Fashion photography today is one of the most popular and sought-after destinations in the art of photography, which purpose is to capture and to transmit the style very clearly, the atmosphere, the mood and the ideal of the age.
Aesthetics and the concept of fashion photography have always followed the newest and most daring trends of the art of photography, from the romantic elegance to outrageous extravagance. One of the highlights in the development of fashion photography is 1935, when the portable camera that allowed photographers to shoot actively outside the studio was invented. From that very day, when the portable camera came into the wide access, the world of photography has changed drastically, and so did the world of fashion. The snapshot of particular prominence in those years was the picture of the model Lisa Fonssagrivz, swinging on the upper viewing platform Eiffel Tower, made by the photographer Erwin Blumenfeld. William Klein has had a significant impact on the promotion of fashion photography as an independent art form.
All those people who stand at the dawn of fashion, sacrificing their minds and their philosophy in the development of fashion photography as an independent branch of art, could have never imagined the later scale their work. Now the fashion photography has equally many rules, golden sections and unreachable nodes as any other field of art. Now the fashion photography is a definition of modernity.
Essentially, there is much more in fashion photography, than one could even try to imagine. For example, if you are a New York fashion photographer, you have to work, following the all possible commandments of traditional fashion photography, because New York City, in its strict observance of the classical tradition in the most insane renditions, is unparalleled. You have to think carefully through the idea of the plot, not paying much attention to fixing the specific details, such as a suit or hairstyle model. First of all, the best fashion photographer should be interested in the semantic load of the image, the construction of the composition. Fashion nuances should be dealt with by the fashion designers, not the adepts of the light, color and snapshot.
Fashion photo is a sophisticated game of meanings, allusions and associations, textures and collision plans. Surprisingly, the main role here comes not to the model. Unlike every other genre of art, where modeling is engaged, in fashion photography the specific character of the model should be inexistent. Her hair, her clothes, her smile – all these are superfluous, unnecessary in the fashion photo, because it has a different purpose. Her posture, the atmosphere around her, and, mainly, the view of the photographer – these things are decisive for the fashion photography. The photographs can be technically perfect and correct, but the elements which make the picture really worth a look, may be lost. American photographer Ensel Adams once said that “the only important component of the camera it is the twelve inches behind it.” The camera captures the imagination of the photographer, not the model and all her attributes. No imagination, no pictures.
A true fashion photographer should be, first and foremost, a creator of the beautiful. He has to breathe, sleep and live with photography – and to think about how to make his work better. It is important to find what makes one unique, different from all the other photographers, and to go forward, creating your own commandments.
