How To Shoot Fashion Portraits

Around Christmas time, we recommended a Youtube channel called dphog that's full of really good photography tutorials that are designed to help you capture better portraits. The same channel has recently released a new video all about capturing fashion style portraits and it's well-worth a watch.

The video tutorial, shown above, is just under 10 minutes long and it looks at the psychology behind fashion shoots as well as the lighting you can use to take your portraits to the next level.

In the tutorial, it's discussed how two separate worlds, fashion and portraiture, collide beautifully:  'Usually, with fashion, you focus a lot on the garment, what the wardrobe is doing and how you can sell the garment. The person wearing the outfit comes second to the clothes but with fashion portraits, you are taking the likeness of a person and focusing on how the clothing they're wearing makes them feel in a way fashion doesn't.' 

The photographer in the tutorial goes on to say that a fashion portrait shoot is all about simplifying the shoot process so instead of having 10 outfit changes and worrying about pulling a 'look' off for each, just choose 3 simple outfits that are flattering and good examples of what's fashionable then focus on the emotions and beauty of the person you're photographing.   

As for lighting, dphog says that too needs to be really simple so you focus on what makes the light flattering rather than getting lost in technology and overly complicated lighting set-ups. As you'll see in the video,  dphog used 2 light shapers on the shoot - a softbox and a beauty dish fitted with grids - to focus the light and build contrast to create an image that is full of emotion and has a level of sophistication about it. Basically, it's about blending artificial light with natural light to create imperfections that make the shot perfect. 

There are plenty of other useful tips in the tutorial so do watch it right through and for even more inspiration, dphog recommend you take a look at the work of photographer Peter Lindbergh as he's very good at what he does. We also have advice on working with professional models in our 'posing tutorial with a twist' feature.