Behind The Lens: 1

stylingfashion

25 Jan

“Photoshoots are good fun and you get to be a part of a wonderful team and you actually have a bit more time – as opposed to fashion shows, to interact with each other.”

As promised my dear followers, here are the thoughts of a stylist when taking part in a photoshoot. Now in saying so, I do believe and I think I am right in saying that fashion stylists aren’t only employed by medium size to big size fashion brands but they lack in finding jobs when it comes to small/independent designers.

As everyone knows, every career is like a ladder, you take the first step and then you go on and on. So, if my first step would be the small /independent designers – as a bigger fashion brand would probably employ someone with a decent portfolio, it means that for ourselves, to get to that stage I have got to offer my service for free – and there you were thinking we would get paid lots of money, erm .. not really, maybe one day and please tell me when? Haha! I am only joking, I actually love what I do and regardless of the money I would do it any time, but it also does mean that I would need to have a job on the side to pay for my expenses.

Back to the subject, photoshoots are good fun and you get to be a part of a wonderful team and you actually have a bit more time – as opposed to fashion shows, to interact with each other. Photoshoots are like a never ending job, you know your start time but not when you finish, basically the job is done when the right pictures are taken.

Entering the studio, your first job is to line up all the clothes on the clothing rails and do any combination (tops with trousers, shirts with skirts etc) you think works well together. The majority of fashion brands would also provide shoes on site and accessories – of which you are then responsible for choosing, and yes the amount of time those poor models have to squeeze in a smaller size pair of shoes, or make it work on a bigger size are uncountable! What the client can't see won't hurt them, isn’t that what they say? What you also have to make sure here, is that the clothing does not show any creases as it is a nightmare for the photographer/retoucher to get rid of that crease once the picture is taken. So yes, a bit of steaming is always required but let's not complain as it is quite healthy for your skin which looks glowing afterwards - NOT!

Right, everything is now ready, you have done all your styling and outfits and now you liaise with hair and make up team to check whose models are first going to be ready, and according to that you then pass on all the details to the photographer and together you can start thinking of using any props and work on some ideas for the photoshoot. Generally speaking on a standard clothing photoshoot, props are not normally used but only on editorials – now that is a different subject which I will cover on another post.

Models are ready and you then start dressing them – well they can actually dress themselves but you make sure the clothes are on properly and they fit them well … and what if they don’t? eheh … you need to wait for my next post and I will share some tricks with you. Let's call this post Part 1 and I shall come back soon with some more insight on fashion photoshoots Behind The Lens: 2.

Hope you are enjoying the reading guys!