Summer 2020 Photo Direction
Case study
Summary
Miss Me is a women's clothing brand that was created over 20 years ago. They focus primarily on embellished denim, and also have full lines of sportswear and accessories.
Our photoshoot standards for denim styles require shots of the front, side, back, back pocket, front pocket, full body, and any additional detailing the denim might have.
For our sportswear and accessories we need shots of the front, back, side, full, and any details such as tassels, beading, threading, buckles, etc.
Each photo shoot contains roughly 100 styles, and is done in an 8 hour day.
The goal
The goal is to create breathtaking photos that will keep our customers fully engaged and emotionally connected, leading to a purchase.
The challenge
Every season Miss Me adjusts their photography to create uniqueness in what is seen on our retail and wholesale websites. In summer 2020, they wanted to approach it like never before. It was then up to the marketing team to go about doing so.
My role
My role was to oversee the photoshoots. I work with the entire team to ensure that the shoot is getting done in a timely fashion - always early, never running behind schedule.
Further ensuring that all shots are being taken of every style, naming convention and documentation of said styles is complete, and proper product details and lifestyle shots are being considered and executed.
Personas
Miss Me’s products are targeted to Midwest women who love the quaintness of the country, dress in a modern, feminine style, and a large segment are mothers. Target age demographics are 18-30.
Competitive analysis
Miss Me’s branding and overall look is feminine, with delicate pastel detailing. Traditionally Miss Me photos are shot on a white background and a standard upright body positioning.
The summer 2020 season, we wanted to have a more portrait ease to the images that tells more of a story than purely a style to purchase.
Loeffler Randall, Free People, and especially Zara were the season's main inspiration. As you can see, Zara has a lot of freehand photography, showing movement to the clothes, along with close up portraits. This gives the clothing a human experience and a deeper emotional pull.
Directing the photo shoot
Once the shoot has begun, I work hand in hand with the photographer to ensure we are capturing more than enough photos of each pose, along with facial expressions being portrayed correctly, and natural body positioning. I’m closely paying attention that the photos are speaking more about the clothing than the model.
When shooting for ecommerce, I want to capture lifestyle shots containing more moodiness to use later for marketing materials. The purpose is to make sure we have plenty of options to work with post shoot.
Making selects
Choosing selects is a tedious and time sensitive process, but very rewarding as you are choosing what will be presented to the world. The shoot doesn’t stop or slow down to make selects, so you have to make them in a very timely manner.
Things to have a sharp eye for are detailings (tassels, buckles, etc), model’s facial expression, hair, eyes, and choosing the best angles.
File naming convention
Miss Me has a naming and documentation system that is shared amongst the marketing team, sales, clothing designers, and ecommerce teams.
While shots are being captured, I rename all photos accordingly, and document that they are shot, in-stock, or sold on Amazon.
Image retouching
When editing hundreds and thousands of images, time management is highly important. It can be the difference of spending four minutes per image or twelve minutes per image.
COLOR PROCESS
I often tweak the overall color per season. Winter photos are colored a little cooler to match the season, and summer I’ll bump up the warmth.
TROUBLE COLORS
Orange, red, yellow, blue, and green have a tendency to not pick up correctly when shot from the camera. I always ask the design team for all samples of those colors from a photoshoot, and individually edit all shots to be true to the real-life textiles.
FLOOR CLEANUP
The background for the photoshoots is a huge roll of colored paper. When you have multiple people back and forth on the paper hundreds of times, the floor gets really dirty. No one likes to see a dirty floor or markers on the floor of where a model is instructed to stand. All floors are mainly fixed with a patch tool or healing brush.
ILL FITTING CLOTHES
Miss Me has a very specific model type that we only use for our dotcom. Blonde or brunette, size 6 is what our samples are made for. Normally a size 2-4 is booked which means that all of our denim isn’t a snug fit.
Miss Me jeans are a very snug fit if you get them your correct size, so we want to portray that so no one is confused. I go into every denim style and liquify the jeans, so all bulges and wrinkles are removed.
If the model's legs aren’t the same length, I have to thoroughly edit the bottom cuff to look correct.
BLEMISH FIX
The resolution our photos are shot at is prone to show any minor blemishes the model might have. Without blurring the skin, you have to be tedious and make all editing look natural. All freckles, minor acne, too much skin texture, and veins are all removed for a flawless look.
TATTOO REMOVAL
Depending on location, color, and size this can be a difficult task. You quickly realize the tools that lend a large help to a speedy process. The patch, healing, and clone brush.
It can be a tedious process to not remove skin texture and bone structure.
HANDS AND FEET
When shooting photos, your feet and hands don’t show up the same color as your body. Those images need extra care using a brush or the adjustments panel in Photoshop to match overall skin color.
HAIR ISSUES
Sometimes a model's hair is not capturing how I’d like. It can make their head look to be a strange shape or too flat. I edit each individual select in clone or liquify to make it look natural. Straight, even length, more full, wavy, etc.
BACKGROUND COLOR
Some of our customers ask that a background color be removed and placed on all white for their wholesale websites. When that needs done, all images are copied and the background changed to be more versatile for use.
WRINKLES
All wrinkles or creases from tops, dresses, etc. need to be removed. Depending on the material it can be a very tedious process, and sometimes copying and pasting sections of other photos is needed for a troubled area.
Save for web
I create a batch process in Photoshop for the images to crop and save to a direct folder to drop into our server’s folder for ecommerce, sales, and marketing team use.
Once the batch process is finished, images are ready for use across a variety of channels.
