What Is Fashion Photography

[Eddie Wang]

Hey Guys,
Lately I've been thinking very hard about what makes fashion photography a special category on its own. I was wondering how you would definge what make fashion photography fashion photography and not just photography or portraiture in general? Comments and definitions please. What do you makes good fashion photography? Post pictures if you like to better prove your point.

 

[Amélie]

i spose fashion photography is really just photographed fashion...

it's the combination of two artforms, fashion and photography.

i spose it's harder to define good fashion photography...i spose it's more artistically a focus on a subject...the clothes. how you make the come to life in a photograph could easily demonstrate how good the photograph is.

helmut newton made clothes look erotic...but yet he used suits and clothes like ysl's le smoking.

mario testino on the other hand could create the same picture using different variation.

annie lebovitz is seen as a portrait photographer who can capture an emotion with in a single frame...

i'm interested to see what other people think...having done a little bit of fashion photography at school i think it's exciting.

 

[Urban Stylin]

i think its taking photos solely for fashion purposes whether its for a magazine,personal,ad or whatever

 

[Lena]

fashion photography is more than a photo.
when done succesfully it embodies the whole fashion atmosphere of the moment
and portraits the mood of the time in the best way.

production wise, its certainly not an easy thing, think a whole HUGE production team working behind the scenes (location, casting, hair&make up people, vans for transportation to location, tones of lighting etc etc)

good fashion photography is more like a short film, it needs an atmosphere and a dream, a concept that evolves, originality and good co-ordination between a whole team of creative people ..plus there are too much money involved in any editorial level fashion shoot, those are certainly the most expensive pages of a magazine (hence some 'cheap' mags eg style etc, recently prefer still-life shots instead of real editorials, saves them a huge amount of money, but the effect is certainly not as communicating as a real fashion editorial)
another way of skipping money, is shooting celebrities, they certainly are willing to work for free, while models charge quite a sum

 

[softgrey]

Originally posted by Lena@Feb 16th, 2004 - 4:55 am
fashion photography is more than a photo.
when done succesfully it embodies the whole fashion atmosphere of the moment
and portraits the mood of the time in the best way.

production wise, its certainly not an easy thing, think a whole HUGE production team working behind the scenes (location, casting, hair&make up people, vans for transportation to location, tones of lighting etc etc)

good fashion photography is more like a short film, it needs an atmosphere and a dream, a concept that evolves, originality and good co-ordination between a whole team of creative people ..plus there are too much money involved in any editorial level fashion shoot, those are certainly the most expensive pages of a magazine (hence some 'cheap' mags eg style etc, recently prefer still-life shots instead of real editorials, saves them a huge amount of money, but the effect is certainly not as communicating as a real fashion editorial)
another way of skipping money, is shooting celebrities, they certainly are willing to work for free, while models charge quite a sum

nice-Lena

i would only add that the fashion directs everything else or is sort of the STAR of the mini movie. I always think that good fashion pictures should look like stills from a film...

 

[Lena]

absolutely on topic , the new MoMa exhibition ...

from wwd

MoMA Show Tells Fashion’s Story

By Eric Wilson

NEW YORK — It might seem to be a short trip back in time for a museum to explore the medium of fashion photography — since 1990 — but curators of an upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art are taking a position that such a time frame represents a significant turning point in the medium, from studio portraiture of ideal beauty to creating images of an extended narrative influenced by the cinema and personal snapshots.

“Fashioning Fiction in Photography Since 1990,” when it opens at the MoMA’s temporary Queens headquarters in Long Island City on April 16, will be the museum’s first show dedicated to fashion photography. At a press breakfast Friday organized by one of the show’s sponsors, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, its curators argued that recent fashion photography exhibitions staged at other museums have only served as surveys of such work, but did not propel any theories as to why and when it became more common to see magazine editorials and ads driven more by artistic storytelling than showcasing merchandise.

