andrewdoeshair
No longer a newbie, moving up!
- Joined
- May 23, 2016
- Messages
- 179
- Reaction score
- 133
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos OK to edit
I know I'm a new guy here, and I don't want this to come off like I think I know anything that any of you don't know, but I really like the community here and I want to contribute anything I can that may be of even a little bit of help. I wanted to mention this because I had a hard time working with a few photographers before I clicked with one. After I stuck with one photographer for a few projects he started seeing what I was requesting, which I wanted not based on any photographic experience, but based on years of experience in the hair industry. The guy who shot for me repeatedly had never shot for a stylist or barber before me, but later went on to shoot for other hairstylists and now has taken award winning photos of hair. I'm not saying this is because of what I had requested of him, but it may have helped. I don't know how often any of you have been hired to shoot hair, but I've hired half a dozen photographers in the past for this, so I imagine someone somewhere is also looking to hire one. Friends of mine who have won hairdressing competitions have paid $20,000 for photographers to do these shoots, it's mind blowing.
Barbers look at two separate and conflicting aspects of a fade in a haircut, and ideally when you have a perfect head with perfect hair you can have both, but most of the time photography and lighting is what will give you the appearance of both. The hair blending from short (or bald) to long should create a strong, straight angle coming off of the head, but from the wrong angle a photo can make this line crooked or usually will show a dip or ripple as the plane of hair gets longer and leaves the scalp. This is because if you cut a perfectly straight line coming up off the head, you leave dark areas anywhere the head dips in, so barbers will usually bend this plane inward to remove shadows from the scalp. This is the "shape vs shade" debate and in hair forums it's argued about daily. Ideally, you would end up with a perfect shape creating strong lines coming off of the scalp, and also a smooth transition from short to long without any dark spots, but when working with an imperfect head (this is most heads) you have to decide to compromise the shape to save the shade, or to compromise the shade to save the shape.
When a barber or stylist is looking showcase their work, they want both of these aspects to be on display. Light the scalp from the bottom upward to make the transition from short to long hair look as smooth and uniform as possible. The shade that the hair produces creating a uniform look is more important than the lengths of the hairs actually being uniform. If you look at the picture below you'll see longer hairs at the temple creating the same shade as shorter hairs nears the dense back side of the haircut. The first few photographers I worked with shot and edited the photos in a way that the blend from short to long looked really choppy and texturized, more so than it appeared in real life. That's the opposite of what you want in a hair photo, even if the overall aesthetic is rough and textured. You want to see a smooth, clean blend in the fade. I also got a lot of broken and wobbly lines on the edges of my haircuts from these first photographers. The silhouettes should always be strong and very geometric, building off of, emphasizing, or improving the natural lines of the head. Haircutting is alllll geometry, and even an unruly mess of hair should fit more or less into a strong geometric shape. Look for that shape and emphasize it in your photos.
When you are looking at the model, ask the stylist what shapes they see in the hair. My first few photographers didn't ask this, and I kept trying to explain it to them while they were ignoring it and getting shots they liked. The keeper photographer now leads with that question any time we work together. Now he usually sees it before I even say anything. I know having a hovering client is annoying, but have the stylist stand over your shoulder so they can see the hair from where you can see it, that way they can jump in to make adjustments. The first time I did a shoot I got the hair "right" and walked away to the other side of the head (where it looked perfect), only to get photos back where a single hair was flying out of place.
Again, I don't mention any of this to pretend I'm a photographer (yet) but just to share some of my experiences in hopes of helping at least one person somewhere one time. There are dozens of huge hair competitions that are entered with photographs, and most hairdressers and barbers don't enter them because they don't have easy access to photographers. One barber I know in London had so much success with his hair photos that he quit cutting hair and now flies all over the world doing photos for other barbers. It could be fun and lucrative work to reach out to the more stylish salons and barbershops near you and offer these services.
This is my photo, not one that I got from my photographer. The stuff I usually shoot for instagram isn't as "traditional haircut photo" as this, as I'm trying to experiment with breaking those rules (there's haircut photos like this to inspire haircutters and win hair competitions, then there are haircut photos to appeal to someone who doesn't know hair. They're different. I'm trying to learn to do both). But when the job is hair focused, I hope that these tips will be very helpful.
Barbers look at two separate and conflicting aspects of a fade in a haircut, and ideally when you have a perfect head with perfect hair you can have both, but most of the time photography and lighting is what will give you the appearance of both. The hair blending from short (or bald) to long should create a strong, straight angle coming off of the head, but from the wrong angle a photo can make this line crooked or usually will show a dip or ripple as the plane of hair gets longer and leaves the scalp. This is because if you cut a perfectly straight line coming up off the head, you leave dark areas anywhere the head dips in, so barbers will usually bend this plane inward to remove shadows from the scalp. This is the "shape vs shade" debate and in hair forums it's argued about daily. Ideally, you would end up with a perfect shape creating strong lines coming off of the scalp, and also a smooth transition from short to long without any dark spots, but when working with an imperfect head (this is most heads) you have to decide to compromise the shape to save the shade, or to compromise the shade to save the shape.
When a barber or stylist is looking showcase their work, they want both of these aspects to be on display. Light the scalp from the bottom upward to make the transition from short to long hair look as smooth and uniform as possible. The shade that the hair produces creating a uniform look is more important than the lengths of the hairs actually being uniform. If you look at the picture below you'll see longer hairs at the temple creating the same shade as shorter hairs nears the dense back side of the haircut. The first few photographers I worked with shot and edited the photos in a way that the blend from short to long looked really choppy and texturized, more so than it appeared in real life. That's the opposite of what you want in a hair photo, even if the overall aesthetic is rough and textured. You want to see a smooth, clean blend in the fade. I also got a lot of broken and wobbly lines on the edges of my haircuts from these first photographers. The silhouettes should always be strong and very geometric, building off of, emphasizing, or improving the natural lines of the head. Haircutting is alllll geometry, and even an unruly mess of hair should fit more or less into a strong geometric shape. Look for that shape and emphasize it in your photos.
When you are looking at the model, ask the stylist what shapes they see in the hair. My first few photographers didn't ask this, and I kept trying to explain it to them while they were ignoring it and getting shots they liked. The keeper photographer now leads with that question any time we work together. Now he usually sees it before I even say anything. I know having a hovering client is annoying, but have the stylist stand over your shoulder so they can see the hair from where you can see it, that way they can jump in to make adjustments. The first time I did a shoot I got the hair "right" and walked away to the other side of the head (where it looked perfect), only to get photos back where a single hair was flying out of place.
Again, I don't mention any of this to pretend I'm a photographer (yet) but just to share some of my experiences in hopes of helping at least one person somewhere one time. There are dozens of huge hair competitions that are entered with photographs, and most hairdressers and barbers don't enter them because they don't have easy access to photographers. One barber I know in London had so much success with his hair photos that he quit cutting hair and now flies all over the world doing photos for other barbers. It could be fun and lucrative work to reach out to the more stylish salons and barbershops near you and offer these services.
This is my photo, not one that I got from my photographer. The stuff I usually shoot for instagram isn't as "traditional haircut photo" as this, as I'm trying to experiment with breaking those rules (there's haircut photos like this to inspire haircutters and win hair competitions, then there are haircut photos to appeal to someone who doesn't know hair. They're different. I'm trying to learn to do both). But when the job is hair focused, I hope that these tips will be very helpful.
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