Fashion photography

[Cuervo79]

I have lots of questions regarding this field, I would love to work in this kind of photography. I have learned about photography by reading literature and going by trial and error. I was asking myself today, if it was necesary to know about hair and make up. Because most of my models (cousins, friends) I just take pictures of them exactly how they look, if they are women they do their own makeup and hair, if they are men they just use their normal hairstyle and that´s it. Do you guys know any web pages were I can find more information about this?
Also the clothes, since most of my models are just there for sessions they use their own clothes, how do you fix for example a coat that the sleeves look to big on your model, I ask this because I´ve seen sometimes on tv, that they do last minute temporal fixes to the clothes, using clothes pins to make a dress tighter in some parts of the models body, etc.

On another subject, the casual laughing fashion photographs how exactly do you produce them? Do they let the models talk and tell jokes, then wait for them to laugh or do they just make the models act? I tried to do it the last time I was taking photos, but could not get my model to get that casual look and I used a friend that was helping me with the gear to be a counterpart to the actual model but both of them just froze...

ok cheers...

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[Hertz van Rental]

Your best route in to Fashion is to either do Photography at College and/or become an assistant to a fashion photographer.
You usually work with someone who does make-up and hair (sometimes you have a person to do each) and you normally have a stylist - someone to match clothes and accessories. Usually this is done by the art director or fashion editor of the magazine employing you.
The normal trick is to have the clothes a size larger than the model and to pin the model in using pins, bulldog clips, clothes pegs, duct tape, staples or anything else handy. But this is not really practical if you are doing action shots.
Professional models are relaxed in front of camera - and often the model has worked a lot with the photographer. It also helps to have an assistant who knows a lot of rude jokes.


I'm not sure that this thread belongs in here - it is more one for General Q&A so I'm moving it.

[Cuervo79]

interesting... thanx