Sunday Media / Fashion
Fashion and editorial photography that makes a garment look wanted
There are two photographs of the same jacket. One shows the cut, the colour and the way the collar sits, so a shopper can decide whether to buy it. The other shows somebody wearing it on a wet street at dusk and makes a stranger want a life in which they own that jacket. Both are useful. They are not the same picture, they are almost never made in the same twenty minutes, and the most common reason a shoot disappoints is that somebody asked for one and was picturing the other.
Based in Guelph, ON. Shooting across Southern Ontario. Every fee, including travel, insurance and any studio, permit or team costs, is discussed and agreed in writing before anything becomes binding.
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Clothes are product. Editorial is desire.
Open the shopping app on your phone and scroll for ten seconds. Almost everything you pass is a garment photographed to be understood: flat light, honest colour, the shape of the sleeve, a model standing still enough that you can read the hem. That work is doing a job and it is doing it well. You scroll past all of it, because understanding a jacket is not the same as wanting one.
Now think of the last image of clothing that actually stopped you. It was probably not lit flatly and it probably did not show you the garment clearly. There was weather in it, or a room, or a person mid stride looking at something outside the frame. You could not have told a friend what the fabric was. You remembered it anyway. That gap between the frame that informs and the frame that wants is the whole subject of this page.
Most people arrive with one word, fashion, and two pictures in their head at once. A designer with a small run of samples needs clean frames a customer can buy from, and also needs three images that make the brand look like it belongs somewhere. A model needs editorial frames with an opinion in them. A stylist needs a story that hangs together. The shoot that satisfies everybody is the one that decides, out loud and before anybody books a studio, which of those it is doing first.
So this page is a working guide rather than a sales pitch. What the two registers actually are, where to shoot them across Southern Ontario, how to build a concept that survives contact with a real afternoon, who else needs to be in the room, how to prepare garments so they photograph as clothes rather than as laundry, and the usage conversation nobody has early enough. Sessions here run from 30 to 150 minutes depending on the package you choose, and how far your idea can travel inside that time is mostly a question of how much was decided in advance.
Take all of it and use it whether you hire us, hire somebody else, or shoot the whole thing yourself with one light and a borrowed room. The craft does not belong to us. It just took a while to learn.
Thirty minutes to two and a half hours
Sessions run anywhere from 30 to 150 minutes depending on the package you choose. The short end is one look in one setup, which is exactly right for a single garment, a campaign image or a portfolio frame you know precisely. The long end is three or four looks, a location change, movement work and enough room for the idea that only turns up once everybody has stopped being polite.
The clean frames first, the story after
Whichever register the shoot is built around, the frames that have to exist get made first. Garment true, well lit, unambiguous, while the clothes are still freshly steamed and nobody has sat down in them. Once those are safely on the card, the rest of the session is free to get weather in it, and nothing that happens afterwards can put the shoot at risk.
Two exports, two jobs
Files come back sorted rather than in one folder. Product and lookbook frames arrive colour accurate, consistently cropped and sized for a shop or a line sheet. Editorial frames arrive fully finished at full resolution and print ready. Mixing them is why so many brand galleries read as a mood swing instead of a season.
Two jobs, and they are not the same photograph
This is the most useful distinction on the page and it settles about half of the arguments that happen on a shoot day. Fashion photography splits into work that sells the garment and work that sells the idea of the garment. Almost every brief secretly wants both, and the way to get both is to shoot them as two separate things rather than hoping one frame can carry the load.
The commercial register is about legibility. The customer needs to see the colour truthfully, the length, the drape, how it closes, what it looks like from behind. Light is even, the background does not compete, the model is a well shaped hanger and that is a compliment. This work is judged on whether somebody who has never touched the garment can picture owning it.
The editorial register is about atmosphere. It borrows a location, a mood and a bit of narrative, and it is allowed to hide the garment in shadow, crop it in half, or let it blur in motion. This work is judged on whether somebody who was not looking for clothes stopped scrolling anyway. It is what gets a brand talked about and what gets a photographer or a model hired.
Do only the first and the brand looks like a catalogue with no point of view. Do only the second and you have a beautiful set of images that a shopper cannot buy from and a line sheet cannot use. Plan both, in that order, and one afternoon covers a season.
Lookbook and product frames
- Colour has to be true. A grey card at the top of each setup takes ten seconds and it is the difference between a return rate that is fine and one that is not.
- Even, soft light with a little direction. Enough shaping to show texture and a seam, not so much that half the garment sits in shadow.
- A background that does nothing. White, mid grey, or one clean surface used consistently across the whole set.
- Front, back, three quarter and one detail per garment. The back is the most commonly missing frame and the one customers ask about most.
- Consistent crop and consistent distance, so the set reads as a set when it is laid out in a grid.
- The garment steamed, pinned and set properly. Clamps at the back, tape on a gaping button, a hem straightened between frames.
- A model who can stand still with intent. Stillness is a skill and it is the one this half of the shoot is actually buying.
