The Importance of Having a Fashion Stylist for your Photoshoot

Ranjith Kankanala – Freelance Photographer

Ranjith is a freelance photographer in the Bay Area, California who loves shooting Fashion and Branding photography. He believes in bringing out a story through his photographs. His style of Fashion photography is shot more in natural outdoor settings to bring out how fashion is more rooted in our daily lives.

You can find him on Instagram @photos.ranjith or on his website https://www.ranjithstudios.com/

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The importance of having a Fashion stylist for your Photoshoot

As a photographer, whenever I think of an idea or a concept to shoot, the first thing I think of is how to make it more impactful. How to make it stand out from the rest. What better can I do than convey what I am trying to show through my photographs.

 When I first started doing fashion photography, I didn’t pay much attention to styling. I would often help put together a few outfits and shoot them. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I started to realise the importance of having a stylist on the team. I can tell that my best shoots are often the ones that involve a stylist in them, who took care to understand the concept, put together the outfits, work out the colour schemes and be able to add much more emotion to the photograph.

 Here is how a fashion stylist helped me bring the best out of a fashion photoshoot.

Stylists bring your vision to life

Whatever concept you have, be it a client’s requirement or an idea a photographer wants to execute, discussing it with a stylist can help get closer to the vision you want to achieve.

The idea of this particular photoshoot was inspired from a few photos I came across on Instagram. I really liked the nude colour outfits on these models who had so much personality in their faces.

Credits: Zegna Official

When I took this concept to the stylist, it really helped me brainstorm what we could take from this inspiration and what we could modify in terms of making it more of our own style. The stylist helped me decide that the central theme could be nude colored outfits and we worked around that. We decided we could have a male and female model, both from diverse backgrounds and to highlight the personality especially in their facial features. 

 Few screenshots from the Pinterest mood board.

Network

Before I contacted the stylist and when this idea was in its initial phase, I went around to several thrift and regular stores to find what kind of outfits I could use for this shoot. Honestly, it was a tiring job and I didn’t really find what I wanted.

 Once the fashion stylist was on board and once we finalised on our concept, the stylist sent us photos of the outfit options that we would have never known how to source or where to find. It would have probably taken us several days’ work to find such outfits. I was really impressed by the network the stylist had and within 10 days we had the outfits and we were ready for the shoot. This reminded me of how important each professional on the team was. I was excited for the photoshoot.

More than picking out outfits

Many of us have the wrong conception that stylists mostly help us just to pick out outfits for a photoshoot. Every stylist I have worked with so far did so much more than just sourcing the outfits. Especially for branding and fashion photoshoots, it’s so important to have a stylist decide the outfits and the colours that truly represent what the client is looking for. For example, blue shows you are reliable, warm colours convey happiness and joy, white for traditional look, yellow for happy and humorous and so on.  

Assisting on the set

A good stylist is often as concerned as you are in how the model and the outfits look when photographed. They are equipped with pins to help them fit well on the models. In the photos below you can see the pins the stylist used to make them fit on the model. Although the pins can be removed in post-production, not having a good fit of the clothes doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing in any photoshoot.

Virtual consultation

Most of us might not have the budget to have a stylist on our shoot but most stylists are willing to do a virtual consultation, brainstorm ideas, and give their expertise in suggesting what outfits to go with, colours to use, and what to give importance to and what not to. I always believe in reaching out to people; nothing wrong in giving it a try.  This shoot was one such example where I reached out to stylists and models and everything worked out better than I expected. Most of the time, my process of executing an idea takes longer because of not being able to make a firm decision on the outfits or on what colour schemes to use. Although as a client/model/photographer, one might have an idea about colour schemes, getting a fashion stylist on board makes this process easier and helps save a lot of time and effort.

Below are the final photos from this photoshoot. 

Fashion Stylist: Abby Young @abbyyoungstyling

Male model: Hensly Fonjah @the_hensly_strategy

Female model: Jasmine Qin @jasmineqin_

Photographer: Ranjith Kankanala @photos.ranjith

For more information about how a stylist can help you on a shoot and 3 steps to bringing out your fashion personality during a photo shoot, check out Abby’s blog post here.