Aside from what you probably see every single day on social media, the most common form of photography that most people come across is probably glamour photography.
Let’s look at its beginnings and introduce some glamour photography tips, if you are considering delving into this aspect of photography.
Despite its somewhat underground beginnings on the streets of Paris, glamour photography today is used in the form of advertisements that like to showcase just how good you can look and feel once you buy the appropriate products.
Erotic Photography
Glamour photography got its start in the early 20th century as “erotic photography” that was usually sold on the streets of France in the form of “French Postcards.”
These small images were handed out by street vendors and featured scantily clad women taking on enticing poses for the viewing audience.
Although some examples of these can still be seen today, the genre quickly expanded end evolved to include pinup models and feature the biggest stars of the day.
Triangles Make All The Difference
Today, glamour photography is one of the most popular forms of photography all over the world. Aside from the advertisements, most acting and modeling portfolios are made up of nothing but glamour shots.
The reason for this is simply the nature of glamour in itself. As a glamour photographer, your job is nothing short of making your model look as attractive as humanly possible, and that is done with no small amount of skill in makeup, lighting and posing.
While experienced models have a deep understanding of how to look good on camera, lots of newcomers are completely unaware that they must learn to stand in a very specific and unnatural way in order to convey their natural good looks.
Scores of books have been written about finding the right pose for the right model, but the base of all of that information really comes down to triangles.
Because we’re humans and we respond to certain things in certain ways, our brains just love to view a good triangle. The shape is balanced and our neurons can have a fun little time by trying to fill in all of the missing data from these minimalist structures.
As such, an easy way to make a great glamour photo is to get your subject to make triangles with his or her arms and legs. With simple bends of the elbows and knees, you try to get as many of the shapes into the image as possible while still making it look natural.
This is something that every single glamour photograph has, but not something that you would necessarily notice. You would just think that you’re looking at a well composed image.
If you want to check it out for yourself, simply pull up any glamour photo that you can find and check out the limbs. Once you’ve looked for it, you’ll never be able to ignore it again.
Emotionless Lighting – Glamour Photography Tips
Although calling it emotionless is a bit severe, that’s essentially what you’re going for when you light your subject for a glamour shot. You want your model to be evenly lit on both sides of the face with both a back light and a kicker to create a halo.
While typical three point lighting would have to using a key and fill to light the face, a glamour shot needs to be much flatter to make the skin seem smooth and flawless on camera. This is a basic of glamour photography tips.
Examples of this type of lighting can be seen every single day on your local newscast.
If you pay attention and spend some time deconstructing the way that the anchors look, you’ll see that the light is completely even from left to right with a backlight providing separation from the background.
If it were done in any other way, then the people setting the scene would also be conveying an emotion to the viewer that would most likely be inappropriate for the professional transmission of information.
Photoshopping Imperfections
Photoshop finds one of its most common uses in glamour photography and is a skill that is essential for the photographer. It shouldn’t need to be said that we’re all human beings and we all have our imperfections. While these things have bearing whatsoever on our actual beauty or attractiveness, glamour and imperfections simply don’t mix.
When you create a glamour shot, you are showcasing that person as a physically perfect specimen on which we base our ideas of what looks good.
This is, of course, why glamour is used so heavily in advertising.
One your image is captured and you move on to editing, take special care to smooth out the skin and fix any mistakes with lighting.
Think of your subject as a Greek statue that will stand as a mark of beauty and health for centuries to come. When all is said and done, we will all still have our imperfections, but sometimes it’s fun to play and pretend that we’re perfect.
Hope you have enjoyed these glamour photography tips.
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