'Faking It' documentary

A few weeks ago in Professional studies we watched a documentary called 'Faking It' where they tried to teach a radiographer to be a fashion photographer. Whilst watching this I picked up some things that I think are traits you have to learn to be a fashion photographer. 

As he is working, his mentor is telling him how to conduct himself, he has to be confident in what he is doing so that he can life morale in his team around him, ad have a lot of charisma as some fashion shoots can be very long and sometimes in bad weather so he has to be upbeat to try and keep his team in the same frame of mind. He also had to learn to work in a team because as a radiographer there was just him and his patient. As a fashion photographer he had to learn how to work with various people such as stylists, makeup artists, hairstylists, assistant, and models. And he often had to build relationships with these people in a very short period of time as most likely he will have just met them on the day of his shoot.

After we had watched the documentary we talked about how you could get into such a competitive industry and what makes the industry. Like additional people to the team, if its a commissioned shoot you could also have an editor and art director there to help direct the shoot. We also spoke about who commissions the shoots and how they pay and how much they get paid. It is usually art directors and editors for magazines, the creators of the clothes, or promotional teams for high street shops. And most of the time they will either look through agencies to find the photographer they like or if they want a certain style they will find someone who's work represents that. The salary for fashion photographers can usually be quite high as it will have to cover all other expenditures such as the teams salary, equipment, travel to/from the location, and even other things such as retouchers. 

The most common route into the profession is becoming an assistant first. Other routes include joining an agency, or multiple agencies to get a wider spread audience, or work freelance and try and promo yourself as much as possible.