This time I want to tell you about the light in my lookbook for Svetlana Evstigneeva's fashion house.
When working with clients you always get a task, mine was not only to shoot the lookbook but also shooting atmospheric images, where there is a play of shadows and light. It's a world where the dresses of Svetlana Evstigneeva are alive. Luxury, but still magical, with a kind of fairy tale behind.
I really love to shoot dresses like these, they don't need a "scream", they are silent itself. These are mostly improvisation images. I had no understanding of what will be going on in the showroom, where the shoot was planned. I saw only dresses at the designer's fashion-show in Moscow and the models which we choose together. So I used to coordinate all the process of the shoot. Of course, I prefer to keep an organization and pre-production process in a tight handover, but freedom is a nice experience too. Let's go!
The first thing which caught my eyes was a large scaffold, which stood close to the window to hang up the curtain, we covered it up with the same material as a curtain to make it look a little bit softer, not too technical.
Concerning the light, the fashion genre means that you need to show dresses first, and the special effects (like the light, location, set design and so on) are only the additional features. Fashion everywhere means "clothes on models". For catalogs, for example, you can use only smooth backgrounds in one, rarely two colors, like a paper or cyclorama or just a wall. However now we shoot not for a catalog, and we are free to work with interior because our aim is not only showing dresses but showing dresses in life, in an environment.
The first thing which caught my eyes was a large scaffold, which stood close to the window to hang up the curtain, we covered it up with the same material as a curtain to make it look a little bit softer, not too technical.
Concerning the light, the fashion genre means that you need to show dresses first, and the special effects (like the light, location, set design and so on) are only the additional features. Fashion everywhere means "clothes on models". For catalogs, for example, you can use only smooth backgrounds in one, rarely two colors, like a paper or cyclorama or just a wall. However now we shoot not for a catalog, and we are free to work with interior because our aim is not only showing dresses but showing dresses in life, in an environment.
Now, just move away the scaffold and cut off unnecessary light on an open MobiLED head. Standard reflectors are good with that. It gives us a spot of more focused light, sharp and bright. Now we receive a nice gradient in the background.
I decided to use our space and set two lamps profitably. The first one (open) to create a shadow on the curtain, the wall, and the girls, and the second (softbox 60x60) only to fill the shadows on faces and dresses. I constantly asked my models to move when I shoot, to show the motion of the skirts. The open lamp gives us a very sharp omnipresent shadow, but do not forget about our curtains. This way it operates like a soft diffusor partly separates the scene with girls with softer light.
Reflections always steal my attention from the whole landscape, I like how the sun/light bouncing through the glass, plastic, water or mirrors or how it refracts falling on facet crystals. So, why not use a simple mirror?
These cloud-like dresses are really huge and independent so I want to focus on them, that's why I chose neutral light-grey background. I use only one standard reflector and the mirror leftward to models to create reflection on the wall.
Varying the distance and position of the model in relation to that spot and brightness of the first source (now it's a focused broncolor PARA) we can receive several variants of lightning. From the scheme where all faces are lightened standardly with straight forward "glamorous" light, to sharp light filling the half of model's body and face when she stands in the way of the background flash. The short flash duration on the Move 1200L power pack allows me to shoot moving elements very clean and sharp. To capture all textures of dresses clearly is very important.
