Tips and tricks for fashion photography

What is fashion photography?

Whether on social media, in fashion magazines or on billboards, everyone knows the elaborate and artfully created images of the fashion industry. Fashion photography combines product, portrait and artistic photography, making it a symbiosis of art and commerce, as it usually serves the purpose of advertising and sales. After the artistic side of fashion photography went unrecognised for decades and was even frowned upon by insiders, it's fair to say that in recent years this genre has been accepted into the canon of the arts. Unlike product photography, fashion photography doesn't aim for authenticity; instead, it represents the perfect staging of beauty in advertising photography. As the name suggests, fashion photography presents clothing, shoes, accessories or complete outfits.

11 tips for fashion photography

No matter how glamorous and elaborate some fashion photos may seem, we've put together tips and tricks to help you get started in fashion photography quickly and with manageable effort. Step by step, we take you through the workflow, outline the most important points and introduce useful camera equipment for your project:

  1. From idea to finished photo: mood boards
  2. The workflow at a glance: what to keep in mind as a fashion photographer
  3. The best camera and the right lens for fashion photography
  4. The camera settings
  5. Choosing the set and location
  6. The right lighting for fashion photography
  7. Models and posing
  8. Working with accessories and props
  9. Photo editing: give your photos the finishing touch
  10. New inspiration and role models for fashion photography
  11. The perfect fashion photo

1. From idea to finished photo: mood boards

Before you plan your first fashion shoot, you should prepare. Check that you have the right camera equipment and think about how you want to present your model. Creating a mood board in advance can help you structure and collect your ideas. On a mood board you collect ideas and images from other photographers and shoots, of models, poses, hairstyles and make-up, and of course of the fashion itself. You can create it digitally or the classic way on a white sheet of paper with cut-outs from fashion magazines and the like. The mood board helps you get a better feel for your upcoming shoot, and you can discuss your ideas directly with everyone involved: the model, the make-up artist and everyone else on your set. Remember that you are the artist behind your shots. Let your creativity and imagination run free and think about how you can develop your own style.

2. The workflow at a glance: what to keep in mind as a fashion photographer

Once you've collected your ideas on a mood board and developed a vision for the photo shoot, it's time to draw up a rough schedule and answer the classic questions:

  • What do I want to photograph?
  • Who do I want to photograph?
  • Where do I want to photograph?
  • When will the shoot take place?
  • What accessories, props, etc. do I need?
  • How do I want to run the shoot?

Good preparation makes for a relaxed shoot! There are no limits to your photos, so think carefully about each of these questions. Keep your goal in mind and take stock in between to check whether you've thought of everything. Unexpected factors will usually come up anyway. Before the photo shoot actually begins, take a few test shots to check the lighting and your set one last time. Unsightly shadows are difficult to correct in post-production, so this preparation is definitely worth it! Have you thought of everything? Here's an overview of the most important points once more.

3. The best camera and the right lens for fashion photography

Finally, you can get started! You decide which camera equipment you want to use for your fashion shoot. Cameras that offer high resolution, great depth of field control and high ISO values are helpful, for example. A mirrorless camera can also be a good choice here.

For fashion and beauty shoots, a good zoom lens should be part of your basic kit. In addition, a prime lens (fixed focal length) and a telephoto lens can be good additions to your equipment.

4. The camera settings

In the end, it all comes down to the right camera settings and exposure. It's best to shoot in RAW format, so the photos aren't compressed beforehand and you have every option available for post-processing. Shooting in RAW does mean larger files, so be sure to bring a second memory card with enough storage space to the shoot.

White balance ensures you get colour reproduction that's as true to life as possible. Manual white balance differs from camera model to camera model, so if in doubt, check this step in the user manual beforehand. White balance makes sure your image doesn't end up looking too yellow or too blue. Keep a grey card or a white sheet of paper ready on set for white balancing.

