I was asked to shoot an editorial for the Los Angeles Fashion Magazine, Genlux. Genlux Magazine uses me on a regular basis to shoot for them and they are one of my favorite clients because of their extreme trust in my vision. In other words, they give me a lot of freedom to shoot what I want to shoot, which makes them a dream client! I’m going to take you step by step through the process of this shoot, giving you my technical info and the background details on how I planned and set up this shoot. You can click the link above to watch the video first, or you can Read on!
In the very beginning I was given two guidelines: the theme for the Winter Fashion issue, which they decided on calling it the Art Issue. And I was given 8 pages. First things first. Since there was a theme, I had to come up with a concept that went along with that theme. I decided on exploring the idea of The Muse, the artists model as inspiration and catalyst. After settling on the idea of The Muse, I then had to find the perfect girl! One perfect girl/muse! Also given the stipulation of needing 8 pages to fill, I had to keep in mind that we would possibly go with 8 different changes of clothing. So those were my initial guidelines and then I got to work.
The first thing I did was find the girl. I contacted Elite Models, LA Models, Photogenics Models, and Ford Models. I scoured the internet and was sent some cards by some of the agents. Stephen Kamifuji and I looked through websites together on the phone, choosing around 10 that we liked and then settling it down to the ONE. The choice of models often times will depend on who’s available, who’s in town and then who is willing. Some girls that work a lot may not be interested in doing editorial. That’s not the typical case, but you will find it happening from time to time and it can be frustrating. You think you’ve found the perfect girl and then you find out she’s just not interested in doing the job; either it doesn’t pay what she’s interested in getting or she just doesn’t need one more tear sheet in her book.
We finally settled on a girl from Ford Models named Angela Michelle. I think the thing that stood out the most for me in choosing Angela were the beauty campaigns in her book. Her face is undeniably gorgeous! And she has a classic beauty look. She has the ability to go the “Hollywood ’40′s Glamour” look. Which is how I wanted to shoot it. I must interject here that I had the preconceived idea that I might turn the shoot Black and White in post and do selective focus on the pictures. I wasn’t 100% sure I would go that route, but that idea was in the beginning stages of prepping for this shoot.
After we settled on Angela, I then went about the tedious task of finding the perfect stylist. A fashion photographer needs a lot of “best friends” on their shoots but if we’re going to call someone your best best friend (BFF) that would be the stylist! Hands down, this is going to be the person who can turn a shoot into either a mediocre fashion lay out or a fabulous high fashion couture lay out! You need your stylist to have the ability to thoroughly understand your concept. If I say couture evening gowns and she shows up with mid-length cocktail dresses from local labels, she obviously didn’t listen or just didn’t get your concept. It is SO important to spend time before hand with your stylist, sending her pictures if you have to, going over it on the phone a few times so that she really gets EXACTLY what you want. I settled on a new girl that I hadn’t worked with before because A: I liked her book. B: I liked her agent and I knew her agent would stay with us through out the prepping stages of the shoot. and C: in our first phone conversation, she got it! Robyn Goldberg from Artists by Timothy Priano was my stylist for this shoot and she did an amazing job! I can’t wait to work with her again!
After choosing the stylist, Robyn Goldberg, I then chose the hair and make up artist. Again, I chose them because of their portfolios. Make up was a cinch, I didn’t need to prep her with any information before the shoot because we weren’t doing anything terribly out of the ordinary as far as make up was concerned. I went with Lusine from Artists by Timothy Priano. As far as the hair was concerned, though, I did need to speak with the stylists’ agent regarding the hair styles for this issue. I wanted her to be able to replicate the Hollywood Glamour style hair styles, somewhat period looks, and her book, while it was strong, didn’t really have anything in it to depict that look. Her agent got back to me that Stephanie Pohl was sure she could pull it off, and I just went with my gut on it because, again, I knew that her agent wouldn’t mislead me on this one.
I was lucky to have an artist’s studio at my fingertips. My best friend, my own personal (BFF) is an amazing artist who happens to have a nice painting studio in her very own backyard (yeah, I’m a lucky girl) and she was kind enough to let us invade her space for the day to shoot the 8 page editorial.
So location was set. Hair, make up and stylist were lined up. The model was booked. What’s left to figure out?
