Stylization of a photo shoot: what is it for and how to organize it | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Shoot­ing styl­iza­tion is the cre­ation of a full-fledged pho­to project. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make a con­cept with a his­to­ry for a com­pa­ny or any per­son, to immerse the client in a pic­ture that is well thought out and chore­o­graphed in detail. How to make a cool styl­ized shoot­ing, we tell in this mate­r­i­al.

Today, not only stars and world famous brands can make a styl­ish pho­to ses­sion. Pho­to: infozoid.ru

What is styling
When you need a styl­ized shoot
How to pre­pare for a styl­ish pho­to shoot in the stu­dio or out­doors
Col­lec­tion of infor­ma­tion
Idea For­ma­tion
Selec­tion of styl­ish images for a pho­to shoot
Pur­chase, rental of images
Prepar­ing things
Shoot­ing con­trol
Com­po­nents of a suc­cess­ful pho­tog­ra­phy project
Clothes and acces­sories
Holis­tic image
Loca­tion
Life hacks to help you get ready for a shoot

What is styling

This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to come up with a sin­gle con­cept for pho­tog­ra­phy and imple­ment it. It can be assumed that this term means only the selec­tion of clothes for a pho­to shoot. In fact, this is only one of the tasks.

Let’s show it clear­ly. Styl­iza­tion allows you to take not such pho­tos as on the left, but such as on the right.

An exam­ple of a pho­to shoot with­out styling and with it. Pho­to: weheartit.com and productionparadise.com

Styl­iza­tion is about aes­thet­ics, about cre­at­ing a sin­gle image for all par­tic­i­pants, cre­at­ing a pho­to sto­ry that will be nos­tal­gic, talked about, remem­bered with admi­ra­tion.

When you need a stylized shoot

Any pho­to project has 2 ulti­mate goals: to sell or admire.

Com­mer­cial, sell­ing shoot­ing is need­ed for:

• stores with clothes, shoes, acces­sories. These can be pho­tos for a cat­a­log, web­site, brand books, pro­mo­tions, ban­ners, etc.;
• cafes, restau­rants, hotels;
• mag­a­zines. This may be the sale of a ser­vice, a prod­uct, an increase in the pop­u­lar­i­ty of a per­son, an increase in brand loy­al­ty, etc.;
• social net­works. Many under­stand that it is not enough just to take a few self­ies on the phone to get cus­tomers to start buy­ing. They need beau­ty, aes­thet­ics, a sto­ry that you are will­ing to share. And this sto­ry can be cre­at­ed on a styl­ized shoot­ing.

Into the “love” cat­e­go­ry includes any pho­to shoots that are ordered not for PR or sell­ing some­thing. It can be shoot­ing a wed­ding, love sto­ry, preg­nant and fam­i­ly pho­to ses­sion, cor­po­rate and per­son­al shoot­ing.

Styl­iza­tion is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ize any, even the most dar­ing, ideas of the client. Pho­to: mylitta.ru

How to prepare for a stylish photo shoot in the studio or outdoors

The pro­duc­er of such shoot­ings can be an image mak­er, a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, a make-up artist, an addi­tion­al­ly hired spe­cial­ist, or even the client him­self. The main thing is that this per­son under­stands what the result should be. Now we list the main stages of styling that fall on the shoul­ders of such a team mem­ber.

Collection of information

You need to assem­ble a team to deter­mine:

• the pur­pose of the shoot­ing;
• style;
• desired pic­ture.

It is pos­si­ble that the client already has options that he likes. These mate­ri­als should be reviewed. For pro­duc­tive work, you need to under­stand what the client wants.

Idea Formation

This is real cre­ativ­i­ty, real styl­iza­tion of film­ing. When a team cre­ates a full-fledged pho­to project from one idea.

Con­sid­er­ing options:

• film­ing loca­tions;
• sets of clothes, shoes, acces­sories;
• hair­styles
• make­up.

Mooboards are often used to cre­ate and present con­cepts. This is a col­lage in which the main the­ses are col­lect­ed. The task is not just to tell, but to show how it might look.

For exam­ple:

we use such a col­or palette, fab­rics, hair­style, make­up, acces­sories, we shoot here, these are the angles that look inter­est­ing.

Mood­board exam­ple. Pho­to: tikhonova.pro

There can be mul­ti­ple mood­boards. Each of them rep­re­sents one idea.

Selection of stylish images for a photo shoot

Know­ing the wish­es of the client, the pro­posed loca­tion, the para­me­ters of the mod­els and oth­er inputs, you need to col­lect the images. The eas­i­est option is shoot­ing for a brand. In this sit­u­a­tion, it is enough to think over images for a spe­cif­ic loca­tion from a cer­tain set of things (if any).

They think through every­thing to the small­est detail. Every­thing should be com­bined: clothes, shoes, acces­sories. Pho­to: rs-music.ru

Purchase, rental of images

Shoot­ing styl­iza­tion implies not only the prepa­ra­tion of an idea, but also its imple­men­ta­tion. It is nec­es­sary to select spe­cif­ic images accord­ing to the pro­posed and approved ref­er­ences.

