Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

Welcome to day one of fashion photography wantto one again I'm so excited to be here and teaching what I know to you guys um as I go through the workshop today I want this to be a conversation I am going to be talking about myself or my background but I want you guys students to throw any questions I want the live audience throw me questions so kepner if there's anything anyone has to ask on any of the topics I cover feel free to let me know okay? So the schedule um over the next three days day one we're going to be talking about the elements of fashion plan in and we're also going to be shooting primarily in the studio today what's great about today is I'm approaching a shoot from a perspective of a new photographer so I'm not going all out there and getting really experience skulls you're getting huge team I've got a very small team we've gone out pick the clothes ourselves as well as playing them with god new faces agencies so it's going to be more difficult for me but I'm up for th...

e challenge to next we're going to be doing on day two style vision and shooting and this is a day where we have a full production shoot we have an amazing team we have experienced models on set and it's going to be more towards what I do today well day three we're gonna be talking about retouching business and marked in um this is a market and I think was going to be the one of the most important parts of this course because it's julie how I've built my business up online for social media, the ways in which I approached my work and that tough like question that people have how to price my work, how to market and how to get notices a fashion told for as well so quickly just talk about today's schedule so you know exactly what's gonna happen the morning I just want to talk about my background and how to organize you shoot from start to finish so from anything from choosing models casting a team we're gonna cover all of that today I'm gonna introduce you to my lovely styling team of models over there. Um we're then going to be shooting in the studio in the afternoon so I want to start a little bit about my background and I absolutely hate talking about myself, but I have to because it's relevant to exactly what I'm talking about, you need to kind of follow my journey to see where I've come from to know how I might get my walk today, so I was kind of hesitant to put these in there, but we all have bad work um so this is how I started at fourteen years old I was kind of like the loner at school and I really looked on but I always got really frustrated with howto full my medium how tio put what I see my mind into photography the jury my ci csc exams at school I just tried out photography for the exam was the first person in my school to do so in my teacher I really convinced him that this was the way to go when I first started it was really just about shooting self portrait stowe home my skills. It was about trying to find what technical thing I could find fruit styling free the light for the posing for the composition. And this is really where I started on deviant on. So I found d v not shortly after I started the self portrait work. This was all really simple. I go out of my way to go and find wigs on ebay. I kind of took inspiration from artists like cindy sherman, self portrait culture and it's like a toy and a lot of different ways to kind of hear disguise myself because I got bored of using myself as a model. But what was great about this period is I can look back on it now, and I can see exactly where I came from and compare it to what eighteen today? So I think it's important to show you guys that even though I'm kind of embarrassed to show you this kind of work this is my background this is where I came from and this really got things sticking in my mind about what I wanted to do it the next stage so during the years if I was fifty thousand to two thousand ten I had sort of like an evolution and that would be from going from the self portrait and getting the confidence to move forwards so going on from that this was where I ended up straight after the self portrait and this was coming from inspiration from deviant art it was coming from inspiration from an artistic background it was coming from the self portrait so I was going out and finding friends as many people as a kid and he was all about the idea it was never about the team in the technicality so I would go out shoot a friend I'd grab some props from like a charity shop or you know ebay anything I could find and I was really limited with budget back in those days this bomb so my models were really great I'd have them in your conditions in like old abandoned factories I have them in the snow it have been swimming in the lake you know they hated me but when they saw the pictures they they wanted to do it again so these kind of pictures really kind of again the evolution starting to make me realize what I want to do with my photography and where to take it here's a couple more so when we do, she it's like this, it would usually just be me and the model limited amount of budget, usually just for the travel we'd find as many locations as we could for free. So whether that was, you know, an old historic building in england or you like this kind of situation, a park in london, anything we could get our hands on that, you know, without trespass it in and going and with no budget we would access and we would spend all day there going over the clothes, pulling out the wardrobe, finding anything we could to make this shit happen. Um, so this I just want to give you an example is how I approach this kind of shoot now when people see this shot on the left they think that it's photoshopped I was never good at for a shot to that extreme at that point. So this is an example of how mean the model would collaborate. She would come up with an idea she would find the location. I would come up to this location which was in wales in england, and we would go out and shoot