My lighting! The part you all are waiting patiently to read now. If you have been reading my blog in the past, I would hope you have gotten that I am a “less is more” kind of lighting geek. And I didn’t vary from my theory on this shoot. I went to the studio, even though I’ve been their a million times, but I never went to “LOOK” at it in the context of shooting in it. I studied the available light coming in from the huge double doors to the South, the skylight coming in from above and the way the light fell and spread over the walls and floor without ANY additional lighting. From there I could figure out what lighting I would need to enhance the already beautiful available “Studio” light. After all, this shoot is for the art issue and the story is about The Muse, hanging out in a painting studio, ready to pose. I wanted the available light to convey the natural setting of the studio. But I did need extra lights to be able to pick up the details in the clothing and to give the model and the clothing that Hollywood glamour lighting. I settled on Profoto gear, because it’s the best! I went with a medium sized Profoto soft box and Profotos’ beauty dish. While the beauty dish will light only the upper frame of the model, I knew I was going to use longer shutter speeds to allow the day light to “fill” the rest of her body. I chose the soft box because I wanted a soft wrap around lighting effect that would blend well with the gorgeous available light already in the studio. Why use a space that has incredible available light and then just take in a bunch of artificial lighting gear and over-light the whole damn set?? It would knock out the the “feeling”, the real-ness and ultimately the beauty of the actual shoot. Does that make sense?
I used my Nikon D2Xs to shoot the story, interchanging my 24mm with my 85mm where needed. You will notice under the pictures I put the details on which lens I used and a what f-stop and shutter speed. I used my trusty pocket wizards, because they just never fail me!
We had an 8:30 call time. Everyone was on time but the model and the client! But that was okay, it gave us all time to set up our gear, test out lighting and get to talk a little with my crew. Since it was the first time we all had worked togehter, it was nice to have a moment to get to know them a little better and it also gave us a chance to talk about the shoot.
The video tutorial really shows you how I didn’t have much space to shoot in but still, we made the most of it and the end result is pretty nice! I varied between using my soft box and the beauty dish, and pretty much dragged my shutter so I could get some of that delicious available light into the camera and on to the image!
All in all, I think it was a successful day! And we’re getting ready to do it again in a few short days!
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Amazing video Melissa. Thanks for giving us this wonderful behind the scene!
Absolutely stunning work! As a student of photography your tutorial certainly help me!
You stand out with your technical ability and sensitivity.
Thank you for sharing it.
P.S. – Any chance of telling us a bit about the edition? How do you get those magnificient effects of blurring and ghosting?
Exquisite images. The choice of B&W is perfect.
I’m also curious about the retouching. Do you do that yourself? The first image, above, looks like rear curtain synch, but I think you did this with layers. Right?
I like it..
SUPERB as always! The video was wonderful. thanks.
Great video, and great results too. Good job to whoever retouched the photos
Hey Everybody! Thanks for all the great comments! Yes, the blurring and ghosting was done in post! My husband is my retouch artist! And he says Thank you! for the compliments! I sit by his side (most of the time) while he retouches so it’s collaborative, but he’s the one with the rad photoshop chops, not me!
Right that’s it, I’m moving to California! Just try setting up a shoot like that in the UK and hoping for constant sunlight – highly unlikely. The challenge of a largely unknown space and team for a high profile shoot must have been a worry. No matter, the result is stratospheric and reminds me of a recent stunning Vogue shoot by Nick Knight with Kate Moss, editing and all. Overall the result is as good it gets and is testament to superb planning and teamwork. Oh, and the model is fabulous too.
Mel, this is David, Melissa’s husband.
About the Blurring Effect:
First, I masked around the girl, (which I had to do anyways, as I added the wall you see in the backdrop)
- then I just duplicated the girl only.
- I then put a small filter >> Blur >> Motion Blur effect on it.
- and the last part, I added a mask, and used a brush with a low opacity and started brushing away parts of the reflection until I found the effect looked good! I also brought down the opacity on the entire layer.
Hope this helps!
David Skyler
Great Pictures……Great Work………Love Black and White Photos!!
Thanks for another fantastic video! I really like how you take us through the whole shoot from beginning to end. It really helps to see how others work. Thanks so much for this blog and the video!
Melissa, as always your blog is packed full of information and you absolutely can not stress a strong team enough… Thanks for your efforts and as always, great work.
Melissa,
Thank you for sharing. Your blog is one of the most informative sites in the realm of fashion. I have a couple questions regarding planning and the shooting process.
If you have, let say, ten looks with varying complexities (make-up, styling and wardrobes), do you start with the simple setups and work your way up to the more elaborate ones? Or you get the complex photos out of the way first?
With regards to your shooting philosophy, do you plan your poses or you just let experience take its course? I know some photographers use their instincs while others plan. Annie Leibovitz, in spite of her broad repertoire of poses, use her assistants as stand-ins prior to actual shooting. When does planning work and vice versa?
Thanks in advance.
Joe
you sooo should do a seminar in the bay area !!!!!!
Hi Melissa,
First of all I need to say you did some amazing shots. I’m amazed to see how well you can handle natural light and besides not much tech talk during the video, we can see exactly how you manage to do that nice work.
