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Integrating Fashion Elements

Lesson 3 from: Fashion Flair for Photographers

Lindsay Adler

Integrating Fashion Elements

Lesson 3 from: Fashion Flair for Photographers

Lindsay Adler

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Lesson Info

3. Integrating Fashion Elements

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Lesson Info

Integrating Fashion Elements

Integrating the element of fashion, which are very so here's where I'm breaking down the elements, the location, the concepts of hair and makeup and where you might put together these shoots so thie key they won't remember again. Please don't be freaked out and think that it's a big production my new media class on wednesday, one of the biggest things people said is this feels overwhelming there's so much to dio you don't need to do everything and you can take it piece by piece and pick and choose what works for you, it's the same thing here I'm just trying to provide you as much information as I possibly can give you make it worth your time. So concept, one of the biggest things that you look at most portrait shoots, you guys see that portrait, shoot the engagement shoot with zombie zombie couple to search zombie engagement on, and so it has like this couple there it's a very it's, a very typical, you know, engagement session, they're having a picnic in the park, you know, you see tha...

t all the time, right? And all of a sudden there's a zombie in the background, I'm coming to get them and they kill the zombie it went viral and people love it because there's an idea well, first, well, you like zombies, whatever zombie walking new york if you guys see this did you see this zombie walk in new york if they have a day where everybody just look like a zombie and they jump on top of the taxis so the poor people in there that have no idea are attacked with zombies from all angles I think it's awesome that videos are incredible and then outside the apple store's like hitting on the windows and everyone in the apple stores or freaked out but the reason people like that shoes it's quirky but it has concept behind and that's what people love so the engagement shoe I shot appreciate which you'll all be able to see tomorrow it'll be aired and my pre shoot was an engagement shoe and a sister shoot and there's a concept and that's why I think it's successful there's some story and you feel connected to it and you anticipating the next image and you wanted to come together neatly here the concept was this is a fashion image I did on the left and my client loved it and said I want to do my own version of it so this was a high school senior I'm over here on the right now clearly you can tell which is the fashion images and which ones not but she loves that photo and then if you guys sell prince how you people yourself friends no prints every client I think it's really strange personally when people get really close of headshots two foot by three foot to put on their wall of just the close up of their heads it's really strange is like this giant head on their wall um it's different if it's an engagement shot or if it's like a scenic or something but this is okay for me and I think it's much easier to pitch giants you know huge photos of a closer with someone's faith when it's pop art or when there's a concept behind it so she got that is a two foot by three foot print standard getting couple one went in her college bedroom um and then another that the mom kept at home so that's what I'm thinking let's create a piece of art that I'm selling versus a close up of your face um that is there something like on her I would okay so the question was is there makeup on her? I basically what it is uh I'm going to show you how to do this lighting that's one of the things we'll do over here today uh it is totally photo shot fake skin it's I mean it's smoothed out in portraiture and I pulled the reds and yellows out of the skin or I put a black and white layer and it's just something she says the sunglasses on so it's just kind of shadows around the eyes and so I use that all the time and then I sometimes if it's gonna be huge print I'll show the client here's your options there's one where I had more skin tone to it one where it was less photoshopped but she wanted it to be like, really more abstract and not look anything like she looks in normal life uh okay going with the concept so an engagement shoe I talked to the client the the, uh the groom to be said something about how shoes are the most important thing in her life and then he's number two, so can I include the shot of the shoes and then it's engagement session? So what can I include something with love in the background? Uh, what? They ended up using this for wass it was a engagement announcement and so had this shot in the front and when you opened it up I had a shot of their faces in the inside. And so I'm telling a story so you see that shot you want to see more is that the couple did you add at them and photoshopping? I didn't get that question a lot and a couple in the background was just some other couple I actually ended up picking that shot because I liked it so I felt like it was there was more love in the photo shoot if when you guys seem issue actually and we try to keep it under control this workshop I shoot a lot robinson issue she knows I like to shoot a lot of photos but then I captured that moment I had like fifty other frames didn't have them that had that one friend that they were in so yeah, I see no problem in shooting a lot just gives you more to edit through uh storytelling is really important for me and I'm missing a breakdown if you want to be uh if you want to make more money from photography telling stories helps you do that okay, so here's an example how um when you do a family session you do tell a story you have one shot of each child and then the family shot together and then shots of them interacting and you're telling a story or when you do the engagement session you then sell it as an album because it's telling a story or a wild cluster because you need all of those images tell the story otherwise I might just have an image of the two of them together or when I'm doing I'm just so many different things the more storytelling I have it could be hours it could be clusters it could be slide shows online there's just more than I could push because you need all the pieces to tell the story and then it's more interesting when I say tell this story, it doesn't have to be super profound thing it's, insanely profound. Uh, for this there is a farm girl who doesn't like to do her chores, and she goes and reads in the hayloft. I really think there's a little bit more something to it there than than a traditional portrait. I personally like to push it more and try to do really fun stories. So again, we see