it then you can see on the right this is exactly how the set would look so I would shoot in the most weird conditions as possible like this is really bright line often people say don't shoot in that but at the time I didn't really you know I didn't really know and it was more experimental for me so we got and shoot leo was the first makeup artists here on the right that I worked with and I still work with you today as well and that's something I'm going to be talking about how I still use those people in my team today because I think it's important that we build those relationships together and after my early work you'll see how I process heavily and photo shop that's not something I do now because it's not something that's really acceptable in the way I approach my client, but you can see how it kind of worked for the kind of thing I was doing and the kind of clients that came from this it didn't happen initially this was pure experimental work it was personal work that I'd post because I loved shooting I then start to post these images on websites like devi in art or flicka a nike would so I'd name that like photography but cage anything that people could find it with and the vein clients that came from that remaining like the book cover clients so people like harpercollins random house, mcmillin these kind of people are always searching on websites like flicka, divan art. They're always trying to find images to license. It will be interesting for a book cover, and there was trying to find new ways around it. So another three images were quite popular during the time this one on the left was later licensed by a book cover company, the one in the middle with an experimentation and again going over to the location. I used to go into this abandoned building that was down the street from where I lived with my parents, and I go in there every week and, you know where had no lights, it was all natural light mean a model. Go and grab a scot from ebay, and we just create something and that's what? I'm still doing my work today, I think it's really important, and this is something I'm gonna be talking about over the course of the next three days. The personal work, it is extremely important. And no matter how big or knowing you get or you know you have a big clientele. I still divided at least sixty, seventy percent of my time to personal work, another one on the right here and not the easy location. Me going out over the lake, which has been the location for some of my early shoots. Just simple all natural light over the course of these three. All processed on photo shop to give this appearance. Just got some reactions from the chapel. Sure, yeah. Any questions? Tell me, wait, roberto, tell her. Don't be embarrassed, ron says she's ashamed about that eyes the comparison to now and how embarrassed I'd be putting that in front of someone but it's. Great for me to see the evolution from that. Definitely. Yeah. Do you have any more questions? We have. We'll take questions in a minute, but we don't want to let you know that people are just incredibly, incredibly impressed. Ok, great. That's great tonight. Okay, so going back from those images before this is the kind of start of things to me. This is when I started getting tears. She's, this is when I started to realize that, you know, photography was a business for me. It was no longer a hobby, it's something I should start to hone in on. So when I was seventeen, I open my own business with the help of my dad and a good accountant, we got everything together and the first year, it wasn't about any money. Any bit of money I'd get, whether it was three things like thiss or whether it was like reaching out to clients on my space, showing my work on the majority of work I get the beginning was poor traits for, like, dancers, actors, singers, people that wanted cd covers, so they'd really love my work and the way that it, you know, the concepts come out and the conceptual themes, and they'd book me for that alone, so that was like the start of my income for me and the way I got that I was just posted online, so just pure social media and then recommendation as well from that for these recovers a ll different situation. So the one on the left and I'm gonna be talking about more of this kind of stuff on the business day, but I think it's good to give you an overview. The one on the left here is licensed by harpercollins and it's, a really popular book right now, which I still receive royalties from. It became a really big book within the publishing industry and what's great about this is this leads onto other covers. This necessarily doesn't mean that I'm going to get fashion work from this, it doesn't mean I'm gonna get portrait work it's a little bit, you know, out there for that so I have a separate portfolio for this. I still work with all these book cover claims, and they requested the middle one here by josephine star across this was a commission shoot that was based from me shooting these covers that will license so showing these clients that I can do this and I can produce this got me this one in the middle. So they say we love how you process things we love how you work with models, produce themes on set, and I'm usually the organizer of the shoot. I handle the budget on my god and do this, and I love to do that still, you know, there's something about working on personal work and being inspired by what you do, that you speaks to me more than actually commissioned work in a paint, a pain klein and I think that's what I really want to get in on to people that it's about the personal work and the inspiration and being inspired by what you do, so this was really two thousand ten onwards was really the transition for me into fashion photography. Now I did start, and I'm gonna put this in next I think a few people might ask this I did start a course in college, I did a two year deployment, it was great, I learned a lot of the technical background and then I started a year of university studying visual