Photography for me started as a hobby, which quickly moved into a passion that I wanted to pursue after high school, and into college so that I could one day become a professional photographer. I find photography amazing because it allows you to create so many different types of art with one camera. It may be a spontaneous picture you captured while on vacation, or a well planned out and prepared image taken of someone as a glamour or fashion shot, or it may be a set up of still life objects that you take a picture of in hopes that it will look like a painting after photoshop editing. My major is commercial photography, which means I am studying to take photographs that will be used in advertisement for food, fashion, jewelry, make-up, and much more. I have explored many types of photography such as photojournalism, fine art, still life, portraits, and fashion. I enjoy them all, but fashion particularly interested me and grabbed my attention with the flashy models and artsy set ups that were perfectly planned out to look the exact way the photographer had pictured, and planned it to look. Although this happens with other forms of photography, such as still life where you control every detail of the image, setting models to look a certain way and make the location perfect can be a bit more difficult. Photographers plan details out in their photos that you may not even realize, such as how the light is hitting the model and background, what type of light is hitting them, camera angles, color schemes, and where they want the main focus to be. I am a perfectionist for details and I enjoy being in control of the photo-shoot setup. I have truly enjoyed all learning all the techniques to get a better image, although it can be somewhat discouraging being around people who do not appreciate this form of art.
As I started studying photography at Ohio University, I noticed how some people have an opinion about photography that I do not agree with. The more people I talked to about my major, the more I realized how many people do not understand photography and perceive it completely different than me. I have heard people say photography is easy and anyone could become a professional photographer if they studied it. Many others do not understand the purpose of my pictures and do not understand why I need to go to school to learn how to take pictures. Maybe it is true that everyone could become a photographer, but to get that perfect picture is easier said than done. Photography is not just a talent that never needs to be worked on and practiced. A skilled photographer is a fusion between an artist and a scientist because an eye for beauty and art is as important as using the right equipment and techniques to best frame the subject and to come up with note worthy shots. Creativity and skills should go hand in hand. For example, the technicality of different lighting set ups can be difficult. You need to be able to know what look you are striving for, and what type of light would help your concept come across clearly. Once you develop a concept and what message you want your viewers to get from your image, you need to use your skills and techniques to make it stand out. Different lighting set ups mean a different look for photographs. These detail need to be planned out in advance, so you know what type of image you will be getting. For images with a soft light that almost looks like window light, you would use a soft box or umbrella, which is a diffuser that goes over the main light, making the light less harsh, with softer shadows. Soft light is very flattering when photographing people.
If you were not using studio lights and instead used available light such as window light, you should use north light, which means that the window is facing north, to get the best direction of light, creating the most flattering shadows. The time of day you use window light also affects the image. This is the same when working with natural available light when you are outdoors. When working with natural light you have to make sure you go out to shoot during the right time of day to get the look you want. For soft light, early morning is best, for harsh light, mid day is the best, and for warm light evening is the best. Even the type of weather makes a big difference. Photographers say that an overcast cloudy day is gods natural soft box. It is very flattering and easy to shoot in cloudy weather and many fashion photographers prefer this type of light when shooting.
Window Light. Virginia Emmerich ©
Working in the studio is a whole other story when talking about lighting techniques. There are countless ways to change your image with just a shift of a light. When shooting people, there are certain lighting set up’s that create shadows on a distinct areas of their face. Butterfly lighting, also know as paramount lighting, creates a shadow just under the persons nose, and nowhere else. This is very straight forward lighting and has been used in fashion for many decades. For this technique you would have a main light high above your subject.
Model, Twiggy in the 1960's with butterfly lighting.
There is also techniques such as Rembrandt light, where the shadow is on a corner of your cheek, loop lighting, where a shadows loops to the corner of the subjects mouth, side lighting, where one side of the face is lit, and horror show lighting, where the main light is below the subject creating drastic shadows below the facial features. It is also worthy to note that Photoshop and other photo editing software have made photography more sophisticated, especially in today’s digital world. Taking photographs with standard lighting setups but then modifying the traditional photography by digital means adds more life and interest to every shot.
Heavily photoshopped photo, taken in studio. Virginia Emmerich ©
These are only a few of the many techniques used in photography, and they are used quite often in fashion photography especially. As far as I can tell, a person’s opinion on fashion photography depends a lot on a person’s overall thoughts on the art of photography. Some people do not appreciate photography, and there for would not appreciate fashion photography. Some people see fashion photography as suggestive or provocative because of designers ads such as Calvin Klein and Gucci. Others think it makes our society look vein because it is materialistic. While this may be some peoples opinions, there are others that see it for what it is, a form of art and expression.
My close friends have grown a strong appreciation for the art of photography as I started studying it at Ohio University. They have grown this appreciation as they learned a lot more about this form of art after listening to me explain m pictures, and even modeling in majority of my fashion images. Unlike many people, they were never skeptical about controversial fashion images that may be provocative, but they didn’t understand how much went into getting that image and how important details were. While interviewing my roommate of the past three years on her opinions and what she has learned from my photography, Faith Altieri explained,
“I have always adored fashion and have always looked at fashion magazines, but when I look at fashion magazines now…I don’t only look at the clothes on the model, but how the photographer and model are presenting the clothes, and how the overall image is another form of art separate from just the designers clothes. I appreciate fashion magazines much more now and now think of photography as an amazing career, requiring tremendous training and creativity.”
Being so comfortable with Faith, and since she has such a love for fashion, I started using her as my model for several of my photographs. She has even helped me grow as a photographer because of her fashionable ideas that help me when I am struggling with originality and creativity. On top of her appreciating the photographers more, her modeling for me has even changed her opinion about the models in the pictures. “I realized just how much more work goes into the picture including the models hard work. The time and details that the models deal with is harder than people may think, its really fun, but it is still work!” (Altieri).
Model, Faith Altieri, taken in overcast natural light. Virginia Emmerich ©
I wish everyone understood this as well as my close friend Faith, but I feel that by showing people my images and explaining how I came up with the different concepts and the meaning behind them, help people understand that it’s more than just a pretty picture that I snapped, a lot of work and thought went into that picture. Photographers value everything that we learn from each others work and have learned to take criticism well. We are always more than happy to talk about our work, and gather ideas for where there is room for improvement, from anyone who is willing to listen. We value constructive criticism, but only when it comes from people with open minds who are first willing to try and understand our passion and not be quick to judge the type of work we do.
Works Cited
Altieri, Faith. Interview on photography, June 2 2010.
