Commercial Fashion Photography

Lesson Info

When Passion Meets Business

The funny game of our lives the arts and entertainment industry I mean not just photography not just fashion just everything to do with creativity your creative industries there's no rules you know? I mean I'm not talking about the whole lot of it but just a lot of it in terms of having a degree you don't necessarily need anything formally you don't need anything in particular a lot of time it seems unfair someone who's worked for less time than you get such and such opportunity or but the great thing is it works the other way around as well, you know you there are no rules and so it's game that you can play as well it's something where you can put yourself out there in innovative ways out of the box ways you don't necessarily need to go in by traditional route it's through university or college or college here sorry the university but any particular traditional routes that you might take to get into other professions you don't necessarily need for creative industries as you probably a...

lready know anyway, but this means that the doors are open on you it's all about what you say who you know rather than what you know but who you know in today's kind of world of social media in the way that we share who you know could be someone you don't know today but you know tomorrow and you know that person and give you an opportunity that becomes, you know, your biggest job yet, and you, khun, take that and get on to the next part, the next part of your view of evolution. So you want to think about your your values that you're gaining through all of these things that you're doing because you're increasing your value as you go along and it's about using everything that you do? I mean, if you have got a degree, for example, or, you know, certain person that works at the agency or or you have a certain number of fans on facebook, all of these things are tools they're tools that you use to get a job and a job itself is a tall all these things, the tools that get you higher and higher. So this was the email I got from from a fashion magazine while ago I wasn't really used to fashion situations, so I had done some commercial work on dh I got approach to to make her fashion editorial for the magazine, and they wanted me to source the model and location, makeup and hair and styling and everything, and I said, okay, well, what's the budget, which is the key word you ask anybody who asks. You to do something you say what's the budget how much you got to pay me how much have you got to pay for everything you need for this job more importantly because they want so many ingredients but then I got this reply and so I was a bit kind of baffled as to how I actually make this work so they expect me to go out and source all these things for free on dh put it together for their magazine no magazine wasn't actually even that good anyway so so naturally I didn't want to do this but um because of the way that I got into photography as fine art I haven't climbed the ladder in the same way that you might consider a lot of other fashion photographers in their aspiring stages to do because they're generally expected to just create whole lotta work to show what they can do because like like I was saying earlier you know the world needs proof of what you say you want to do so you have to produce the work you have to start somewhere but in this workshop I'm not going to be telling you how to build a team for free because if you build a team for free you know you can't expect to be valued as a photographer and pages the photographer yourself you don't want to be hired for free so you don't want to hire your team for free so it's important to have this value that you like, I say you will grow and grow as you evolve, but this value has to be a little bit of value there to start with because you, if you're if you want to make a living from photography, then you've already got that spark there to start with. So you want to carry that spark through on the starting off on the foot that you actually are serious about it? But very mind, when I say about this free thing that there is this lying between personal commercial a collaboration is different, it could be that everyone, technically you put together on the team to work on the picture is put together for free. I'm not saying that's bad and saying that the dynamic between everyone are working on that shoot has to be equal, and it has to be, uh, to be honest, and it has to be has to just be that one has to know what's going on mutual respect for actually what? Where the image is going to go on what's expected off this particular thing that everyone's putting time into s o serial making pictures to put in everyone's portfolios and show everyone worker off to potential clients, great, but if someone being paid for it and you're not paying them something or being honest about what's happening with the money, or maybe you have got some money being given to you, but you're using that money to pay for the location and you tell your team that no that's great, I'm talking about equality, so generally I like to pay anyone who works with me on on the lawn like a makeup, hair, modeling and styling. When I'm putting together my shoots, even my personal shoots, even in the earliest days of doing little fashion shoots, I give some money to them. I prefer it that way because then I get an assurance that that person is going to actually come and they're gonna be serious to some degree, and I do hope to give them pictures from that shoot that I was doing. But I also don't want the pressure on me tow for that to be the only compensation from me to them, so I know I'm not. I'm not rolling in money and it's. Not that I have loads of money to pay out to people it's just that when you set your mind to creating some images, even if it is a form of practice. Sometimes it's nice to give to give some money even a small amount them to cover the expenses perhaps off the people that you work with because it sets you off in a professional dynamic