In this blog story I am going to talk about shooting an editorial set of images. I get e-mail from guys all the time asking me “What are Editorial images?” Let me explain what makes an editorial image and why they should not to be confused with life style looking images.
An editorial image is an image that looks like its shot on a location where it might be appropriate to see that sort of look (Clothing or Product). Lifestyle images are people doing what they do in an image, so it’s sort of like an action shot but it’s not a snap shot. ( A snap shot is a spontaneously and quickly taken image, most often clicked without artistic or journalistic intent ) You can see a lot of this sort of imagery posted on Instagram. You can always tell by the TREE coming out of the top of someone’s head.
A catalog image should have a backdrop that is not very busy and a lot of the time the images are just shot on white for the internet. In these images of Playboy® Playmate Carrie Stevens I used a real living room setting at a home not a studio so it would look like Carrie would be there in that outfit in real life. We call this sort of look if you shoot for Playboy® magazine the small camera set, as it is shot with a 35mm camera (Full Frame or Crop). The centerfold (Gatefold) for Playboy® magazine was shot with a 4X5 or 11X14 camera for more detail in that sized film. When they used to shoot film for the centerfold. Hef like to just review the film big on a light table that is why he wanted to have the centerfold shot on large format film.
What I was doing here with Carrie and these set of images was they had to be sexy and show off the clothing at the same time. I shot the images with my Canon 6D & a Tamron lens 24-70mm zoom plus the use of a Canon 50mm STM lens with my ISO set @ 320. I also use my ring light as the main light with all the other light coming in on my set was used as the fill light. You just have to balance the two-light sorceress. With today’s digital cameras we can shoot now almost in the dark just by pushing up your ISO.
With this set up it’s best to try to get as much of the background out of focus to help separate the model from the background by using a shallow depth of field with your F Stop being a low number and or the lens is wide open for what you are looking for in your images.
I hope that I have given you the information to go out and shoot images that are not busy looking and help sale the outfit thats on the model. Look for placing light on dark and dark on light to help things stand out in your shots.