Fashion Photography

Fashion Photography has been in existence since the early days of photography. In the first decade of the 20th century, advances in halftone printing allowed fashion photographs to be featured in magazines.


When is an image a Portrait? When is it a fashion photograph? Are the two the Same?

A portrait is a picture of a person, capturing their personality and demeanor, focusing solely on their facial expression and what that expression determines of them. A fashion photograph is different in terms of using props and make-up in order to achieve the desired effect - it involves more manipulation as the photographs will be used to promote clothing lines. However, the two are also similar in terms of getting the "right look". In portraiture you need to capture the right facial expression in order to convey how the person is feeling, and in fashion photography they want the capture the right mood for the clothing they are advertising, using a variety of colours, clothing and props. A Portrait and a fashion photograph are viewed differently - when you look at a Portrait of someone the main focus is there face, specifically their eyes, and what they're wearing isn't as important as it is in a fashion photograph because the main focus in that is the what clothes the model is wearing and how they look on the model.










To what degree should an image be manipulated to go into a fashion magazine?

g

       Fashion magazines want to sell their clothing lines, so the clothes need to be modelled and promoted in the highest quality possible. This means that most of the time they'll need to play around with the images that are taken in order to enhance the quality of the content. I think this is fine, to an extent. I can tolerate a little face manipulation, but I don't condone the ways in which someone's body is  made to look drastically different to it's natural look. It just gives young girls the wrong idea about the "perfect look", when in truth there is no perfect look; we're built the way we're built and nobody should be ashamed of that. I know the heavy body manipulation will probably never go away, but I hope people can separate reality from fantasy.

g    

g

      

k

Is there a clash between the creative and commercial side of fashion Photography?


Fashion magazines need to manipulate images before they make it into the magazine, and that requires some creativity. There's the on-set manipulation with props, locations and make-up; and there's the computer manipulation in post-production. Both require a creative mind, but the former requires a little more. Just by choosing the location requires creativity because there has to be a reason for the shoot to take place there. It might tell a story or the location might go with the clothes the model is wearing - e.g. someone modelling a white outfit on the beach. When the magazines are advertised I think that is the least creative part of the process as it's sole purpose is to inform people about its existence. However, the effort put in to reach the target audience for the magazine can be seen on a somewhat creative level. So I do believe there is a small clash between both sides of fashion Photography.