the engagement shoot that I shot, um, this week, you'll see a lot more storytelling, too. It was obviously a bigger productions and just saying, okay, posing in the barn and then go climb in the hay true story, though she had take from doing that. So you sorry. Be careful, huh? Yeah. I have other stories about torturing that poor girl. Uh, no. Another time we'll get you'll see the profits. The same girl. This this girl, sara, she started off as a client. Uh, and so I photographed her several times, is a client. We've had so much fun, and whenever I have an idea and pitch it to her, and so I could build my portfolio that way, so you find someone you connect with, and they're all about it, they're on the same creative pages, you I'm not saying shoot for free but sometimes there are reasons to shoot for free when you have a concept you want to communicate, show the people the type of work you'd like to dio sometimes you need to shoot that otherwise if I only shot things that paid me uh in the beginning I have pictures of tile because I shot tile to paying me it paid fifty to seventy five dollars an hour for macro shots of tile so uh shot lots of things for free in the beginning eso for this ah high school portrait session we came up with the idea of doing a runaway. What happened was she said to me I want a picture shot on the train tracks how did people shot a picture on the train tracks how people see pictures on train checks every day okay, um I'm not saying it like if people are paying you you're getting paid good money and they like picture on the train tracks shoot it absolutely. But I was being supportive who's like eight hundred picture on the train tracks because I lived in um we go new york and we have a lot of train tracks around there so it just easing it's cool and it looks like album covers I just want to do something different so I said, okay, well, what else do you think about what train tracks run away so I decided to tell the story of a runaway it's of course you get kind of the headshot um that I have her kind of running down the tracks I picked we picked out clothing I'll talk more about where you find clothing but we picked out clothing that look tatter like maybe a runaway would wear but still stylish on we had hair and makeup on set I have to make use of that amazing here you have to make use of that uh including elements of the scene having her looking who's following me I'm running away it's again not necessarily a profound story but for me it was something more than having your sitting black and white with the grunge texture in jeans and a t shirt on the railroad tracks could I tell a story could have more posing you know address from h and n tattered clothing that tells the story on just like interesting compositions trying to involve some type of movement um side note about this one it was such a hot day that the train tracks were so hot it was melting her shoes I went to standing on it see this is nothing's ever like goes smooth totally you gotta work with they have uh but for me I think these pictures a little bit more interesting and then it was able to sell it way had the close up shots that she would use for the wall, but then we were able to sell it as a story and then even even if I didn't sell anything if it put it online, it was part of a story that got the community excited or thought they were really interesting in different at least maybe would draw attention to my name and then get me additional business from that, uh, comments names the ones that are just really, really easy to sell for me are pinup in nineteen fifties esso I actually I'm doing a couple pin up nineteen fifty shoots during this week because it is so common it's not really a hard reach for people that I love to dress up nineteen fifties or do something vintage so that was a very, very common thing. For example, this shoot was done of cassie photographed your wedding uh, this shoot was done pre wedding and so we paid thirty dollars to rent the car. We basically covering the guy's gas I've reached out to a local car collectors club uh, it was online and it's a haste who will come? We'll park it in a field and then she got a little white kind of rail monroe dress in a bird cage bail and we just shot there and then these images went on the gift table and they went in the guest book and so it's storytelling and then she had these in her album as well so that's how I'm approaching it princess guys just love to look tough and rocks sir and whatever so they love harsh lighting with like leather cool props and so we're going to do a couple examples of that is well, all right, so the next thing after concepts for me is cool occasions if you can have a cool location sometimes that cool location can actually just make a cool image period uh, so whether it's it's just leaving the studio and trying to get a graphic location I had a competition on my block was pre workshop competition, we're encouraged everybody to submit an image that they would take new off a really graphic location on dso there's two shots absolutely love that I'll be announcing them tomorrow that people shot where they incorporated a cool graphic location so I will do that a lot or other times the location means something to the individual and so that's the other way to bring it in, you know, how can you relate this back to the person? Uh, so this girl and again, I will tell you in this presentation, um, I should fashion photography and I'm not saying every single one of these images is the best image and is going to win any prizes but it's all about being different and then giving the client what something that excites them and something that they'll talk about be proud of so this girl's family worked in in the robert industry and it's clean and it's graphic and the same thing she got a huge print of it it's not that close up two by three of her face it's a graphic kind of a graphic clean, almost even little abstract version of a portrait uh the two of them they said they ended up they're talking about their grandpa and how both of them and raised as farmers and how that you know their morals and everything we're related you know they're talking about stories and it came up farming and whatnot so this was her grandpa's tractor son of fashion image but it's a location that's a little bit more value to them um or just having a cool location that tells a story this is actually my uncle's junker car that's out in front of the barn for years and his wife would always complain like about you know, because trump cars in your yard doesn't look too classy uh so she was always yelling at hand so happen is able to actually put a shoot together and implement that so sometimes the location just it makes it much more interesting photograph uh when you're looking for locations my tips for you uh first of all, one thing that is really