communication, but I decided to leave after the first year because I felt that that kind of structural background, you know, learning from the book just wasn't for me, I felt like, you know, it kind of took me back a little bit and that I was focusing more on getting the kind of book what done than I was the photography I already have my business going on already had some six, desperate, so after about a year, I spoke to my teacher and he was like, hey, you know, I just got a london and sex just do it, so, you know, I took off, I figured it out, and then I moved to london, um, I didn't realize at the time that I wasn't the only one with that, you know, that kind of thinking mind that, you know, you'll be a small fish in a big pond kind of thing, and everyone was trying to do the same thing. So what I found when I was in london is the only thing that improved for me when I first got there was accessing models, so I was going from using friends, tease and family to use in people from model mayhem and smaller models. So then using agency girls, and that was a whole different ballgame for me because it's more difficult to approach, people it's more difficult to know exactly how you going to use them, and also it makes you quite nervous because you're so used to working with people you're familiar with. But when you start working with girls from big name agent state, you're like, whoa like, is this gonna go ok? Like, is the agency going to be okay with me doing this? Um there most of the time, when I first started shooting fashion to get my confidence going into get the relationship going between the agency, I would shoot simple work, but I would reference back to my fly, not background. So here, like the agency's love the model agency when you can see a model's face when it's clean, when you have the style in when the hair and makeup it's simple and it's a beautiful concept, you have to really build a relationship with a model agency before you go crazy with the styling because they don't get anything back in return, they can't show it in the models books. So again, all of thes dish using natural light. I'm very simple with my lighting technique natural light reflective one light that's it so get back light in this on the left a beautiful photo with daniel I went and grabbed the stress for the shoot so I'm still reference in what I used to do going out with models and actually just before this picture here kid was on actually we saw that the wide you of this you will see that there was a whole family stand around and it was the kid that just got on there and pushed in front of us before you swing so it's funny because you can crop out all of that drama that's going on and I still use locations like this because you know it's very expensive to get locations if you have a great location and you can crop out whatever's going around it then great fee that's a really good thing to do um this one is one of my most popular images and this was the american indian editorial I went out and shot this in november and I remember this was like one of the first shoots that I thought to myself ok, I love fashion photography this is something I want to do I'd always seen fashion is something really like far out for me that I could never get there especially coming from a you know, small town small background so when I had this concept together I planned it and it all came together it was absolutely freezing and the models noses were running like they were code they were angry at me but it all came together after the shoot and when I processed it I was like wow okay this is what I want to do and this is my style this is what I want to try and work from so then I experimented a little bit more on dh I wanted to try something a bit more high fashion because I think when you first get into fashion photography it's good to reference things like this it's good to reference other photographers work try it see if it works for you take a technique and put it in your own work and what I want to show with this whole thing is you don't really have to be fashion photographer when taken inspiration when I first started doing like portrait's and advertising stuff I took inspiration from my old masses in painting I took it from different areas so it whoever you are and you have been watching this whatever background you from wedding photography documentary portrait you're gonna learn something from the next few days so don't worry about that. So going back to this uh this was a shoot for blush magazine I didn't know it was going to get into the magazine when I shot it I just did it as an experiment I had a great team together. It was one of the first teams had worked with I was really nervous. I kind of stood back and I was I oh, no, I I don't really know what I'm doing I know what I want but I don't know how to, you know, pull it together so I put the shoot together thie team brought in the model for me because they had the contact with the agency again working with no budget, I think I paid for the food for everyone on the shoot that was it stylised brought in some excellent clothing and that's what made this happen? I had one light on the background, one light just on the right here coming down at her toe light her and the rest was just in processing to get that great black and white field I laid us submitted this to a magazine I'm gonna be talking about submitting and that kind of stuff a bit later on so you can get to know how to submit your work to magazines and how to approach takes kind of shoots. But I submitted to the magazine and luckily enough it was a perfect fit for their next issue, so this is another turning point in my career when I said, okay, this worked for me it was an experiment but it worked exactly like the american indians shoot. This is what I started building my studio work from. So then, um this is a few more images that I've done just with pure natural line, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the background of the shoot, so I came to new york, I