needs later, and prevent frivolous spending at the same time. You’ll discover that having gear restrictions can improve creativity in various areas too.

27 – Memory cards: size matters

It may be tempting to choose one of the largest memory cards you can afford, but consider getting multiple smaller memory cards instead.

Although digital storage is relatively stable, there is still a chance your data could corrupt. If you have a very large memory card and plan to keep using it until you run out of space, your chances of losing all of your photographs are much higher than if you switched out with smaller cards in between sessions.

28 – Don’t fall into the megapixel trap

More megapixels listed on a digital camera is not a clear sign of better quality, and manufacturers are beginning to drop out of this megapixel race to put the focus back on quality.

Do megapixels matter though? They matter up to a point if you’re looking to make large prints, banners, or posters, but investigate picture quality before buying, instead of relying heavily on the pixel count.

As an extreme example, it’s highly unlikely a 8-megapixel camera phone could produce results as good as a 8-megapixel digital SLR produced in the same year, simply because the phone’s camera will be limited in quality due to its size.

29 – Get a filter to protect each

lens from scratches

Even if you keep your lens cap on during storage, it’s not practical to keep removing and replacing the cap during shoots. Putting a clear or UV camera lens filter on each lens you have is a great way to help avoid lens damage and is worth the investment compared to repairing or replacing scratched lenses.

Sometimes these filters can cause flares on your images though, so pay attention. You may have to remove the filter for some photographs.

Photography Composition Tips

30 – Use the “Rule Of Thirds” for balanced photos

While framing a shot, visually break it down into a grid of nine equal rectangles and place your subject on one of the four intersections for a natural look.

The rule of thirds in photography is not a hard and fast rule, but a good guideline to follow instead of just placing your subject dead center by default.

31 – Change up your perspective for better results

Most of us see everything from about five and a half feet from the ground, and if your photography is only done at eye level, things can look boring. Experiment with different angles to discover new perspectives.

Get on a chair or crouch down—anything to get above or below your subject to find an interesting perspective. If you practice this often, you’ll be more prepared to see the world and subjects in a new way and capture more interesting images.

32 – Practice selective framing

for more impact

Determine what your subject is and be selective about what else is in the frame.

Whether you’re trying to capture a picture of a friend, a sunset, an action scene, an event, or a specific mood, place your emphasis on that and consider how you can add or remove what’s in the frame to best tell the story.

23 – Start off by purchasing a digital SLR with a “cropped” sensor

Entry level and prosumer level digital SLRs typically have a smaller sensor than “full frame” cameras. These allow the cameras to be smaller, lighter, and more affordable.

24 – Use a prime lens for better creativity

A prime, or fixed lens does a few things to help your photos. Not having zoom will force you to get up and move around, increasing the likelihood that you’ll find a new or creative perspective.

25 – Don’t try to clean the