AKA: How to put together the perfect crew!

When I am assigned a shoot, the first thing I get to work on is hiring my crew. When I talk about crew here I am talking about the hair stylist, make up artist and wardrobe stylist. These three people are going to play a huge importance to the shoot. Without their talent and their work, I really can’t produce a great fashion shoot. And I need all three to be talented and hard working. In other words, if I have put in the time and energy to find the perfect model, get the proper location all set up with permits or permission or whatever it takes, then I find a great wardrobe stylist who pulls amazing couture labels like Galliano and Dior and a make up artist who has skills to die for but the hair stylist shows up and can’t do an up do, I’m pretty much looking at a half finished production.

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Beauty lighting is unique in itself because it only addresses lighting the model’s face. That’s not to say that you are not concerned with lighting her hair or other parts of her body. But when you are shooting a beauty ad or a headshot, it is imperative to understand how to specifically light for beauty. For the most part now in my career, I rely on a lighting accessory known as a beauty dish. A beauty dish is a round, flat dish usually 18″ to 36″ in diameter. It is metal and has a smaller opaque dish inside the metal dish that the light reflects against. The idea is the light reflects onto the smaller opaque dish, back into the metal dish and onto your model. The light is unforgiving but it is highly controllable in studio lighting situations. You can use a diffusion material over them, also known as a “sock”. Or you can also use a grid over the dish. A grid will soften the light but you’ll have more definitive shadows. The sock will soften the entire face, much like a soft box.

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© 2008 Melissa Rodwell Photography LLC.

Models who don’t have much experience in front of the camera need special attention when you put them in front of yours. After so many years experience shooting, sometimes I find it difficult now when I get a girl who’s new and inexperienced. So maybe I’m learning here myself, by writing this blog. It can be frustrating at first, when you get a girl who’s unfamiliar with her body and insecure as well. I don’t adhere to the philosophy of talking to them while they’re getting their hair and make up done. For one, this distracts the hair and make up artist. Instead, I watch them carefully. I look for their overall sense of being. How they hold themselves, if they are chatty with the hair stylist or if they’re shy and difficult to break through. I look for their body posture, they’re overall presence. It’s a bit like being a detective. Or even a psychologist.

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© 2008 Melissa Rodwell Photography LLC.

Fashion photography is the business of photographing fashion. That means that the product we are selling are the clothes. It is important for the young, aspiring fashion photographer to understand this. When a client hires us, we are being hired on our technical ability of understanding garments and the way they will photograph. I see so many photographers who are just starting out and building their books and the weakest part of their photographs is the styling.

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For those of you who don’t know, cyc is short for cyclorama. They are in most professional studios and have replaced the seamless paper almost entirely. Why? Because with a cyc, you have complete control over your background. A cyc is where the corners and seams are not visible. Cycs normally cover two sides of the studio. Assuming that your model is far enough away from the cyc, lighting can be controlled so that the background effect can be light or dark. Colored lights, cukaloris and other patterned screens can be used on the cyc to create interesting background effects. When lit evenly, the smooth surface, even as it goes around the corner of a studio, can provide an “infinity effect” — an endless space behind the models.

You can either light the cyc or not light the cyc. I will show you the difference. To achieve an “infinity effect”, I light the background with 4 light heads. 2 on each side. They are angled at a 45 degree angle to hit the background evenly. I use V flaps behind my lights to control flare and spillage onto the set.

This shot is using the 4 lights on the background effect:

As you can see, there is no shadow on the background. It is a smooth, endless appearing background.

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