Shooting clothes for the catalog: equipment, posing, lighting schemes | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Shoot­ing for a cloth­ing brand, cat­a­log, online store is not an easy task. It is nec­es­sary to clear­ly under­stand what result the client expects and how to achieve this. A good com­mer­cial shoot is the result of the well-coor­di­nat­ed work of a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, mod­el, styl­ist and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als.

If you are going to pho­to­graph clothes on a mod­el, the tips in this arti­cle will help you avoid com­mon mis­takes and make the process fruit­ful.

It is dif­fi­cult to take beau­ti­ful pho­tos for adver­tis­ing a cloth­ing store. But the study of the­o­ry and con­stant prac­tice will help to achieve good results. Pho­to: instyle.ru

What can be shoot­ing clothes
Equip­ment for pho­tograph­ing cloth­ing on a mod­el
Pos­ing for a cloth­ing cat­a­log
Pos­es for shoot­ing clothes
How not to pose for a cloth­ing cat­a­log shoot
Light­ing schemes for cloth­ing adver­tis­ing pho­tog­ra­phy

What can be shooting clothes

• For a cat­a­log (print or online). They pho­to­graph fold­ed clothes, on man­nequins, on mod­els. The last option is the most labor inten­sive.
• Look­book (look­book). Demon­strates not indi­vid­ual things, but full-fledged images. The way you can arrange clothes from the line. The client can imme­di­ate­ly find a ready-made image that suits him and buy it, and not com­bine things on his own.
• Cam­paign — fash­ion shoot­ing of mod­els in the stu­dio or on the street. These pho­tos are used in pro­mo­tion, adver­tis­ing. For exam­ple, a brand is launch­ing a new cloth­ing line and wants to talk about it. There­fore, he needs a styl­ized sto­ry, and not just a cloth­ing shot.
• Edi­to­r­i­al (edi­to­r­i­al) — shoot­ing for glossy mag­a­zines, online pub­lish­ers. This is a fash­ion sto­ry, a cre­ative project that every­one ben­e­fits from. The pho­tog­ra­ph­er who took the pho­to, the brand that pro­vid­ed the clothes, etc.

Shoot­ing exam­ples: for cat­a­logue, look­book, cam­paign, edi­to­r­i­al. Pho­to: pirkl.ua, pro-lookbook.ru, models.com, bellazon.com

Equipment for photographing clothing on a model

Find­ing a uni­ver­sal pho­tog­ra­phy kit is not easy. Since mod­el shoot­ing of clothes can be car­ried out on the street, indoors, be con­ser­v­a­tive and, con­verse­ly, out­ra­geous. But you can make a basic list of equip­ment that is worth hav­ing for cat­a­log and fash­ion shoot­ing of clothes.

It includes:

- pho­to­phone + instal­la­tion sys­tem (the back­ground for shoot­ing clothes is usu­al­ly white. But the col­lec­tion can be replen­ished with mul­ti-col­ored ones. This is a field for exper­i­ments); — two light sources; — an umbrel­la mod­i­fi­er — to use it as a key light source; — a soft­box mod­i­fi­er — for fill­ing Sve­ta. Can be replaced with anoth­er umbrel­la, small­er. For exam­ple, take the first 200 cm in diam­e­ter, and the sec­ond — 100–110 cm in diam­e­ter.

This basic set is enough to take pho­tos of chil­dren’s, wom­en’s, men’s cloth­ing for the cat­a­log. But these will be pic­tures on a white back­ground (for the cat­a­log and look­book). Typ­i­cal­ly, these are used to sell goods on aggre­ga­tor sites, in cat­a­logs, in prod­uct cards in online stores. Umbrel­la and soft­box can be replaced with oth­er mod­i­fiers if required.

If the client wants an inter­est­ing, styl­ized prod­uct shoot (for exam­ple, for a mag­a­zine), addi­tion­al acces­sories will be need­ed. For exam­ple:

- col­ored gel fil­ters — they can be used to make unusu­al accents; — soft­box­es, dif­fusers, reflec­tors of dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes — it all depends on the idea; — equip­ment for spe­cial effects (fans, fog gen­er­a­tors, etc.).

