What is fashion lighting, what is glamour lighting, what is portrait lighting? Basically, it is all the same. What sets the images apart is how we style the wardrobe, the makeup/hair styling, and how we pose the subject.
We can use a octabox for fashion, glamour, or portraits. We are lighting with the same modifier and simply changing the wardrobe, the makeup/hair styling, and how we pose the subject. A lighting modifier does not determine what kind of image we shoot. Read on and see the images below for a better explanation.
I have stated this several times before, so let me say it again. When I have a shoot, whether it is fashion, glamour or portrait, I light them all the same. It is not like I wake up one morning and say, “today we do fashion lighting”.
Allow me go into more detail and explain myself. It amuses me when folks on photography forums ask what fashion, glamour, or portrait lighting is. Maybe they are asking us “What is great lighting” instead, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt. What determines the image genre is not the lighting, it is the pose, the wardrobe, and the makeup/hair styling.
If we could categorize lighting into a specific style, then we are putting photographers out of work. Lets take a look at Greg Kadel and Norman Jean Roy, two of my absolute favorite photographers. These guys can shoot any subject to perfection and they also use minimal lights…hint hint, many images are just one light. Take a look at their different portfolios, they just style and pose differently when they shoot fashion or portraits.
Over Memorial Day, Sunday, I shot with two models Amberlee and Melissa. I used the exact same lighting on both models, just tailored the wardrobe and poses to what I had in mind for each of them. Keep in mind that when I say, “I photographed them” it was really just a lighting test and I warmed up the models for the two other photographers that were shooting the real work. I shot these images in 2-4 minutes, lol.
Lighting is a single 48″ Octabox w/Grid, which I further modified with black cloth and Rosco Tough Frost.
Portrait image or senior portrait style
Fashion images with the same lighting as above, just a different pose and styling for Melissa.
For the next two images I set up a V-bank to my right, and placed it about 15 feet away. Same lighting, just two very different makeup/hair/wardrobe styling methods.
Glamour pose and styling
Fashion pose and styling
The lighting I used for the video images will work exceptionally well on senior portraits, editorial portraits, fashion, glamour, formal engagement portraits, and formal wedding portraits. Yes, I will admit that my lighting requires extra effort and an assistant, but what it produces is a very polished lighting quality that will dramatically lessen your post processing in PS and more importantly, increase your revenue and make you more desirable to work with.
By getting your lighting perfect in-camera, now you can batch process everything and send out client proofs the next day and get paid faster. I pity the fool that spends hours or even days on end PhotoShopping a single image, lol.
This concludes the lesson for today, hopefully I provided a bit of information for you to use on your next shoot.
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