helpful is if the environment is interactive, so if you're standing somebody in front of a background like there's a cool background it's really hard of hand well, I didn't stand up and move for the screen. It's really hard if you stay like, okay, let's say this is a cool background. You bring the person out there and they're not a model, okay? Um, they're not using their picture taken. You're trying to pose them it's like, you know, like you're trying to pose it's uncomfortable, but as soon as you can give something, someone like that car, the girl was leaning on the car or stairs or a wall, something that you can give them to tangibly touch it's instantly, much more comfortable than just standing out in front of something and trying to pose so here, you know, she's leaning against the wall. Another reason I like this shot as well is because she's framed, uh likely, most of you, I mean, some of you may have, but likely most of you didn't start his portrait photographers, you probably did a little landscape or travel or something like that. You learn all these rules, leading lines frame within a frame, and then you go to porter photography and you drop all of it. And you just take head shots. So for me, if I can incorporate those things I learned originally that made good, strong images, like leading lines and frames and rule of thirds and all of those things it makes for better portrait. So if you have strong compositional elements, you know, here have him framing. I'm peeking through something so fields voyeuristic. A lot of times importance. People forget maybe want to have a foreground middle ground in background. We learned that with landscaping, travel, photography and then and then drop it when it comes to portrait photography or in this image, this girl super sweet, very beautiful, which is at that age where she's a teenager and she's her body's bigger than who she is. She's. A little a little uncomfortable. When I stood her there should long arms long legs, which is a little girl. She's, actually thirteen. Um and so she's posing and just not quite comfortable, but it seems like at least her down give her something to anchor on. So just trying to pose her in front of a tree. If you lean against it, we're sitting in it. Then it makes it much easier on her, um, so look for things people can interact with, uh, four locations. Scout locations what I did when I was in upstate new york as I had five locations that I regularly shot but then I also had kind of arsenal of another ten and I just had the shots and so it send it off to my clients. What do you think about this? Send them a shot of this? Do you like doing these locations? Speak to you. Um I've rented embargoed for location so there was a really, really cool indian restaurant that I liked and I said, hey, I'll give you some shots of your interior if you let me do a portrait session before hank's had a waterfall and it had, you know, cool tiled walls, you can easily do that there's um, chains don't work, but boutique hotels, um and boutique restaurants, you could definitely borrow on barter for locations as well. And then again, I said I asked my clients if I can ask my clients if they have any ideas, they know anybody, um if they've ever been to an equal locations, then it helps me out and I don't have to come up with all the ideas myself. Uh, so for me again, like composition leading lines up to her makes for an interesting location, okay, what's, the key to this photo, it was faked leading lines uh, it was actually just on the right hand side, and I'm married and copied it up because I wanted it to lead to her, so I will be talking much more about how photo shopped for me could be an important role in my photography doesn't mean I'm not a good photographer. It was a good photo without it, but yes. So do you prefer to shoot on location rather than in studio? Um okay, so I see people in new york city. I'm a studio photographer in the winter and a location photographer in the summer. So, uh, no, a lot of times I personally feel with non models, I shoot models in the studio all the time with non models. I feel that people feel more comfortable when it's not late flashlight, flash and it's in front of a sterile background. It's that same idea, the sterility was standing in front of something, so if I can shoot on location, I just feel like people relax, they mellow out and they start to take on the aspect of their environment. So if you're cool, grungy environment guy starts to feel, you know, much more comfortable or friend, something elegant and soft versus just in front of the background, so both, okay? Uh shooting on a location this girl is an artist and this was a spray paint room at a college apparently a lot of colleges have these because you're required to have them because of the ventilation um so check that out they might be there and so we had her find a matching dress so again location this picture is about the location and it could make for a cool image on its own uh speaking this was in my arsenal of those locations that I could shoot over and over again with clients you wanna repeat too much but it's it's cool it's leading lines to narrow alleyway the same shot of that little girl in the beginning all right so style izing um I as a fashion photographer have learned a lot more about style izing because I've been around word of silas and what not and I look at a lot of visuals uh but the key here is you don't need to be super stylish and like you know like jennifer like she knows what she's doing she can sell stuff like nobody's business but uh I didn't and so the key was just making sure that it wasn't the skin tight zebra print shirt that they showed up and like just talking them through something a little more so let's talk about clothing accessories real quick um so in the beginning I'm going to confess it did a whole lot of my return there it is out there on I would also talk to my clients and just ask them, you know, send me an iphone photo of any cool outfits or something like that I would also work with local vintage stores so I would come up with either sometimes vintage stores will allow you to rent the pieces for ten percent of the value that's very common at least in new york, so if there's a cool piece that you want or some places like when I was in syracuse would just let me borrow it, I had to leave an imprint of my credit card in case I didn't return it, but I could just borrow the clothing same thing I've borrowed from bridal salons and prom stores and so they just have a credit card if I ruin things, so I borrowed from there if you have a college near you that has a fashion design major I called up when I was a syracuse university, I called up the head of the program did you have any students have pieces that would like you'd like to have photographed um and so I was able to work with hun's of cool