and it means that you as a photographer our setting yourself into that role as the conductor of the orchestra, director of the movie you're calling the shots on it means that you feel less guilty about telling them what to do and you can actually start directing the vision off what you want to create even in the smallest loaf I shoot you get that direction of a vision and you become used to commanding that so that some keywords this's the last part this section I'm just going to go through some key words that were going to be using throughout this workshop have touched upon some of them already. So trust trust is one of the key commodities that you will grow as a photographer a zealous your passion as well as your images and your style trust trust that client knows you could do something so they can call you up on dh know that you're going to pull it off because I've seen you do before either in others someone else's work or in another work other work you've done for them tools everything really is a tall rather than an end product getting a certain job is not about just getting that in product and you know, celebrating that trophy but it's about where they're going to take you next everything that we have like everything in our arsenal like the university degrees or anything that we might be frustrated with to think, where does it go? Where does it lead to? Is a tool you have to use it, you have to pick it up and use it doesn't doesn't just lay there and work itself. Even social media is a tool number of facebook fans, whatever always things take us somewhere belief, belief in yourself as a photographer, which is something that you get stronger and stronger, I think as you go along because you've become you get this kind of like a process of elimination as to the work that you feel most confident about on the work of yours that you might like but not feel so confident about give you an example. I've got a black and white images in my portfolio I don't like to call them, but just by how they look, you know they're they're images that belonged to a siri's. But unfortunately, I've come to learn that black and white images are looked at in a different way in the commercial spears, different spheres, whether that's fine art, fashion, whatever black and white is viewed differently, so generally I kind of keep them in a different place away from any particular presentation of work that I'm giving a potential client because I want to believe in the work and believe that they can see it too passion of or talked about passion is something that we channel in the right ways, but it's also so important to have it because if you're not truly passionate about pursuing fashion photography, pursuing final, you want to get you want to get an idea of what really makes you take, because that is what that is the fire burning that's going to keep everything, everything warm and everything doable if it's going to keep a fuel there evolution. I love this word because it means that not everything we do is going straight to the top. Everything that we do lead to the mating off, who we want to be to be that person that gets to the top over the top is for you. Evolution is something very necessary for everybody and it's, not about this meteoric rise that is often kind of lorded in the outside world. In the media, this meteoric rise going from straight from the bottom to the top. Instead, we want this evolution. We want a growth because we want to know who we want to be, not just what someone else wants us to be strengths, strength of ourselves in the same vein as what I was saying about evolution but also thinking about the people strengths and how they benefit what you do, how being a photographer comes well together with people who style people who create things, people who do make up and hair people who model all of these things in their strengths and it's up to you to recognize them and command them all together to make the ultimate outcome momentum a lot. This word as well, it's, like monkey bars, going from one thing to the next on momentum, is really important as well, because it means that when it doesn't mean that you never satisfied, because it can be a little bit like that. But you can be satisfied with what you create. I know, for example, my cereal fashion siri's, I'm really proud of it is the work that's closest to my heart, the moment, but I know that it's about moving me somewhere else, it's about a map to where I want to go next, experience, like I was saying, about the value of experience, the value of knowing what to expect when you're doing a shoot that involves twenty, people, thirty, people having bean there done that, knowing you could pull it off for a client sustainability. So knowing that you actually have those tools in the bag to make for a career that could go from one thing to the next quite happily, and to make a thriving career from what you do from what starts office, that part, that spark of passion on these, this concept of producing the predict, the producer and production production is a really key word. That's entered my vocabulary over the last couple of years because it's not just me in a camera there's so much that happens before the cameras even turned on and there's so much that's put in place weeks and weeks this creative live shoots I'm going to be showing you the planning that went into this because this is bean, you know, this is a production, even without all the shoe, it still is a production, but with shoot that we're doing on location a lot of things that we've been organizing between ourselves, man, I onda also the people crave live, bring it together, you know involves a lot more work that might that might appear on the outside notion of production goes into all of those beautiful fashion images you see in magazines or google images when you searching your favorite photographer and you see these images that look so effortless, but so much work has gone into them, and so many decisions have been made all along the way to make that final image look how it looks. So we have some