Fashion Photography

When is an image a Portrait when is it a fashion photograph?

The difference between a portrait and a fashion photograph is one is trying to sell the clothes that is being worn in the photo whereas the other is about the people in the photograph. A Portrait is about the atmosphere in the photograph and is about the emotion behind the people. Your focus in drawn to the people in the photograph not on what  their wearing. Fashion Photography could be classed as a fake portrait because the models are told how to position themselves whereas in a portrait it all natural.

 Cecil Beaton


Beaton started working for vogue and Vanity Fair as a staff photographer on a regular basis in 1927.  After this Beaton went ono to setting up his own studio and one of his earliest clients was Stephen Tennant, Beatons photos of Tennant and his circle went on to be considered the best reprisentation of Bright young people of the twenties and thirties. As well as photographing celebrities he often took photographs for official publication for the royal family, he also took the famous wedding pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.


Fashion Photography


Fashion photography is a genre of photography devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Elle. Over time, fashion photography has developed its own aesthetic in which the clothes and fashions are enhanced by the presence of exotic locations or accessories.
Photography was developed in the 1830s, but the earliest popular technique, the daguerreotype, was unsuitable for mass printing.

In the first decade of the 20th century, advances in halftone printing allowed fashion photographs to be featured in magazines. Fashion photography made its first appearance in French magazines such as La mode practique. In 1909, Condé Nast took over Vogue magazine and also contributed to the beginnings of fashion photography. Cecil Beaton transformed the genre into an outstanding art form. Europe, and especially Germany, was for a short time the leader in fashion photography.