Picture Perfect: How To Create Your Own Fashion Photography Spread

Often, designer fashion labels will hire photographers to shoot fashion spreads in order to showcase or advertise for their new lines. However, taking photos to represent a fashion line isn't just as easy as one, two, three... In fact, a successful fashion photography spread takes a lot of detail-oriented thinking, time and planning. That's pretty much the way everything goes in fashion design and this is no exception. If you're interested, here is your fleeting introduction to the whirlwind that is professional fashion photography.

First, as the photographer you'll need to set up a brief. In other words, you will need to meet with an editor or art director to discuss the concept of the photo shoot. In this stage, you work as a team to determine the theme or the type of emotions you want to convey in the photo shoot. Keeping the budget in mind, you will discuss all creative aspects of the project, including the color scheme, set, makeup, hair and the look of the models. All of this will come together to create the overall feel of the photo shoot, and the messages you will send to the viewers.

Once you have come up with a clear vision for the photo shoot during a brief, you can move forward with the project by employing a stylist and casting models. A stylist is a really important part of any photo shoot. He or she is the one that makes sure the models are dressed from head to toe in the most perfectly-fitted, cutting-edge looks. A stylist's primary responsibility is to make sure that the clothing on the models reflects the overall feeling agreed upon during the brief. Casting the right model is equally as important as the responsibilities of the stylist. No matter what clothes he or she is adorned with, the model's face and general demeanor must also fit the mood of the photo shoot.

On the day of the shoot, you must work within a clearly mapped-out time schedule to finish the job. The best way to figure the schedule out is to work backwards. Once you have established what time you must be off the set, you can figure out the time it will take you to pack up. Then you know what time you have to wrap up the shooting by. From that time, you can estimate the time it will take to actually shoot all of the photos you need. From there you can determine set-up time and so on until you're back at the beginning.

During the actual shoot, you will need to make sure that everyone on set is focused on their particular job. The collaborative aspects of a photo shoot are what make the result so beautiful and special. While you are focused on getting the exact pose from the model and lighting that you need to make the perfect photograph, make sure your set designers are focused on every aspect of the set looking perfect, while the stylist and hair/make-up artists are focused on making sure each thread and hair are in place.

All of this combined effort will leave you with a fashion photography spread that will have fashion school students all over the world swooning into the pages of their magazines!