Clothes can be bought or rent­ed — this issue is dis­cussed imme­di­ate­ly. Rent­ing clothes to stores after film­ing is usu­al­ly a styl­ist or his assis­tants (if any).

In 3–4 days, the images are sent to the cus­tomer for final approval and fit­ting.

Preparing things

Every­thing needs to be steamed, divorced, brought to the place of the pho­to shoot. Dur­ing the shoot­ing, you need to help change clothes, col­lect clothes, fold them, take them away at the end of the day.

Shooting control

In the process, max­i­mum assis­tance is pro­vid­ed to the client / mod­el / pho­tog­ra­ph­er. The pro­duc­er of the pho­to shoot (or oth­er respon­si­ble per­son) con­trols how har­mo­nious the whole image looks.

The whole team helps with the imple­men­ta­tion of the idea. Pho­to: mentalfloss.com

Components of a successful photography project

Clothes and accessories

Some­one will say that the client can choose the dress and shoes him­self. But every­thing is much more com­pli­cat­ed. For styl­ish shoot­ing in the stu­dio or out­doors, you need to choose things that:

• har­mo­nious­ly com­bined between them — you can eas­i­ly assem­ble up to 5–10 styl­ish images from them;
• fit into the sur­round­ings of the loca­tion. They are not knocked out by col­ors, com­bined by tex­tures, cor­re­spond to the cho­sen era;
• look good on the mod­el, empha­size its dig­ni­ty;
• match the gen­er­al idea.

An exam­ple of choos­ing clothes for a clas­sic pho­to shoot:

• slip dress;
• loose cardi­gan;
• volu­mi­nous jack­et;
• clas­sic trench;
• White shirt;
• con­cise trousers;
• clas­sic jeans.

You can make 9 bows from this set.

For a styl­ized shoot, it is impor­tant to pick up a few things that can be har­mo­nious­ly com­bined with each oth­er. Pho­to: wellwiremesh.com

Holistic image

For a styl­ish pho­to shoot, not only clothes are impor­tant. Each per­son has his own vision of beau­ty. And the image cre­at­ed by the image mak­er can be destroyed by a make-up artist or a hair­dress­er. There­fore, it is opti­mal to work in a team and joint­ly decide what make­up and hair­style will be.

Location

The process of find­ing a place to shoot is very impor­tant and inter­est­ing. Loca­tion can also con­vey an idea, an emo­tion.

For exam­ple:

• field, wheat, sun, spikelets — this is about warmth, har­mo­ny, relax­ation;
• sub­way, fac­to­ry, con­crete walls, met­al struc­tures — bru­tal­i­ty, cold;
• for­est glade, thick­et, green­ery, nar­row paths — mys­tery, fab­u­lous­ness;
• the abun­dance of flow­ers in the stu­dio — light­ness, ten­der­ness.

Impor­tant: the more restrained the loca­tion, the bet­ter you can see all the flaws in the image. And the more inter­est­ing the loca­tion of the shoot­ing, the bet­ter it will com­ple­ment the image.

The right loca­tion helps to con­vey not only the idea but also the main emo­tion of the pho­to project: joy, sad­ness, fatigue, apa­thy and oth­ers. Pho­to: truyenkol.net and nostars.biz

It is bet­ter to choose a venue accord­ing to mature pref­er­ences, wish­es and ideas. You can eval­u­ate a place by ask­ing your­self a few ques­tions:

• what col­or scheme pre­vails (dark, light, sat­u­rat­ed, pas­tel);
• what addi­tion­al col­ors are present;
• the inte­ri­or is con­trast­ing or almost merges with the loca­tion;
• in what style the stu­dio, place.

After that, it is impor­tant to answer the main ques­tion for each item. — how it cor­re­sponds to the con­cept of the pho­to project.

Life hacks to help you get ready for a shoot

1. You need to clear­ly under­stand what the client likes and what does not. What goes togeth­er and what does­n’t. To do this, you need to pre­pare exam­ples. You can find them, for exam­ple, on Pin­ter­est. Read more about ref­er­ences and their selec­tion in this arti­cle.

2. First of all, you need to decide on the mood and col­or scheme. After that, it will be eas­i­er to pick up every­thing else.

3. You can make sev­er­al mood­boards to choose the best one.

4. All pur­chased, rent­ed things need to be laid out in the stu­dio, at home and check how har­mo­nious­ly they fit togeth­er. It is opti­mal to car­ry out a fit­ting with mod­els in advance. If some things do not fit, you need to have time to replace them.

5. Shapewear — assis­tant mod­els. It is bet­ter to cor­rect some imper­fec­tions than to leave it all to the retouch­er.

6. If the shoot­ing is car­ried out on the street in the cold sea­son, it is bet­ter to choose incon­spic­u­ous (as far as pos­si­ble) ther­mal under­wear for the mod­els.

7. Things in which mod­els are paint­ed / made up before shoot­ing should be easy to remove and be com­fort­able.

Read also:

How to cre­ate a com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy project: a prac­ti­cal guide from orga­niz­ing pho­tog­ra­phers

How to pub­lish pic­tures in a fash­ion mag­a­zine: a guide for pho­tog­ra­phers