questions that have come through natalie in our online audience but we also have our studio audience will start with our chat rooms and you guys grab a mike if you do have a question for natalie so first question from dr chris just as russ was talking about what can it look like if you're passion becomes misdirected is there such a thing in your experience as a destructive passion yes funny because I had a slide actually in that passion sequence that was something I thought I had it like make sure your passion doesn't become miss channeled and I removed because I thought it was covered really may need my other slides but yeah perhaps I mean I guess it's difficult to answer but this word passion becomes almost like like the blank tile in scrabble you know it could mean anything you know what what we talking about here so uh because what the way that I defined passion is is something that actually makes you tick genuinely makes you tick so for example you know you might be working on something for a client and you find that it's you you might be doing it just for the money so it's not a big deal so you don't necessarily feel that spark of excitement that spark of this is what I want to be doing forever or I don't know I mean I guess I guess that can only really uh I guess they also depends on our business because you might have a branch of your work like you really like working on but it just it's just not going anywhere commercially just doesn't have any relevance to the commercial world maybe it's really isa terek fine art thing that only galleries would get but you know, maybe maybe this is destructive to your commercial career so I think it's a case of where you are showing the results of that passion you know where you actually like I'm saying about miss channeling it may be that is miss channeled because when it with regards to fashion photography you ideally want to be kind of ticking the fashion boxes to get somewhere in fashion on dh then maybe when you get to a certain level you can think about how to how to challenge those rules, how to tweak them, how to put forward something a little bit different but I don't know it is difficult to say because because because when we create our work there's so many different context where we could just be at home doing our work and we're getting getting pleasure from the passion from creating you. But once you try to actually get work doing it or get into a gallery with it, you can be in all these different places where it can be potentially destructive on miss channeled because you're not getting far on that particular part that particular ladder that you might be trying to climb with, something that doesn't help you climb it is actually helping you go the other way. So that's what? What comes to mind when we talk about destructiveness and miss channeling? Unless that anymore specific questions that I could maybe address. Hi, ms. Daniella, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. Pretty inspiring already. And we're just getting started. Eso continuing on the theme of passion, you mentioned that photography for you and really jumping into it started during your teen years. I'm so curious about what that initial spark of passion might have been for you. Was there a particular shoot or a moment or just anything that happened where you really felt that fire ignite, and you and it made you want it start this as a as an adventure? Yeah. What comes to mind? I think it is, uh, when I was making my pitches and putting them together in particular, when I wasin folk shop kind of just doing my clone images. There was very heavy involvement of color, and I think ultimately was excitement off seeing something go beyond being a photograph into something that was I know we talk about being like a painting, and this is something that I agree with definitely, but then even even the word painting means a lot of things as well, so if we kind of get more specific about what we mean by painting because it's almost a ziff the photos look, there are still photos, but they look they were starting to look a little bit more like very photo realistic paintings and so they still look like photographs they looked like they were blowing the boundaries between photo and painting they weren't trying to be a painting, but they were somehow on really so remember this from my earliest kong pictures when I was first putting these together on the color would explode in the image and I don't really know I didn't really know necessarily what I would be doing with these pictures I just wanted to share them I guess it was a kind of self expression as well I felt that catharsis that came from actually putting myself into something visual almost as if I put it into the picture and I put it out there um on what else said in terms of a spark and I think I remember somebody saying when I first shared in these pictures and I'm not saying I took this comment seriously because I was still quite cynical than I am now, but they said something I can I can imagine it is hanging in the tate or something like that what you know but it may give me a little thrill because it made it meant that someone was recognizing my work as an expression that wass recognisable was art on it could be you know that they were seeing something important in it on dh I don't know I mean it's a mix of the pleasure of other people saying I like what you do but it's not the most important thing is that you like it first because because then it makes actually worthwhile when someone says they like it because when someone says they like something you do that you don't like it means that you might indeed be miss channeling a passion if you if you go with the work of the people like what your heart's not as much in that workers of the work so so yeah it's just a feeling of to me it's that feeling of not quite knowing trusting the force the force that comes to you when you're making something not entirely sure how it's going to be translated to business but you trust that that's gonna happen in its own time and you give