stuff it's avant garde some of them could make head pieces or they're excited to have professional photography photos of their images so I wouldn't tell some of them ideas and they would make me things to this day I still do that regularly um I reached out on etsy dot com um and at sea is a website for people who make stuff I mean like that's that's everything you can find anything and everything on the people who make things um and I have actually reached out and I from a message in the bottle I found something that did kind of craftsy stuff that felt kind of ocean like and I reached out and said, hey, this is a shoot I'm doing would you like to make me something and I'll give you images and they did it totally free so then they have professional images and something else they could put up to say hey, if you want me to make this I can sew some piece of advice I would give all of you is to remember the value of your images uh photography has value and so if there's somebody who needs good photography consider bartering or letting them know like hey, if I borrow that like, you know there's this hat and it's on a mannequin head hey, if I if I photographed that hat, I'll give you images that you can use as well, so keep that in mind um so for example, this little girl photographed her we had three different sets of three different scenes that we did uh and I could photograph her in the park, you know, maybe in a little white dress, which I did later, um, or, you know, a lot of kids show up kind of jeans and a pink cute little t shirt, but we wanted to tell a story, and so we're talking about feeling more sophisticated. And so I said, go look up burberry at's uh, and by clothing that looks like that so that it's actually not unusual choir the clothing, just giving them a direction. Um, I was thinking, hey, park what looks sophisticated and so she spent thirty dollars, in the outfit, but it makes it look that much better oven image then the little jeans with a little pink t shirt, which he had brought it was one of the outfits you brought for me to choose from, um, so you can put it on your clients as well. Uh, this girl's an artist I said describe your art she's, so use patterns and colors go find clothes that have patterns and colors to it. I borrow this dress from a bridal store and because prom bridal shop, so just keep all these things in mind. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, it doesn't always have to be you acquiring these things as well the next part of styling is hair and makeup um I am not a hair cells make up artist and so all I can do is just find photos that I like uh for me it's about finding that creative team are finding someone you trust so if you want to do hair and make up kind of a side note is I do feel a lot of time with women just doing the hair and makeup or putting false lashes on give somebody a lot of confidence for that photo shoot and so they will trust you more to do poses that they might not have wanted to dio or put on clothes that they might not have felt comfortable in, so even if you don't okay, I don't want to do crazy hair and makeup even just knowing that they can have that makeup on I think makes people feel a lot more confident feel better in their own skin so time back to that um I think it's all about building your creative team and finding that hair cells make up bars you can rely on. So what I did for my portrait studio in upstate new york is there was a salon around the corner and I went and talked to them and I said, is there anybody here who would like to do kind of cool fashion shoots with me? What I pitched them is by the way I'll be having my clients coming to your salon do their hair and makeup done so I'm bringing potential new clients to you that you wouldn't have had before so I'm actually potentially bringing you business not only that will give you images so when you have a client sitting there bored you could say oh hey by the way check out these images I did last week don't you love the hair and makeup so it's showing you as an artist instead of you know just the person that cuts the harry is showing that it's your passion um and how it can be translated into our so I worked with hair cells make up artist that um worked around the corner and I ended up bartering and our bargaining so I would say okay for ten clients that I bring you what kind of discount and it was built right into my fees so you could do something like that um I found hair cells make up artist off of model ma'am that's the fashion team that I work with now I mean we shoot for big fashion magazines I originally found those the hair cells make up artist that I worked with on model mayhem because they were just like me building their careers and so they weren't there yet but they wanted to shoot they wanted to get out there um and so mama him is a social network for photographers make up artists, hairstylists, models um everything and so if you put up a portfolio out there you find somebody that you like and you pitch them your ideas and you work together uh so my recommendation is to bring inspiration because unless you're gonna hair makeup when I say I want you know you don't mean that kind of what I do I kind of just you know, aside and with the curl so if you could bring a picture I know that makes it a lot easier on them and so for the chutes that we're doing today I brought a photo I brought pictures of the hair and makeup I brought a couple different hair options because sometimes the hair won't work if the person terrorist too short words to find so keep that in mind uh this is that little girl again and for that day we picked three theme shoots, so for this shoot we kind of went with like, little girl james dean kind of style and so the mom we discuss the concert beforehand so I said, okay, we want gene or leather jacket something something with gene and leather jacket and then I had hair style is there um, from model mayhem? And she was I didn't know what I wanted, but she was able to look at the girl and come up with an idea and so when you work with professionals that no other doing, they can help take the creativity to the next step because again I'm not a hair cells make up artist it's not my specialty. Um these were a couple of things that I did in college when I was just first starting so you know, this was a friend and that was my college roommate um and so I was making the hair and makeup say something these aerial butterfly wings that I got off the web site called butterfly utopia and there you point is you can find anything you want online anything and everything uh and so we had actually like really dead butterflies and face whatever I get people to trust me it's okay onda geun styling so real orchids put in her hair I worked with somebody who would know how to do that. And first is me trying to just kind of stick it in her