The exact set depends on the pur­pose of shoot­ing, con­di­tions, bud­get.

You can beau­ti­ful­ly take off your clothes even using the min­i­mum set of equip­ment for the stu­dio. Pho­to: phonoteka.org

Posing for a clothing catalog

Cam­paign and edi­to­r­i­al is a cre­ative shoot in which the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and mod­el have a lit­tle more free­dom. Pos­es for fash­ion shoot­ing are more relaxed, unnat­ur­al body curves, out­ra­geous behav­ior are accept­able.

For the look­book and cat­a­log, more rig­or­ous pho­tos are need­ed. We will now tell you how to put a mod­el for such a shoot.

Legs

Prop­er pos­ing in the frame begins with the posi­tion of the legs. The mod­el must be placed in the cen­ter, so that it stands con­fi­dent­ly on its feet. Clas­si­cal con­sid­er “the third dance posi­tion.”

What does the third posi­tion look like? One foot is in front of the oth­er. The heel of the front foot touch­es the mid­dle of the foot of the sec­ond. Pho­to: ru.p‑advice.com

Why such a posi­tion?

• She is sta­ble.
• A beau­ti­ful line of hips is formed.
• A per­son will not trans­fer weight to the leg that is in front.

Why can’t you put your weight on your front foot? Mus­cles tense when car­ry­ing weight, the thigh looks visu­al­ly wider. And if it stands clos­er to the cam­era, it visu­al­ly seems mas­sive. If you are pho­tograph­ing clothes on a mod­el that is lean­ing on the front leg, the image will look bulky and rough.

The posi­tion of the legs can be changed. The main thing is that the legs are not spaced shoul­der-width apart or more, do not stand on one straight line.

Posture

The back should be straight. But it’s impor­tant not to over­do it. Oth­er­wise, the frame will be unnat­ur­al. The per­son can be turned 3⁄4 towards the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and asked to low­er the shoul­der clos­est to you slight­ly.

Arms

First of all, they must be vis­i­ble. Mod­els some­times remove the “far” hand behind their backs. And this is a mis­take. Hands are a very expres­sive part of the body, as are the eyes. There­fore, one hid­den hand will make the frame unnat­ur­al and strange.

• Both brush­es must be in the frame.
• Hands need to be relaxed.
• All knuck­les can­not be turned into the cam­era. The arms appear to be short.
• You can­not turn your elbows direct­ly into the cam­era. This visu­al­ly short­ens the arms and focus­es on them.

head and face

A mod­el is not just a man­nequin for shoot­ing clothes. She is alive, her emo­tions also “sell”. There­fore, do not abuse closed pos­es and sad looks. Of course, if the oppo­site is not orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed by the client and styl­ist.

• You don’t need to purse your lips. It’s bet­ter to open your mouth a lit­tle. Ask the mod­el to exhale eas­i­ly. Get nat­u­ral­ly part­ed lips.
• Hair should not dis­tract from cloth­ing. They can be: removed com­plete­ly by the shoul­ders, col­lect­ed in a bun, tail, braids.
• The 3⁄4 angle suits almost every­one. It is impor­tant to avoid the “pass­port pho­to”. It is bet­ter to tilt your head a lit­tle. The pos­ture will be more relaxed and nat­ur­al.

Poses for shooting clothes

In the pho­tographs for the cat­a­log, the empha­sis should not be on the mod­el, but on what she is wear­ing. Con­sid­er basic pos­es that show clothes well.

• The first option is to put one leg in front of you and bend slight­ly. This will length­en the legs, help to demon­strate a beau­ti­ful cut on the skirt, the length of the trousers, decor.
• The sec­ond posi­tion — the body must be rotat­ed 45 degrees, and the head slight­ly turned into the cam­era. So you can avoid unnec­es­sary folds on clothes in the waist area. And the mod­el will look slim­mer.

3 more pos­es for shoot­ing clothes

In each case, the start­ing posi­tion is “A” in the pic­ture below. The legs are straight, the head is slight­ly raised, the arms are relaxed.

First pose (B) — the weight should be trans­ferred to the left leg (the thigh can be set a lit­tle). Bend your right knee slight­ly. Tilt your left shoul­der. The left hand can be moved to the thigh.