“Fashioning Fiction” will include 95 works, including complete campaigns and editorial features shot by photographers Tina Barney, Cedric Buchet, , Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Nan  Goldin, Simon Leigh, Glen Luchford, Steven Meisel, Cindy  Sherman, Mario Sorrenti, Larry Sultan, Juergen Teller and Ellen Von Unwerth. All the works were originally created as commissions by such magazines as W, Harper’s Bazaar, Tank, View and Vogue Italia, as well as ad images for Prada, Alberta Ferretti and Kate Spade.

“This isn’t a survey, but a focused consideration of a recent and lively development in fashion photography,” said Susan Kismaric, curator in MoMA’s department of photography. She pointed to such developments as the advent of desktop publishing and the Internet, which enabled independent magazines to flourish and create a showcase for young stylists, designers and photographers.

This generation of photographers and editors was influenced by two primary sources: film and personal snapshots.
The impact of cinema can be seen in the long, narrative shoots of diCorcia for W or Luchford’s homage to “The Shining” in a Prada campaign, where a model stands amid a snowy maze of hedges.

Images inspired by snapshots include Teller’s blunt photos of socialites, their physical imperfections highlighted by a bright flash — even in the couture salons of Paris — made for W in 1999, or Meisel’s “The Good Life” series for Vogue Italia, which showed a caricature of the perfect American family.

“The point in many of these images is that there is not a focus on the clothes, except maybe as an afterthought,” Kismaric said, stressing the common theme of fashion photography since it has moved from the studio to the street. “When you do an exhibit, you don’t really go into it with a position, but when you do go in and look at the images, you realize this thing has happened. It’s not an idea imposed on the photographs, but comes from the photographs themselves.”

 

[Eddie Wang]

my x-photo instructor, Larry Sultan, is going to get offended Lena because you didn't make his name bold. I think MoMa is doing that show just to be hip and make money since it's definately going to be a popular show. This topic has been discussed endlessly over the years already, but I was just wondering what you people thought since you are not the typical art school students that I grew up with. Lena have you seen the show yet?

 

[Lena]

no i havent seen the show neither will i see it since i live in Europe,
still i think it will be interesting and i absolutely agree with their approach

*ps,
apologies.. i'm editing in bold the name of mr Sultan,
i love keeping people pleased and happy as can be

 

[atmaximumvolume]

art minus the fashion

as a fine arts major / aspiring fashion photographer I would say that there is no real "definition" right now to what makes fashion photography what it is...
if you look through vogue, W, ny times, or any other mainstream fashion resource, you will find products represented by people. products need to be sold...hence we create, traditionally, a beautiful image which describes, visually, the "literal" physical changes which will theoretically occur once we, as consumers, purchase and use the product.
as I said, this is the traditional way of going about it. nowadays, times have changed. the world we live in is a postmodern one and people are highly jaded and expect more (philosophically, less, because postmodernism is essentially recycling ideas to present the opposite of whatever they used to represent) and want to see what is "in" (the kitsch, the disturbing, the striking, the unusual, the ugly). thus, to catch a consumer's eye, the photographer is forced to work harder and create an ingenious peice of art. most high-fashion ads are "art" ads-- think of the latest Jil Sander spreads in which a mod androgyne alienesque figure sticks out his-her hips and glares out from under a pair of massive brow bones. hair is swept back under a hat, mod coat is a pale white like the background. we no longer focus on the clothes-- we instead focus on the contortions of face and body. the fact that the pose is not relaxed, natural or normal makes us think. the ads are, in essence, interactive. most of my work has led up to making an ironic statement such as those mentioned.
however, there is more to fashion photography than (un)simple advertising; many new journals/magazines like Clear have taken to presenting the photography as actual art instead of disguising it as an ad. brands aren't mentioned directly on the pages if they are mentioned at all. the poses are disturbing, violent, overtly crude and sexual. not to mention extremely beautiful. it's art you'd want to frame and put up on your wall next to your lou reed poster. it tells a story...think of warhol and kubrick films. it's very eclectic yet when you first look at it you think only of newton. who deserves the most respect, anyway. probably one of my biggest influences.
and I suppose I have gone on enough. check this out:
http://www.spectator.net/1155/pages/1155_newton_main.html