hair so you work with the creative team and makes your image is better next thing uh, props you could do an entire shoot solely based around props on dh that's something that I would do a lot of times. So in this instance I have these same point glasses and guess what? I have them here so we can give that a try I actually went to deviant art it's, a social network for artists so it has prop makers and illustrators and photographers and I found this guy leaves him drop powell and he makes steampunk stuff uh and so I reached out to him and borrowed the glasses and this was like four years ago and so I reached out to him for this workshop and he let me borrow him again uh but for me the entire problem looked at himself well that's great and I could convey this is what this guy's face really does um you can actually do that with this face and so it all kind of brings it together it's kind of wacky inventor scientists look so your props could be conceptual they could just be plain old cool looking or they could say something about the personality that's again bringing in the values and the storytelling behind those individuals. Um this is that girl that I said I tortured before um okay story behind this prop if you seen this presentation you know this story um I got these uh, bird feathers on ebay it's one of those things that's constantly selling two dollars, ninety nine cents it's turkey wing I order it we've already talked about the shoot she shows up, pull it out go to put her hair in this still had dead animal on it, you know? And so I looked at it and I'm like well and she's like to scrape it off e I thought that was pretty cool. Curl. That was up for that. Um, so I guess the point of that is check your props out before you shoot. Uh, but for me, props, I borrowed a prop from antique shops. And so I've convinced antique shots, so lend me things. And so I would just say, you leave my credit card. May I borrow that? You could also do a rental. Um, for the one shoot that I did of the girl with the frames that was all rented, borrowed, actually, from an antique shop. So I will source from their craigslist ebay, etsy, asking your client again if you find one cool property into your whole shoot around it. I think you saw song, the shot that I did of the octopus. I actually love it. Things. I actually had to go online and have it flown in from boston. Octopus? Yes, I could not find one because an awesome shot. Yeah, look up herself. Insisted. I mean, the whole siri's of image is one of my models were wearing an active yeah, and I actually had that flown in on dry ice. Was it a live? No, it was it was dead, but, um, but that just to find that problem is that I went to all the seafood stores and lots of it I could not find one big enough so I call this guy and he goes okay so how many people you feeding and I'm like uh no I don't need an active yeah so anyway that's just my story on props I absolutely and I'm in the shots there really cool and so even I mean you know depending on what type of work you do even if you if you have a shot where somebody posed with like and octopus on them even if it wasn't a pain shoot it gets people say holy crap that's awesome you know I could do something cool what what could I possibly do with this photographer I love the shots is really cool um there's not to underplay but there's also a famous shot by her brit is that had a guy with a show you know and with the infamous on his head and it looked like dreads so cool so cool uh so finding props you know paris all for little kids like props because it keeps them entertain it's not like focus on the camera could catch them in the moment so even just a parasol for this little girl on then there's an example so this is what I'm talking about before instead of her with a jersey and the best well under arm this was a professional female athlete and how I would shoot her fashion flair versus just her portrait. And so, obviously the proper has meaning here. Yes, on the temple was in black and white like that. Yes. Yeah, it was it not the fall that they usually use. Actually, in the wnba, it was like another ball. They brought a probable uh, you want to match? I was bought online on actual saw one in vegas, a swarovski crystal covered basketball. The whole thing was covered in I was like, that's awesome. I want one because I photograph enough basketball players that it was twenty five hundred dollars. So I did not by anne and I have not heard it yet, but maybe they'll lend it to me. Uh, let me give you a couple posing tips for opposing I still think that traditional posing is very valid. I know that family had a class here imposing. There is a lot there, you know, whether it's, how you're turning your body or where your energy is in your pose. He still needs to know that, but I feel like people get kind of caught up. So a lot of times I'll bring inspiration onset of posing. So what I actually will dio is like, for example, when I have the wnba flare in my studio, I'll have, um my, I'm back up with a bunch of different poses that we can work with and either just to set the mood so she knows, okay, what we're gonna do this one and it's a little more sensual, so she can't you can kind of feel it by looking at it or this one, which is much more aggressive, and I can't okay see how the shoulders lowered and I don't shoot that exact pose. It's just a starting place for me from particularly for me, for cup, for my portrait, uh, kind of engagement clients. When we go on location, I'll bring inspiration, even if it's eight and a half she's by eleven just so good if I'm feeling kind of stuck, I always have someplace to go with it. Uh, so I can say, okay, so, you know, thinking like that suppose didn't work let's move on to this one. Um, I actually created opposing app if you search online it's pop photo poses and lindsay adler for engagement couples and have a whole bunch of them coming out, but I just I mean, I actually use my own app, I created it and that sincerely I created for myself. Because when I'm on, when you're in location, there's pressure, you could slip to it, but also show my clients. And even if you just create your own, I'll show my clients I could get the ideas of the type of poses they like. So, like all the ones that are kissing and other, like lots of kissing poses and maybe, you know, okay, we won't want to sit on the floor or something like that. So I just always have candid conversations with my client's. Lindsay? Yes, I have a question about posing when I work with non models and I tried to get them to do maybe any unusual pose. They'll have the post, but their faces like like this and it's looking all crazy in the face. What do you what do you say to the model like? Okay, let's not. Look, you know, they've got the pot's, right, but it's, all types of other stumble a lot of times for the face would say