think it was two thousand nine in february and I fell in love with it. I knew it was where I wanted to be. I was kind of over london. I done a year there and I was like, a candy, some new inspiration. I need something that's gonna, you know, get my ideas flowing again. I need a new team and it was a challenge as well as I love being challenges the photographer. So when I came to new york, I came back the same year three times enduring the summer of two thousand nine, I started putting sheets together like this, and this was for a magazine full content mode on the stylist put together this beautiful theme, she said, we want something fifties. We board together the theme I cast the model we went out on wall street again, nobody just me natural light, a beautiful model and you could approach this you don't have to have this kind of model, you don't have to have this kind of styling you can grab somebody a friend you can scout someone on the street, put them in this position and he would just look as beautiful. The only reason I'm using agency models is because it's easy for me and I need the names as well, you could go out and grab these kind of vintage things yourself from a store just just can't has done with some of the clothing today and you can make it happen, so during the last three years this is kind of the way my portfolio has been going, so I've been doing things like this and I really loved playing around with like double shots with girls concept going back to where I started a ll the time reference in conceptual themes, so having like, the interaction between the girls having beautiful styling on said, um again, this was a shoot I did that material girl were interested in that took it later on again limited budget going on um I think I paid for the taxi in the props and that was about it and the rest was just, you know, good models good, silent so this is approachable for everyone it's not something that you can look at and say, you know, I can't do that it's something that you just got to get used to do in, practice it and then reach out to higher contacts get agency models but start with friends first so a few of my client shoots um when I do advertising work I have to reference quite a few things this kind of shoot I love this client the system for the fold which is a london based clothing company so they wanted a london shoot in new york so again cast in getting everything together reference in my work trying to get that cinematic approach um a lot of my clients book me because they like my style, but I also get booked for jobs when someone just wants me to complete a job so I don't show that in my portfolio because it's far from what I do but this kind of stuff I showed because we're on the same level, so don't be afraid to experiment with things you know, if you have something in a client book she for something don't include it in the poor boy if you don't want it speeder system very like recent work thing from earlier this year and again going back to the material girl sheet with the girls this is really where my styles at right now I feel comfortable using color I feel comfortable with feminine kind of looks using groups of models going in location houses again simple light in just one way on all of these and this is approachable again limited budget this was actually paid for by the magazine but you were surprised to know that these magazines do not have a lot of money for editorial. You'll come away with almost nothing because the production costs have to be covered, but that's okay, because that's put him back into this beautiful work and these towels sheets, they're gonna speak wonders in your portfolio to clients and two a m and t online presence too. So now I want to talk about defining fashion photography. Um, I really just want to talk to steve. Yeah, sure. Would we be able to ask you some questions now? Of course, you have just the right people. So that was that was huge there in your story is so impressive, actually, have I was talking with supermax last night about you, okay? And she said something that was really, really awesome. And I asked her if I could quote directly and she said yes, uh, she said, I just don't get impressed by photographers after twenty years of work, I just don't large eight impresses the hell out of me. She works so hard and she's one hundred percent heart. Uh, I cannot say enough good things about you and one of the things that she did talk a lot of belt wass your workout and how much hard work you really did I mean, when we look at this is just a like siri's of pictures it's like, oh, she did. This thing should do this. Can you talk a little bit about how much hard work there was involved in all this? Yeah, I mean, from the beginning, it's been me going out that's been me experimenting as much as I can put in money back into it, coming away with no money myself because I want to put everything fashion, photography, and especially when the kind of stuff I started with the final it's a lot about what you put into it, you have to give a lot in order to take something back from it. And first you put in so much into it, and then eventually, you know, things start coming back, but it takes time to transition. It takes time to learn many only recognition within the industry, but, you know, as what I do now, I'm working every day even before that I'm doing something, whether it's social media, whether it's, no keeping active with personal projects, organizing a shoot like this week alone, I put together a last minute editorial on friday had to organize the entire shoot myself casting whilst doing the prep for this, and then I had to organize all my schedule for next month for london shoots so you know there's a lot to do and there's a lot of hard work involved but this is why it's important to love what you do it's well thank you thank you. Uh in addition to supervise praising you we have emily em photo who says are started firefly says I feel the same everything seems out of reach if she can do it I'm