5. Choosing the set and location

Where should the shoot take place? First, decide whether the shoot will be indoors or outdoors. Then consider whether you depend on the weather and lighting conditions. If you want to shoot outdoors during the day, check beforehand whether your location is busy and whether that helps or hinders. Popular locations include colourful graffiti walls and so-called "lost places", such as disused industrial sites. Depending on the type of staging, outdoor spots can give your fashion shoot a unique touch.
If you choose a studio, you have the best options for lighting. You're independent of the weather and time of day and can simply avoid difficult situations, such as dealing with mixed light. Need more tips on studio photography? We've put all the information together for you here.

6. The right lighting for fashion photography

As always in photography, lighting plays an important, if not decisive, role in fashion photography. If you're in a classic studio setting, starting with a softbox is often the easiest option. Softboxes are fabric attachments that reflect the flash light and make it softer. This creates even light. Reflectors and diffusers are also very helpful. If you haven't worked with lighting set-ups before, find out beforehand how to use key light, rim light and fill light.

Of course, you can also play with extreme lighting conditions. There are no limits to your creativity in fashion photography! If it suits the fashion you're presenting, you can also create atmospheric images with low light or strong contrasts.

7. Models and posing

Depending on what is being presented, the model and the posing are important factors. The role of the fashion model is still a hotly debated topic today. Even though the model is often seen as a "means to an end" and interchangeable, they sometimes bring a very unique and special look. Fashion photography is therefore not only creative and exciting work for the photographer, but also for the model in front of the camera.
Posing is a decisive factor in people photography. Specific poses can make legs look longer, a body more feminine, or a body part slimmer or more powerful. Depending on the pose and the angle you shoot from, you can deliberately influence the perspective and the end result.

8. Working with accessories and props

Accessories and props can be exciting elements in your fashion photo. Using them can turn a boring, plain outfit into a real eye-catcher. Jewellery, hats and bags in particular can become real eye-catchers. But of course you can also try out different backgrounds and work with different crops using different lenses.

Tip: In the end, though, less is more! Make sure the other elements in the image don't distract too much from the item of clothing you actually want to showcase, and that too many elements don't make the image look busy and cluttered. A good fashion photographer also knows which trends are hot right now and how best to present the fashion in question.

9. Photo editing: give your photos the finishing touch

After the shoot, the next step is selecting your images: which photos turned out so well that you want to edit them? It's not unusual for only 40 shots out of 100 to make the final cut. You can do the basic editing in Adobe Lightroom before continuing with retouching in Adobe Photoshop. If you shot in RAW, you now have every option available: you can adjust the tone curve, adjust contrasts, select individual areas of the image and, for example, change the saturation, or create an artistic look using filters. Whatever you have in mind, you have every opportunity here to experiment and present the fashion in the best possible way. But: post-production can only be as good as your set and the original shots. Retouching creases in clothing or a badly placed strand of hair afterwards is often time-consuming and requires some know-how with the tools in Lightroom and Photoshop.

10. New inspiration and role models for fashion photography

Whether online, in glossy magazines, on TV or in your everyday life, fashion is everywhere. Keep looking at the work of other photographers and get inspiration from any field; research and take as many photos as possible! Even if you just take a few quick shots with your phone, you can always keep developing and try something new. Why not try being in front of the camera yourself, to get a better feel for which instructions help a model, when a light is dazzling, or what disrupts a photo shoot. That way you can already optimise your next photo shoot. Above all, find your own style. What makes your shots special? Do you have something that gives your photos your unmistakable signature?

11. The perfect fashion photo

Fashion photography has long been about more than "just" photographing fashion. The clothing is still in the foreground, but the photo has to do more than just capture the moment: it should convey a lifestyle and ideally inspire the viewer to buy the item of clothing in order to get that same feeling. A photo showing a summery outfit in bright sunshine automatically conveys a holiday feeling – and who wouldn't want that feeling too?

  • Your perfect photo is not only expressive, but also shows your individual style.
  • When shooting, you followed basic photography techniques and prepared everything properly.
  • You left enough room for creativity and also tried a few spontaneous shots.
  • You directed your model well and occasionally stepped out from behind the camera to take stock.
  • You shot in the right format, giving you complete freedom in post-production.
  • Your fashion photo doesn't just present clothing, it conveys a lifestyle.

Have you already taken your perfect fashion photo?