What Is Fashion Photography

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.

 

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

 

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...

 

absolutely on topic , the new MoMa exhibition ...

from wwd

 

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

 

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