Luxurious Holiday Fashion Shoot | Inside Fashion and Beauty Photography with Lindsay Adler

Lindsay Adler

Lindsay Adler is a fashion photographer, educator, and author based in New York City. You can follow her work and see her photography on her website, lindsayadlerphotography.com, or on Instagram @lindsayadler_photo.

Shall we create some holiday images that are glamorous and utilize creative lighting techniques? Yes, we shall! In this video, I’ll show you how I use grids and dragging the shutter for a striking gold-themed luxurious holiday shoot!

Every shoot should begin with the concept. My goal and concept for this shoot were to create holiday images that are extremely shareable and represent my brand… plus spread holiday cheer! For that reason, I decided to create an unexpected approach to a holiday shoot by going with a gold theme. I wanted to create something elevated, fashion-influenced, and carefully crafted.

To prepare for this shoot I grabbed a gold hand-painted background (Gravity Backdrops), a gold dress, and a gold present. In fact, we wrapped a box in gold wrapping paper and then used glitter snowflakes from the dollar store to add extra texture and another layer of ‘luxury’ to the shot.

Light 1: Silver Beauty Dish + Grid

The main light on the subject’s face was a silver Profoto Softlight reflector (aka beauty dish) with a grid. This helped to light the subject’s torso and present it with beautiful, glowing light while having the rest of the frame fall to shadow. I can use these shadows to my advantage because I can then carefully introduce light where I want it to appear in the scene! The choice of a silver beauty dish helped to emphasize specular highlights.

Light 2: 20 Degree Grid

The second strobe in this shot was added to make the background glow behind my subject and to create separation. I added a 20-degree grid, pointed directly behind the subject. By choosing a grid I wouldn’t evenly light the background. Instead, I would create a more concentrated ‘halo’ behind the subject.

Light 3:

The third (and final) light in the scene could be any constant light source. I could have chosen a work light, a Nanlite, or another LED light source. In this case, I grabbed another Profoto strobe BUT I didn’t use it to fire. Instead, I just used the modeling light! I chose this option because the warmth (tungsten) modeling light worked perfectly for the golden concept. I added a 10-degree grid to this light so that it was pointed primarily at the shiny part of the bottom of the subject’s dress (rather than hitting the entire body).

If you know about studio lighting techniques, you know that this third light (constant aka not flashing) would not show up on the scene with a normal studio exposure. To get it to register I needed to use a slow shutter speed. This is called dragging the shutter, and it is one of my favorite creative lighting techniques!

For this shot my camera settings were:
ISO 500
F 5.6
1/2 second – 1/5 second

To make these results even more creative, during the long exposure I moved the camera while zooming — this gave me those beautiful golden streaks at the bottom of the frame on the subject’s dress. Because the strobe is just a flash (very quick), it freezes the subject’s face in focus, while the long exposure on the bottom part of the frame results in creative blur. You’ll definitely benefit from a zoom lens for this technique (I used a Canon RF 24-105mm lens).

Interested in learning more about photographing fashion and beauty? Check out these guides on 42 West:

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Happy Holiday!