Shooting Fashion and Beauty Images

Christian Behr pulls out the natural beauty of the models in front of his Tamron SP 70-300mm VC lens.

Article by Jenn Gidman

Images by Christian Behr

"A model's skin is everything in beauty shots - the textures, the makeup, the up-close face shots," he says. "That 70-300 lens is incredible. Details like the eyelashes and the iris of the eye are always razor-sharp. The lens also provides a little bit of latitude when it comes to skin. In other words, it reproduces really great flesh tones, but it also hides flaws that the naked eye would miss."

Read on for Christian's perspective on how he shows the natural beauty of his models and how the Tamron 70-300 helps him do this.

Dress your models appropriately.
Sometimes you might not have control over what you're shooting fashion-wise, but if you do, it's preferable to clothe your models in material with some sort of stretch. Clothing with no stretch can assume awful shapes if given the opportunity - you want the clothing to work itself around the model. For instance, many people love the look of satin dresses, but satin has absolutely no stretch to it. Unless you really have a model who knows how to wear it correctly, it's going to look terrible.

Accessories are also absolutely essential. Accessories are what give fashion its character: Even if someone remembers a dress from a fashion spread and goes out to find a dress that's similar, it won't look the same if she doesn't also re-create the accessories. You can take a red cocktail dress, for example, and change its entire look just with accessories. I'm pretty hands-on when it comes to that. Sometimes I'll even create necklaces myself. I've been known for taking burlap, cutting it, and placing it around the model's neck because it creates such a cool look with the contrasting textures.

Make the model your focus, not the background.
For interiors, I have gray paper, white paper, and black backdrops I'll use. Every once in a while, I'll use a specialty muslin. However, the majority of the time, I shoot outdoors. When people ask where I get my backgrounds, I say, "I got this one for free, even though it's just on a temporary basis!"

The beauty of the Tamron 70-300 lens is its ability to blur out the background and keep everything else sharp where you need it. In my fashion and beauty shots, I want to isolate the clothing and the girl from the background. I want you to be able to tell there's water behind her, but maybe you can't tell exactly what the water is. Maybe she's on a beach, but you don't know if it's a lake beach or an ocean beach. I let the viewer assume what the background is by keeping it subtle and blurred so it creates atmosphere instead of background details.

Hide facial flaws with directed lighting and angles.
I like a haloed look, so I'll typically position the model so that her face is entirely in the shadows. That way, there's nice, even lighting, and there's a strong presence behind her. Then, instead of really expensive reflectors, I'll use large 4x8 foam-core boards to bounce the light.

One of the strongest angles for most models is the three-quarter face shot. That's where her face is between a front shot and off to the side, at a diagonal. That lets the light hang right on her cheekbones and really shows the depth of her face and every detail of her hair.

Evoke the most beautiful expressions by avoiding posing.
With models, especially the ones who are brand new, you have to trick them to make them more comfortable. When they're posing, they're at their least comfortable. In fact, I stay away from the word "pose" altogether, since doing that gives an extremely stiff stance. If a model is hyperfocused on what her mouth is doing, for instance, and tries to make her mouth look great, then she feels too structured and it doesn't look natural.

Instead, I give the model a range of motion to shoot for. In other words, her arms might start down at her knees and I'll just ask her to work her hands all the way up to her hips - it's during that motion when she tends to do everything "right" for the camera. All she can think about is where her hands are, so her face automatically becomes its most beautiful. She doesn't even pay attention to what her face is doing.

Realize what you're really trying to show in a fashion shoot.
The objective of the fashion spread is to tell a story. Women are not looking to buy a $5,000 dress, so Vogue doesn't just show a $5,000 dress: It shows women a whole new life. If you want this new life, here are the things you're going to need. That's what will make a woman spend $5,000 on that dress.

Your job is to create that new life in front of your camera. If only people saw what the models showed up to the shoot wearing. They don't come in Valentino dresses - they show up in jeans and tank tops! Then they sit in hair and makeup for an hour and a half, then they're dressed and accessorized, then they're photographed. At the end of the day, they call it a night and leave in the same tank tops and jeans they showed up in. In your pictures, though, they'll always be those glamorous girls in the Valentino dresses.

To see more of Christian Behr's work, go to www.christianbehr.com.