Fashion Photography

Application

Fashion photography is a genre of photography which displays such things as clothing, jewellery or make-up. Fashion photographers tend to use slim women and men to attract the audience and buy what is being offered. The person being photographed is usually airbrushed and made to look so attractive that they are covered in loads of make-up. Generally not many fashion photos are natural. Natural photos are usually taken in certain scenery's, whereas I feel unnatural photos are taken in a studio due to the fact that nothing can interrupt the photo. This is different to a natural photoshoot as things can interrupt like the wind, other people etc. Studio photos try to make the photo natural by using wind machines. As you can see in the photo below of Cheryl Cole she has been airbrushed. She does not need to be though as she is naturally beautiful. I feel the problem with fashion photography is that all of the photographers only want the skinniest of girls and cake them in make-up to make them look better than they are but thats what fashion photography shouldnt be about. I feel fashion photographers should show natural girls who have nice curvy figures and have confidence. There are many fashion photgraphers but one very well known one is Adolph de Meyer who became the first fashion photographer to shoot for American magazine Vogue from the years 1913-1921. He also shot for Vanity Fair in the same years.




Context

Fashion photography is showed in many different forms. Mostly they are shown in magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan. All of the photos are different such as different clothes, hairstyles and jewellery. When promoting something in the fashion industry they are usually shown in magazines, billboards and television adverts. These promoting photos are mostly airbrushed. For example look at the picture of Coleen Rooney. The picture on the left shows her in person promoting her perfume and looking natural, but the photo on the right says otherwise. The photo on the right shows not one hair out of place, she has become slimmer and she looks more pale than the photo on the left. This shows that for promoting items they airbrush the photos to make the product and the person stand out more. Other places where fashion photography is shown is at different fashion runway shows. Models walk down the runway whilst wearing the latest clothes and being photographed by famous photographers.












Techniques

There are many different techniques they use for fashion photography. Lighting is used in fashion photography i feel to make the person or main item stand out. For example they could use a spotlight or different coloured lights. Another technique is airbrushing. Airbrushing is used to make the person in the photo look beautiful and stand out. For example if the person was curvy, they would make them much slimmer with airbrushing. Also airbrushing makes your skin look perfect even if someone had alot of spots. They also use alot of make-up on models and dress them in outrageous clothes. This is to make the person stand out. Fashion photographers also like using black and white photos. Using a black and white photo and using a model that has been airbrushed and is wearing some make-up and wearing vibrant clothes makes them stand out more because the person looks colourful and is on a black and white background. Another technique fashion photographers use is scenery. This is to make the photo look sophisticated. Some just use a studio and use a background but others actually go all over the world to find places that would be good to take fashion photos. By doing this it makes the photo stand out to audiences because it only focuses on the model but by having a nice background it makes the photo attractive.