if they have the pose. One of the first things that you may make sure is. Okay, relax your forehead. Relax your job, that's. One of the first things that people are always like. You're going down in the john like punching their forehead so if it's still not looking right once the forehead and the jaw is unclench I do what people kind of look call it, um kind of like staging or directing in the sense that I'll say okay imagine x y z, your body looks great that's one ofthe okay, now for your face I want you to imagine whatever some people out of work I was like, some people have their faces just gonna be like, okay, let so, um, it's reality it's just part of how it is uh, but a lot of times I am able to direct and that's also why I shoot a lot because it might be that slate second between the have the natural face and look kinda half second later uh that's why I also shoot a lot more with that, but yeah, I'll direct them and give them my dear I find rubbing the third eye helps you literally go up and I start massaging right here helps their forehead for that it's just I have be sure to have broken the touch barrier before that. Don't let that be the first time he's like touch that really weird, but something for my models in the beginning, like right away I'll make a point of touching them, I'll say do you mind if I so we broke the touch barrier so the first time I've come to fix something it's not like this is a new person who's never touched me before, so I make a point in the beginning to have physical contact unnecessary extra physical contact but just so that you know they're they're comfortable they know that we we can't interact in that way um couple poses tips for posing for fashion I mean, I look at a lot of magazines but for example, this was a boudoir shoot we did ones where the shots were more on, you know, sexuality and and on her body but this is more of like fashion, like I'm you know I'm reclining and come save me or kiss me or whatever uh, you could make up the story behind it, but really I'm avoiding from me what happens let's see you do senior portrait uh if I'm doing what happened, you get a girl dressed up and she looks really hot and then senior portrait and she's posing and she poses really sexy mom doesn't like that. Uh, so we really have to analyze the photographer when you look at the shot, what you looking at me looking at her chester here but you need to repose uh, unless you're doing glamour and that's fine, but if you're doing high school senior portrait or young women or that was not the point it just tends to be you dress somebody up and they just kind of go a little two sexy anyway have to kind of really back in so take a look at your image and say where does my I go and just be honest about it uh I personally give people direction all the time because I figure if they see me looking like a fool and like I'm like posing out there with you and that they feel like a little more coffee all right so she's putting herself out there she's posing out here it's not just me feeling uncomfortable so I'm imposing all the time but I know it's hoping yesterday our wednesday was talking about how he's always posing for the women and they love it and they feel like okay he's you know he's making a fool out of himself I can do it to um and and he looks kind of good like that maybe I'll look even better you see, I thought that was really cute. Um give me your client something interact with we talked about that s o the picture up there for this guy you know I could have leaning against the wall or sitting on the stairs uh I find my tip for posing men is how many people have found that men love shots of them jumping yeah see exactly she looked really confused it's so true like so I found for me that if I can get guys jumping or like moving they love it right? They just think they look super cool uh so for this shot over here I could talk to the client and he said that his favorite movie um was fight club and he wanted to a fight club shoot and so I was like, okay, I left my cook teo cool uh but I could only think of like drug addicts and like like black eyes and blood get to frantic yes. Oh, I could do was schizophrenics you lick it I have ideas already on and so I had all these, you know, trying to figure it out so we ended up doing is I had him post that he looked like he was being punched and we sprayed what bottled water in there and so interaction and he like, loves that shot um I will tell you he totally started with clothes on but I could tell that he liked his body so he was like trying teo kept going further. I was like, okay that's uh huh other tips proposing this is one where I had the shot I showed them what it looked like before we did it because otherwise I don't know if he'd know okay the hands on go under her but it kind of goes on her knees and I wanted her to put her arms lightly around is that instead of holding on to his neck, so is able to show them okay it's like a good idea that feeling great before the cast was actually able to direct it uh so posing its really fine uh sometimes oppose for composition so the post could actually make the shot that happens a lot when I do the jumping shots a really cool jumping shot it's it's actually pose that makes for interesting composition there uh, tips proposing we'll talk about this when I shoot on location so I won't dwell on it too much, but the key things that I'm looking for really think dynamic poses are triangles and negative space, so if you look here she's trying between her arms triangle between her legs triangle between the arm in the wall trial between her feet triangle there they're like it's just a lot of china's which gives you a lot of dynamic dynamics isn't to the image, so all the triangles in negative space uh it just makes her more powerful image more flattering I'll talk more about that later again, you know triangles just got a lot of triangles going on there I love for her by the super cool um when imposing couples I look for multiple points of contact intimacy so have them touching in two places and it's the forehead and the arms or the hips and the sides of the cheeks together so again, all things were actually going to demo but I wanted to give you an idea there touching in multiple places again notice the cheek hands together her hand in his face, his hand around her arm so I'm always looking versus like vanessa just problem posed touching just the two hands on the hips don't want two of the same parts like two hands on the shoulders like multiple point of the body interacting so that's what the opposing app looks like pop photo poses ones the other and so watch for it I do have women female one coming out and men and all that stuff and I actually do use as a reference okay, lady uh how many people were gonna touch on this more in depth? Obviously. How many people here? Um I think