sure we can so we get yeah so we have a question from nod who says you started to work at age fourteen uh started start working at age fourteen is not too hard question mark how did you find credibility with your client's fourteen it was very hard to get clients I will admit the first few years so fourteen I started my business at seventeen so I'm starting to get clients around the age of sixteen and that's when it clicked that this has to be business so what? Fourteen the first few years were just me experimented and going over things okay, so let me rephrase the question you started to get clients at age sixteen seventeen was it hard to get credibility then because that's incredibly yes it wass I think the main thing is when I'm that age people judge you, I still get it the time being twenty three by go go into a meeting and people have the same kind of ideals about me that I don't know what I'm talking about but the main thing is if you have confidence, you have a great portfolio of great worth work ethic and that they love what you do, you can win them over straightaway. So even being young there's room for everyone in the industry, it's great. Do you have any questions from anyone in the classroom? Any chance? I guess I would say, do you always have a pre conceived idea or do you sometimes exactly what the friend go in and just play it's I just shoot on a win because I love shooting and I still do that. Sometimes I'll grab the model and I'll go hey, let's, do something. Um, sometimes I'll grab a model in a makeup artist because I want the extra bed sometimes it's the model and the stylist or I've got shoot wardrobe that building again, and I'll grab some clothes and I'll sigh like myself so often with editorial work, advertising, work, it needs to be prepped. Um, but when I'm doing personal work, it doesn't necessarily have to be anymore. So you shoot between like it's new york and london. Do you travel anywhere else in the world for shoots? Or is it primarily in those two major cities? Those two cities from the advertising fashion work because if the markets within the fashion industry but I do travel a lot because I love to travel and for my workshops as well I was in australia in tune and I had got an agent out there now so I'm trying to build on that market but it's a lot different from the other team so I'm assuming you're gonna discuss how to get yeah yeah that's it definitely uh mel w from tokyo is wondering how did you push yourself during that transition time when you were still getting confidence with photography early on was it through books self assigned work what where'd you get that it was mainly just selfish time what like I used to be very shy if I turned up to school and there was a seminar at the whisky school because I was not shy but it was just going on experimenting working with teams, getting the confidence to meet forwards devi in art and all that kind of websites kind of played a big part because there was a lot of mentors that kind of helped me with constructive criticism and all that and then college like the diploma right did that kind of gave me some confidence as well I wanted to let you know this is really exciting from dom dom asiana who says please let laura know that our big italian photographers group organized a live chat event to see your workshop and today I got together with love tio here, take photos of that basement way we would love to see you guys all watching together. So another question from ron jon in kolkata is can you elaborate on the no budget concept? Yeah. Okay, so whenever I'm going on a shoot like a fashion editorial, personal work and a lot of my early shoots, I go in, and we don't have much of a budget if I'm fronting costs that's coming out of my pocket. So when you do those kind of shoots it's, good to work in good to kind of realise kind of what you going to put into it? How you going to spend money on the shoot? Is there gonna be some cost that you need to front there's always gonna be costs when you doing personal work. So that's what I say when there's no budget when a client isn't paying you when editorial that's when it's no budget, uh, where did you begin showing your work? Thank you. Talked about devi in our steven on flicka. Um, my space back when it was popular. Um, uh, no one knows about my space now, um, just those kind of websites just getting it out there, and I would say, like, after I was about sixteen seventeen that's when somebody found my work online and that made me realize this is why I want to do and also I approached some of those book covers afterwards a small because I knew that was a marquis I could go into right maybe one more question about your background this is from fashion tv in singapore who always brings amazing questions and stays up all night singing for watching. So why was it that you ventured to new york city instead of remaining in the uk? What were you looking for in another country? Yeah that you couldn't find back home so far. What have you been blessed with? What advice do you have for those overseas who might follow suit and travel somewhere else? So for me it was kind of like a half personal reason half work I needed a new challenge I've gone through like a bad situation at home and I was like I would love to find something new so I came to new york for the first time and stay with joey lawrence on he kind of introduced me to the city what it was about and I found that it was just something new for me like I kind of got bored of the marquee in england england market the uk market necessarily is a lot of editorial work, free work, people kind of network in here, it's more about the commercial work, the advertising, the big clients to hear. My work has to exist on both the personal with the editorial and advertising. So for me, the working both, I can go home, do some great editorials, and I can come here, and I could do some great advertising work. So it's, just about having that balance. And I found that being in between both work for that.