I’m not shooting fashion ’til today. But in general rule your blog is very useful. I’m also adept of the “less is more”. I’ll be back here more often.
I love your ‘less is more’ lighting! I get a lot of information from your videos, please keep them coming!
Steve
Hey Melissa,
Outstanding photos and retouch work!
Great team work from all!
Than you for sharing the video! Excellent work with the post processing!
Melissa, these are stunning photos. This blog is very useful. Thanks for the videos (BTS
). They are very informative.
Cheers
Ryan
I forgot to mention how nice it was to know your steps in choosing your crew.
Bye!
Melissa,
Thanks so much for posting the video. It’s really nice to see what goes on behind the shoot. This will go a long way with helping me expand my photography skills.
glenn
wow. just awesome.
rocksteady,
danno~
Melissa and David, outstanding photos! Thank you so much guys for sharing techniques. Some people are afraid to give away their methods without realizing that this is ART, it cannot duplicated even if somebody knows one of your tricks.
Melissa, first of all, Happy New year and thank’s again to share your great experiences with us, your fans…
Great to see how simple it seems to be for you to create great athmospheres, with only a verry few light sources. You wanted to shoot in a old Hollywood style, and you have reached your goal, Bravo !!!
As I can see, you (your husband) did a lot of post prod on Photoshop. When we say that aboout 50% of the work is done during the shooting and the rest on post prod, this is the evidence once again…
Encore des Tutorials, j’adore ça !!!
Ciao
Jean xxx
Fantastic, clear information. Thank you for your generosity in sharing with us – photographers so often want to hide their methods.
And what a fantastic set of shots!
Hi Melissa,
Once again thank you so much for a fantastic blog entry. I visit your blog often and I love the fact that you’re not shy sharing your experience and thoughts with us. Both the video and the blog itself are extremely helpful. Thank you to your husband as well on sharing with us his post-processing technique for this particular shoot. The whole team did such a fantastic job in enabling the shoot to be a successful one.
Cheers
Nadia
ps: What’s the name of the last song on your video if you don’t mind sharing
Thanks!
Hi Melissa and David,
as a photography student (“majoring” in fashion) I really like your blog but this one is particularly informative with your description of planning the shoot and getting your team together. And what a really fabulous photos have resulted! Also a special thanks to David for sharing the PS tricks!
thanks,
dimitri
Hello Melissa, loved this tutorial. So simple yet so effective.
Absolutely stunning work, always an inspiration to watch
Thanks a million
Sheradon
nice photos
First of all, thank you to everybody for the great compliments on the blog and my work! I feel so lucky to have such nice readers! Just to answer Joe Ferrer’s question: You know, it really depends. If the hair and make up change radically, yes, we will start with the simple shots and then get heavier with the make up and more elaborate with the hair as we shoot. For obvious reasons. It’s tough to go from heavy make up to clean. Or tougher, I should say. With poses, again, it just depends on what I’m going for. Some shots I have set up and there’s little room to really vary in the posing. But at other times, I just let it flow and let the model lead me through his/her timing and I capture it. I tend to be on the “let it flow” side more often than the “staged” posing. But there’s a time and place for everything. Hope this answer your questions. Thanks again!
This is great – thank you for taking time to pen it and record it!
Great video. Thanks, I really enjoyed it. Very helpful to put lens information in the shoot. Your work blows my mind.
Thanks, you answered my questions. Keep up your excellent work. All the best!
Great vid. Informative. Fascinating. Fun. Gracias!
Great BTS video, thank you for sharing that with us all.
thank you for the detailed writeup & the video .. the detail is helpful & inspirational ..
was really looking forward to read how you got the movement effect on these shots .. but i guess that’d've to be the hit-n-trial way for now ..
please keep up the good work..
Nice video
Is this shoot an homage to Meisel’s work ?
[...] and I can’t stress it enough! Robyn Goldberg styled the shoot. You remember Robyn from my Genlux Winter Fashion shoot. She pulled some great pieces, and they weren’t all pants. We had a jeans vest. We even had a [...]
Speechless, i found this by accident (googling around), but boy do you have talent … Congrats on the great pictures and the video. It shows that there was a hard work making all that happen.
the part about this blog entry that I really enjoyed reading was the realism that you project. I would have not known that even as a pro photographer, you still have to face up to a model not wanting to shoot with you.
and here I was thinking that once I get my portfolio to that next level…. that models will just come flocking to shoot with me.
Reality is just not fun…. but “thanks” for that valuable insight!
Thank you,David…. I know it’s a few months late, but, would you believe it, that I did not see your reply till now???
… sorry…
Great help your answer…. Keep up the good work, you and Melissa… you’re the best!