Creative light in fashion photography

Hey there! As always awesome to be a part of the Broncolor GenNext blog because the articles I write motivate me so much to create something unusual even when the aims are very simple.
I want to tell you about the light in my new lookbook SS'18 for Svetlana Evstigneeva's fashion house.

Working with clients you always get kinda task, mine was not only to shoot lookbook but shoot atmospheric images, where are the play of shadows and light. It's a world where the dresses of Svetlana Evstigneeva living. Luxury, but still magical, with kind of fairy tale behind.
I really love to shoot dresses like these, they don't need a "scream", they are silence itself.

This is mostly improvisation images. I had no understanding what will it be even going to her showroom, where the shoot planning. I saw only the dresses and models. So I used to coordinate all in the process of the shoot. Of course, I prefer to keep an organization and pre-production process in a tight handover, but freedom is a nice experience too. Let's go!

The first thing which caught my eyes was a large scaffold, which stands close to window to hang up the curtain, we covered it up with the same material as a curtain to make it looks a little bit softer, not too technogeneous.




If to tell about the light, fashion genre means what you need to show dresses first, and special effects (like the light, location, set design and so on) is only the additional features. Fashion everywhere means "clothes on models". For catalogs, for example, you can use only smooth backgrounds in one, rarely two colors, like a paper or cyclorama or just a wall. However now we shoot not a catalog, and we are free to work with interior because our aim is not only showing dresses but showing dresses in life, in the environment.

I decide to use profitably our space and set two lamps. The first one (open) to create a shadow on the curtain, wall, and girls, and the second (softbox 60x60) is only to fill the shadows on faces and dresses. I asked my models constantly move when I shoot, to show the motion of skirts.
The open lamp gives us very sharp omnipresent shadows, but do not forget about our curtains. It operates this way like a soft diffusor, partly separates the scene with girls with softer light.

Now, just move away from the scaffold and cut off unnecessary light of open source. The standard reflector is good with it. It gives us a spot of focused light, sharp and bright. Now we receive a nice gradient on the background.






Varying the distance and position of the model in relation to that spot and brightness of 1st source(now it's focused Broncolor PARA) we can receive several variants of lightning. From scheme where all face lightens standardly with straight forward "glamorous" light, to sharp light filling the half of model's body and face when she stands on the way of background flash. (And many more, of course, depends on your imagination) but I used only those two variants. Short flash duration on Move 1200L power pack allows me to shoot moving elements very clean and sharp. Save all texture of dresses recognizably is very important.


"Reflections"
Reflections always steal my attention from the whole landscape, I like how the sun/light bouncing through the glass, plastic, water or mirrors or how it refracts falling on facet crystals. So, why not to use a simple mirror?
These cloud-like dresses are really huge and independent so I want to focus on them, that's why I chose a neutral light-grey background. I use only one standard reflector and the mirror leftward to models to create the reflection on the wall.




See you!

Equipment:
Broncolor move 1200L kit
Broncolor softbox 60x60
Broncolor standard reflector P70
Broncolor PARA 133
Canon 6D + 24-105 f/4 lens
Tasty pizza + 4 cups of coffee

More interesting free articles on http://gennext.broncolor.com/blog.html




CREDITS:
Svetlana Evstigneeva lookbook SS'18 "Iced flowers"
Photographer @ilonaveresk
Designer @svetlanaevstigneeva
Stylist @alexgabany
Makeup @givemebrush
Muses @_mariapark_ @nikolaeva__angelina