The sec­ond © — the sup­port­ing leg is again left. The right one needs to be placed 10–15 cm side­ways or diag­o­nal­ly. The left hand can be placed on the thigh.

Third (D) — you need to take a step to the side with your right foot. Most of the weight remains on the left leg. The palm of the left hand can be placed on the thigh or high­er — on the waist.

Ref­er­ences for pos­ing. Pho­to: fanibani.ru

An excel­lent cheat sheet for begin­ners and expe­ri­enced pho­tog­ra­phers is the Pos­ing App. If you are going to shoot clothes in a stu­dio for online stores, mar­ket­places, mag­a­zines and cat­a­logs, you will find many good schemes in the offer. There is an app for both iOS and Android. It is paid — from 156 rubles. There are many cat­e­gories: men, women, cou­ples, fash­ion and oth­ers. The appli­ca­tion is in Eng­lish, but it has a lot of pic­tures, so every­thing is intu­itive even for those who do not know the lan­guage.

What the app looks like. Pho­to: www.posingapp.com

How not to pose for a clothing catalog shoot

It is impor­tant not to for­get about the goal — to show clothes, under­wear, shoes, acces­sories as advan­ta­geous­ly as pos­si­ble and sell them to the view­er. There­fore, it is worth fol­low­ing a few rules.

• Aggres­sive­ness and audac­i­ty are one of the tricks for fash­ion shoot­ing. If it fits the idea of ​​a cam­paign or edi­to­r­i­al, great. But for direc­to­ries, this is inap­pro­pri­ate. Pos­tures should be soft and restrained, while “vital”. Not too tight.
• It is bet­ter to refuse unnat­ur­al pos­ing (unless the oppo­site is intend­ed). When the fig­ure is exces­sive­ly curved, arched, tilt­ed. It dis­tracts from the main thing — clothes.
• Do not turn an adver­tise­ment for a chil­dren’s, men’s, wom­en’s cloth­ing store into an ordi­nary styl­ized pho­to shoot. For exam­ple, take a por­trait instead of a pho­to in a full-length dress. The client should be inter­est­ed not in the mod­el, but in the clothes she is wear­ing.

Tip: if you want to pump your skill, William Mortessen’s book “Mod­el. Pos­ing Prob­lems is a great choice. The author tells what not to do. A good guide to avoid mis­takes.

Lighting schemes for clothing advertising photography

Option 1. To the left of the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, just above the head of the mod­el, they put a key light source with a soft­box. He is the main one. The task is to get an even stream of bright light. As a result, the mod­el will have a shad­ow under the chin. It is impor­tant to pre­vent the for­ma­tion of a shad­ow under the nose. Oth­er­wise, there will be an ugly stain. You can fix this by adjust­ing the loca­tion of the light source, the angle of incli­na­tion.

The fill light should bright­en the shad­ows that formed after the paint. The pow­er of ZC must be low­er than PC. You can use a large soft­box or an umbrel­la in the light as a ZC. You need to put it at the lev­el of the cam­era or slight­ly low­er.

This scheme will allow you to take pho­tos of beau­ti­ful clothes to the waist or along the hip line. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

Option 2. Light for shoot­ing clothes can be set in dif­fer­ent ways. In this case, SC and PC must be swapped. The PC is to the right of the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, prac­ti­cal­ly hang­ing over the mod­el. You can use a large soft­box or octo­box.

3C is now stand­ing to the left of the cam­era, almost lev­el with the mod­el. The result is well defined (but soft) shad­ows. And this gives the right vol­ume to the clothes.

So you can put the light in a pho­to stu­dio for shoot­ing clothes in full growth. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

You can take a pho­to of wom­en’s, men’s, chil­dren’s cloth­ing for adver­tis­ing, a cat­a­log, a web­site if:

• under­stand what the result should be;
• togeth­er with the styl­ist, mod­el and oth­er team mem­bers, devel­op a con­cept and stick to it;
• pre-select ref­er­ences, equip­ment;
• to study the expe­ri­ence of col­leagues — this will help to avoid many mis­takes.

We hope that this mate­r­i­al was inter­est­ing and it will help to thor­ough­ly pre­pare for the upcom­ing shoot­ing.