that this would do well in a competition say lake professional photographers association or like w p p I no right not so good. Uh sometimes you look at vogue and you look at the cover and say or you look inside like oh that's a picture of cameron diaz and there's like major blown out highlights and lights wrapping around her and there's low contrast and uh my point is sometimes you're lighting sets the mood and it does break the rule and it just kind of breaks out of that traditional box of what you're supposed to do for lighting and if it damage looks good it's ok here again and I say this is bessie but she loves it she loves because light and airy and she feels like she's a model there um so a lot of time if you look at a lot of my fashion work there are major lens flare major highlights and blown out no skin detail but it's telling a story in setting the mood it's okay um so for example, you know, it was a shoot and direct sunlight, but it works you know, for that, um I recommend that you experiment so we're going to be experimenting if you guys checked online I feel that creative lives facebook page and I think you also tweeted something um I experiment with cool lighting one of the things I have is kino flows, which we'll see over here later for interesting catch lights in the eyes and really cool directional light and then also paint with light so this is a paint with light image and I think we might be playing around with that, uh, dave three so uh just look a little story about that I did senior portrait sw er and one of things I would do I would not charge my clients for this at the end of everything your portrait one season I I only had one window so I'd pull the curtain in front shut the door turn off the lights every senior got a paint with light session totally free it was one or two images that I put up on facebook but then everyone's like oh what was your paint with light image look like oh, I want to see what all this is so cool but it's different than what everybody with a camera khun d'oh um and so it just got people excited so it's the same concept of fashion flare uh and this is another paint with light shoot that I did this is actually fashion image I'll talk about that uh I'm going to talk a little bit I'm actually gonna go through my kid, but I want to put that screen up there so you guys could see it I'll go to my kid later way also I have for my audience members here we have lens babies for you guys to play with if you've never played with them for they have a new lens called the lens baby edge eighty uh which is it's a portrait lens baby lands before was kind about fifty millimeter now they have it which is closer to eighty or eighty five um so it's really nice I think it's something if you haven't tried you might want to try it out particularly for portrait photographers it makes a lot more sense um I just have a couple of more things you gonna touch on almost done for here what lens baby does instead of saying okay you're in focus and everything behind you's out of focus because of depth of field I could actually see your and focus, but everything to your left and right is out of focus because I'm selecting a plane left to right and I think samantha for the type of work you d'oh using either kind of tilt schefter a lens baby might actually add to it so sometimes it it just fits the mood I've done some shoots recently using a lens baby because it just has that kind of romantic soft focus feels so you can see also I did some shoes that were twilight seemed because I felt like it felt like twilight's okay, um the last thing I'm gonna kind of finish up with here a couple of shooting tips that I want you to keep in mind um one thing if I will often have my clients if they're sitting and a chair on the ground, grab the back of a chair or display and just kind of lean forward and look up because whatever is closest to the lenses biggest so what you'll see is when we're playing with the kino flows there, I'll have people standing from the kino flows lean ford and look up because then it makes the eyes big and beautiful, it's just like if you're punching towards the camera, my fist is going to look largest because it's close to the camera that's why in shots you put the weight on the back hip because you're trying to pull the hips back so somebody looks more slender and it puts a chest for into this just looks bigger the same concept here so I'm bringing the eyes closest to the camera don't always have to shoot the exact same angle's a lot of people do kind of head shots you can shoot from really low really high it makes for interesting photographs, so it just kind of on your to do list say ok for this portrait session I'll do one shot where my lenses on the ground one shot worm standing over the virtual give yourself assignments to try to break out of traditional portrait so that's an assignment I give you this is a fashion image I did where I was standing over with a twenty four to seventy shooting down it's the exact same thing is over here, you know I keep shooting down on try different for you up on like ladders I was not on in this particular shot, I was on my tippy toes and having somebody built it's me, um, but a lot of times I'll bring a step stool I used to have an assistant bring a step stool on set. Um, this was the same things before, where you talked about, I have people relax, serge on their forehead and the other tip, some people look like they're going to kill you when you say do syria shots, right? Like, they look like they're just gonna kill you. So I have people breathe in and breathe out and that feeling of their lips at the very end of that breath is usually good because people don't usually breathe in, breathe out like, you know, like loose mouth. Usually you get people you say be serious, they looked pissed, they have their mouths open or they try, like, pouty lips. None of that looks good, so typically for me, that kind of breathing breathe out and that loose feeling at the end that's usually a good, serious, and then I direct them and I say, think about x y z that's, how you get something in the eyes, you know, he's, a little squint or a little bit of twinkle, somebody looks really dead in the eyes, like just there's. Just nothing there, I will often tell people, just squint a tiny bit, just squint their lives, a little cousin it. Maybe it looks like they actually are thinking about something, maybe eso. I'll work on that. Try silhouette. We're gonna talk about this when actually demo ing it, but if somebody comes in and their basketball player, you could shoot an almost front shot, or maybe you could have them in silhouette. So now that picture on the wall is not a picture of them. It's, a finer, abstract image.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Fashion Flair Slides.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

