Screenshot images from the video
Both fashion and fine art photography make use of portraiture for eye-catching pictures, yet the final results show different styles. If you find yourself wanting to dabble on both but aren’t sure about what sets them apart from each other, learning how to pose a model for fashion vs. fine art portraits is a good start.
In a quick video by CreativeLive, photographers Lindsay Adler and Brooke Shaden — the former a fashion photographer and the latter a fine art photographer — share a model and a rather flashy fashion accessory for a shoot. Both demonstrate their own approach to portraiture, from posing the model, dressing her up, and using the statement headdress to fit their particular styles. It’s a really helpful and interesting presentation of ideas and perspectives if you’re wondering about working with a subject for fashion vs. fine art portraits.
Breaking down their shoot, it’s easy to see the differences in both genres. Lindsay’s approach involves seeing the elaborate headpiece as the focus of her picture — not the model’s features, pose, or expressions, nor her clothes. As such, she has made everything else in the photo work to either complement or highlight the size and embellishments of the entire headpiece. Her directions for the model’s expression and poses are simple, and the jacket has an earthy color and fur texture that goes well with the deer-inspired design.
Brooke’s style, meanwhile, makes use of a narrative approach. The appeal to the viewer is not based on the details and intricacy of the headpiece. Instead, the fine art photographer crafted a story built around it. She wanted to turn the fashion model into a forlorn “deer princess” lost in an imaginary woods, and it required a more precise and emotive pose. Attention to detail is also different, as Brooke came up with the idea to smear the model and her white dress with mud. All of these, when put together, work to tell her story in image form.
It would have been nice to see the final, post-processed result for both approaches, but I think you get the drift in the video tutorial.