On a fashion shoot, the clothes are the star. Usually.
September/05/2007
I like to use fashion techniques for a number of different kinds of photo sessions. In a full-on fashion shoot, the clothes are the most important component ... the model and surroundings are essentially props that help to make the clothes look good. But in the shot above, that's not what's happening. Although this capture came out of a fashion shoot, the woman is the point-of-interest, not the clothes. I think of this type of shot as a fashion portrait (If you'd like to call it a "Beauty" shot, I'm okay with that).
My market doesn't generate a whole lot of pure fashion or beauty work, so I concentrate more on portraits ... commissioned, editorial, and headshots. The fun part is working to create shots with graphic impact. I think that composition is more of an intuitive thing rather than an application of rules, but the goal, always, is to get to that graceful moment when one feels confident that a particular capture will be seen by others as pleasing-to-the-eye .