Studio Photoshoot with only a piece of fabric
August 5, 2022I’ll be honest, Pinterest is the best thing that ever happened to my photography. There is endless inspiration all over the platform in various art forms. I happened to stumble across a board that displayed black and white studio photos with only using a piece of fabric. The model was nude, her poses were amazing and the photoshoot was executed tastefully. At the time, I knew nothing about fabric, how much was used in the photo and where to start but I was interested in putting my own spin on this concept.
The first thing I did was reach out to a fashion designer, Victoria Harris, about what would be the best type of fabric to use for this type of photoshoot. She told me to go with either satin or rayon so I decided to go with both! Afterwards I reached out to the model, MaryFaye, to see if she would be interested in helping me create this vision. We have worked together numerous times in the past and she was excited about the concept. When I get inspired about something, I try by best to get the wheels turning so basically in two days, I had everything I needed to create the vision (thanks amazon prime).
On the day of the photoshoot, I set up the white background and used my light stand (that has a boom-arm) so the fabric could hang from it. Both pieces of fabric were 5 yards long which was just long enough to cover in portrait and landscape orientations. I would up only using the satin fabric on the non shiny side. The shiny side really showed the wrinkles and did not want that to take away from the vision. I wish I would’ve known that I needed a steamer to get out the wrinkles but we made it work.
When MaryFaye arrived, I reassured her that there would be a LOT of trial and error and she was totally fine with it as long as the vision was executed. Being able to create freely is the best thing because the session just flows, there are no expectations from anyone and we can really focus on getting what we need from the session. MaryFaye needed little direction for posing and gave me a lot of input in terms of ideas to try and different ways to use the fabric. We both were in our creative bag!
In my humble opinion, I can say the photoshoot was a success. I learned about different fabrics, how to light them well and how valuable a steamer will be for upcoming concepts using fabric. Thanks again to MaryFaye for helping me create the vision and being patient with me as I initially struggled with the fabric!
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