Fashion Photography 101 Review

There are 3 things that i look for when I am buying a book:

-          Clean and simple layout

-          Easy content organization within the pages and the book itself

-          Most important of all- CONTENT – Great, new and insightful information, that I can’t find online.

Fashion Photography 101 approaches the business and technical side of fashion photography (Big plus).

In my opinion there are 3 different types of consumer/photographer that will buy this book:

-          Fans of Lara Jade’s Work

-          Fashion photographers (beginners) who want to know more about the industry

-          Professional photographers from other fields who want to pick up some new tips or want to expand their businesses

Who will benefit more from this will be, of course, new fashion photographers, but there are enough content to please (almost) everyone.

The layout of the book is clean, simple and well organized (Main chapters: equipment, preparation, the creative team, shooting, scenarios, working photographer, organization, retouching and marketing).

I have to admit though that some information is common sense, like the Creative team part, for example. Anyone that reads fashion photography magazines is familiar with hairstylists, stylists, make-up artists and so on, and with their role on  a photoshoot.

With this, I am not saying this is a bad thing, because I think Lara wrote this book with every kind of photographer in mind. Let’s face it, there are a lot of people who want to be fashion photographers but they don’t have a clue about important and fundamental things until they do some research on the subject themselves.

I wish Lara has talked about this or included this:

-          Never before seen images (there are indeed a couple of photos that I haven’t seen before but that’s it);

-          More personal experience when it comes to mistakes and what she learned with that;

-          More in-depth information about “The importance of social media”.

What I loved the most:

-          How to choose the "right "shot

-          How she uses adobe lightroom to organize her files

-          The chapter “Scenarios”

-          Lighting setups – very useful ! – I just wished the photos would have been taken by Lara

-          Personal assignments - Lara suggests that you should set personal assignments and goals for yourself when it comes to personal work. I just love this because it makes your work harder, practice and have an objective look on your own work, in order to evolve and grow.

Last but not least, this is going to seem like I am getting paid by Lara to say nice things (I am NOT), this book alongside with her CREATIVElive three day course it is the most inexpensive fashion photography course that you will ever come across – incredibly useful and worth it!

 

I felt very inspired by this book, and most importantly, as it was referred innumerous times at CREATIVElive course, you don’t need to have the best camera/equipment and a professional studio to produce great images, you just need to work hard, be passionate about what you do, have an excellent work ethic and learn from your mistakes.

 

For those of you who don’t have the patience to read such a long post, I answered this key question for you – remember this is just my honest opinion:

Is this book worth it?

Yes it is !!! This book approaches both sides of fashion photography – business and technical side, which is a big plus, it even covers social media channels and how to use them to promote your work, all based on Lara’s personal experience.

Even if you aren’t a fashion photographer you will be pleased with the amount of content and the wide variety of topics that are mentioned on the book. If you are new to this type of photography then this book – I believe – will become your bible, and 10£ for such a useful and precious book is very affordable.