yourself time to let something really flourished from you was genuinely as you can so yeah I mean thats a good question is a question I could think about even more but that's the initial thing that comes to mind and answer hope that's useful to some degree thank you so actually my question is more of a practical one about something that you've touched on and that's actually submitting to magazine editorials so I did a little fashion shoot on sunday and I tried to think of it for the first time in terms of an editorial and I'm wondering what the marriage isn't actually submitting that these sort of I hear there's lots of free online magazines that you could submit editorials too but I'm not sure how worth while that is and whether or not it would just be better for me to public self published that myself on my own blogger website or whether there's really any benefit from submitting to these free magazines and going through all that effort to see if you can get into one of them what that would bring me maybe it's a good question because it's something that I still I come up again time and time again in my own conflict of thinking because and it's and it's one of these things about the conflict between fine on fashion I feel you create work and it's fine art technically is yours you can do if you want with it fashion is more like where do I put this what who do I answer to to get this work out there on I have sometimes I just put fashion images online but I can't I don't want to go through that kind of rigmarole of having someone else approve my work and put albert that's all the time it's been worth it because I've put something out there on dh it's got a new audience that I couldn't have access myself through that magazine and also that magazine promotes it and makes it look good because it's in a fashion context on dh so it's something I think you've got a way of yourself case by case because sometimes they're a fashion stories I create that I'm not wild about that their fashion stories I don't see them is like intensive creative they abide more by the fashion conventions on those usually other stories I'm happier to try and submit the down side is that it might not be that I've made it might not be that because my passion is not present in them maybe it's that that that that's not getting me very far up that ladder. But then again, if I spend a lot of time on something something that has involved money as well, I don't want to feel like I'm kind of throwing myself at magazines that ultimately going to take my work for free and put it out there for free because it might be that I feel like the work not saying that I feel like I'm above them but I feel like my work I want to do something that's more on my terms within because my passion is so innit so that I get that conflict there it is something I really really like I want to do something very special with it and if it's something that isn't quite there but I just want it to be published in a fashion circum circumstance then sometimes it's about one going too far we're going to fight that went too far that way so yeah you I recommend first oval researching fashion magazines online making a bookmarking a load of them there are lots out there there are not that kind of linked to each other because they like each other on facebook so you can kind of find his trail of fashion magazine's reader submission guidelines think about whether you really want your pictures in that magazine because sometimes you get so over the moon about the idea being published that you look at the magazine and thinking actual looked a bit rubbish and you don't want to actually spend the time on it you know that that's perfectly plausible thing to think acceptable thing to think because anyone cause that fashion magazine let's face it you know you put fashion magazine out there and you know, so it's not like there are ones that are those is hierarchy of magazines um I think but don't worry too much I mean a lot of magazines preferred to have first rights over your big pictures they don't like you to put them online beforehand but there are magazines that don't mind as well, so if you do publish it online, you really want to put your pictures online, you can do that, and you still got the chance of being able to publish them elsewhere and also think about the genre of the images that you've made. It may be that there they're a little bit aren't here. I'm not sure I don't know what picture you're talking about, but it may be that they would be could be publish buy a magazine isn't so much just about fashion, but they have art and beauty and sculpture and fashion altogether, and it may be that they don't care about the the timing's and the shelf life off them. So they had a spread recently where they published kind of syriza fashion images from all over the place for my portfolio because it was presented more in an artistic context, so you could look at those magazines as well, because that still gives you that that extra exposure that you can't necessarily get yourself through your own audience.

Class Description

Lessons

1Defining Fine Art & Fashion Photography
2Why & How to Channel Your Passion
3When Passion Meets Business
4Method in Madness of the Right Brain Photographer
5Right Brain Needs a Left Brain/Shooting Planning
6Gear Overview
7Test Shoot Setup: Location, Lighting, Styling
8Simple Test Shoot vs Couture Test Shoot
9Inspiration vs Imitation & Having Moodboards
10Creating a Pitch
1What Makes it Fashion or Fine Art
2Sourcing Locations On a Limited Budget
3Submitting Work to Magazines
4Lo-Fi (Small Production) Shoot
5Lo-Fi Shoot Continued
6Couture Fashion Shoot - Part 1
7Couture Fashion Shoot - Part 2
8Couture Fashion Shoot - Part 3
9Team Q & A
10Reviewing Images from Shoots
1Tackling Anti-Photoshop Debates
2Image Selection & Simple Editing
3Compositing Process of Hi-Fi Image
4Possibilities for Surreal Storytelling in Images
5The Purpose of Finding Your Style
6Acknowledging Your Photography Journey
7Marketing & Social Media Audience
8Preparing for Job Offers & Dream Job