Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Studio Folio - Fashion Photographer Research


Fashion Photographers

Alexia Sinclair

Alexia Sinclair is an Australian photographer whose work mainly comprises of composite images. She has developed her own style of photography which is easily recognisable and is always of a high quality.

There are many elements and aspects of Alexia Sinclair’s work that I wish to explore with my fashion folio. These include elaborate setups and strong characterisation. In each of Sinclair’s images she manages to portray a strong character from the subject and I believe this is one of the main reasons why they are so effective.

The image below, is a particular image that relates to my folio. The side lighting on the subject, the pose and props all interconnect well together. The setup is fairly simple but certain aspects make the image quite effective, for example the model’s facial expression is strong and enticing, which draws the viewer’s eye to that point in the image. This is something I want to think about when shooting my studio folio, every detail of the model should be taken into consideration, for example the position of fingers or hands, to how the hair has been positioned.

The use of props plays a bit part in Sinclair’s images. Even though her most of her images are composites, I still want to drawn on this aspect with my folio and use props to help represent the idea of each individual image. 


Image ref. Image ref. http://alexiasinclair.com/portfolio

Peter Coulson

Peter Coulson is a Melbourne based photographer who shoots fashion, glamour, hair and makeup. Coulson’s work always includes effective use of lighting to produce high quality professional fashion portraits. Each of his images is also very dynamic giving his portfolio a wide range of images.

When planning my studio folio, with the seven deadly sins in mind I had several shots in my head, one for sloth which is very similar to that of Coulson’s image below. Instead of using conventional ideas for this folio I wanted to venture out with a different view on the subject and hope to create images in the studio which show a similar quality to Coulson’s below. I think this will give my final folio a certain edge that is needed as this theme has been done quite a bit.


Image ref. http://www.koukei.com.au/

This image below is fairly simple, but the use of shadow and the colour tints on the background make the image far more effective. One thing I think this image lacks in is perhaps facial contact, the model’s hair seems to be covering too much of her face.


Image ref. http://www.koukei.com.au/

Jez Smith

Jez Smith is an English photographer, based in Australia who works in the fashion industry. His beauty work in particular is of interest to me in terms of my folio, as his use of lighting complements his subject. An example of this can been seen in the image below, where his use of soft lighting brings out the defining feature of the model, for example her lips and eyes, the shadow hiding everything else in the image that is not so important.

Lighting plays the most important part in any image and after looking at many fashion photographers’ work, there are few who really stand out in terms of their lighting techniques. Lighting is something I want to utilize in my studio folio and want to use many different styles for each image



  Image ref. http://www.jezsmithphotography.com.au/images.php?varWhat=Beauty&varImgID=1566

My aim of the studio folio is to create a body of work that will showcase a dynamic series of fashion portraits, each portraying the seven deadly sins. There will be seven shots in total, all mixed between landscape or portrait format. Each shot will use different lighting styles, to help the end series to be dynamic. Three to four models will be involved, both male and female. Props and backgrounds will play an essential part of each image, to help enforce the theme of each image. Planning for this series is also essential, as each image is to portray each of the deadly sins, each shot must be strong, precise and reflect well thought out images. The final seven images will be mounted on foam core.



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