John Yee
 

I have watched at least half a dozen Creative Live courses and this was definitely one of the most interesting and informative of them. Lindsay showed her wealth of knowledge in lighting, posing, post processing and marketing. I was truly impressed with her level of comfort in each field. She tackled different situations and questions with ease. I really liked the course layout as well. She shot her own themed shoots and explained them. Then she helped each student with their own very different styled shoots. It looked like a lot of fun and a great way to learn too. Then at the end Lindsay had a fun little light painting session. WELL DONE LINDSAY AND CREATIVE LIVE!!! ;-)

Allan Burch
 

I'm an artist and amateur photographer who has long been interested in the subject of fashion photography and how to incorporate it into my art. Lindsay impressed me with her depth of knowledge and her comprehensive and selfless method of presentation. Showing before and afters to illustrate technical differences was particularly helpful to me, as was seeing her explain the importance of concept and story. Posing, glowing skin, and lens flare techniques were also a treat to witness and learn from her. Her passion for the subject is tangible, and left me more excited about the potential for my own work. The sheer volume of information Lindsay shares in this workshop is tremendous, from idea to the shoot to post-production, and certainly worth the investment I made in my career. Thanks to Lindsay and thanks to Creative Live.

Darci
 

I thought Lindsay was totally amazing:) She has inspired me. I want to attend more of her workshops. She was a great teacher. I want to learn more from her. I would love to attend one of her intensives, but I will have to wait til next year:( I am just starting out and she has given me many ideas. I cannot say enough good about her. I would love to see Lindsay back:)

Student Work

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