- Restrained finishing. Remove a stray thread or a dust mark, never reshape a silhouette. A photograph that flatters the cut is a customer complaint waiting six weeks.
Editorial frames
- A place with an opinion. A room, a street, a quarry edge, a field. The location is a character rather than a backdrop.
- Movement. Fabric doing what fabric does when a person walks. Almost nothing sells a garment like the way it falls back into place.
- Light you would not choose for a catalogue. Hard midday shadow, backlight through a doorway, a single window in a dark room.
- Distance and variety. One wide that is almost a landscape, one that reads as a portrait, one detail that is mostly texture.
- A face doing very little. Editorial expression is stillness and attention rather than warmth, which is the opposite of commercial work.
- A narrative thread. Three frames that feel like the same afternoon beat nine frames that feel like nine ideas.
- Room for accident. The frame nobody planned is usually the one that gets used, and it only appears if there is time left for it.
- Colour graded with a point of view, but skin still reading as skin, and the garment colour recoverable if a customer asks.
Shoot the frames the business needs first. Shoot the frames the brand deserves second. Never the other way round.
The clean set is the one with a deadline attached to it, and it is also the one that quietly degrades as the day goes on: garments crease, hair settles, samples come back from the last look slightly worn. Get it made in the first block while everything is still perfect, then spend the rest of the session chasing the picture nobody can brief.
Write down what each image is for before you write down what it should look like. Product listing, line sheet, homepage banner, paid social, lookbook spread, press kit. Each of those has a shape, a crop and a level of finish attached to it, and a banner needs empty space in the frame that a product listing has no use for. Send us that list and we will build the shot order around it, which is far more effective than shooting beautifully and cropping hopefully afterwards.
Seven places people actually shoot fashion around here
Location is doing more work on a fashion shoot than on almost any other kind. A garment photographed against a white wall is information. The same garment photographed against wet limestone at half past six is a proposition. Nothing else in the budget changes an image that much for that little, which is why the location conversation should happen before the wardrobe one rather than after it.
Southern Ontario is unusually well supplied for this and almost nobody uses it properly. Within about half an hour of Guelph there is a nineteenth century mill district, a limestone gorge, two heritage main streets, brutalist campus architecture, working farmland and a quarry. That is a range most people drive a very long way for, and it is the reason a book or a season shot here does not have to look like it was shot in a car park.
Read the seven below as registers rather than as addresses. Each one puts a different sentence underneath the clothes, and most sessions want two of them rather than five. Every one is reachable across Southern Ontario, and most sit inside a twenty minute drive of Guelph, ON.
Studio and seamless
A controlled room, a paper roll, and light that does not care what month it isThe least romantic location on the list and the one most fashion shoots cannot do without. Everything a lookbook needs is here: colour you can trust, light that repeats exactly across forty frames, a full length with clean space above and below, and a background a developer can cut out in a second. A roll of seamless swaps in about a minute, so one room gives you white, mid grey and a deep saturated colour without anybody changing clothes.
It is also where a session becomes weatherproof, which matters more here than people expect. Southern Ontario will hand you a beautiful forecast that turns into horizontal rain by four. Anchoring the shoot indoors means the frames with a deadline attached always get made, and the outdoor block becomes the bonus rather than the whole plan. Use colour deliberately: grey and off white keep attention on the garment, deep colour reads as campaign, black hides a silhouette and is therefore useless for a full length and excellent for a detail.
Whatever we build. A large soft key with fill for lookbook, one bare hard source for editorial.
Product and lookbook frames, e commerce, full lengths, detail shots, and multiple looks in one block.
A booking rather than a permit. Confirm the ceiling height, the power and whether steaming is allowed.
Colour bouncing off a paper roll onto skin, and a whole set that looks identical because the light never moved.
Mill and warehouse
The old mill districts of Guelph, Cambridge, Galt, Paris and EloraNineteenth century industry left this part of the country a gift and fashion photographers are the people best placed to use it. Limestone and brick mill buildings, ceilings you could park a truck under, cast iron columns, timber floors worn into curves, and windows the height of a room throwing enormous soft light across everything. It is the closest thing to a free studio with an opinion, and it flatters heavy fabric, tailoring and outerwear more than any backdrop you can buy.
The catch is that almost all of it is private and some of it is genuinely unsafe. A converted mill with offices and a coffee shop in it has a property manager who will often say yes to a quiet Sunday morning with notice and proof of insurance. A derelict one has a floor that has been rotting since the plant closed, and no photograph is worth that. Ask, get the answer in writing, and never treat a padlock as an invitation.
A tall window at mid morning. Enormous, directional and soft, with deep falloff into the room behind.
Outerwear, tailoring, heavy knitwear, denim, and any editorial story that needs texture and grit.
Always private. Ask the property manager, expect to show insurance, and never enter a derelict building.
Dust settling on dark fabric, uneven floors in heels, mixed light from sodium fittings, and no heat in winter.
Limestone main street
Downtown Guelph, Elora, Fergus, St Jacobs, Galt, Paris, StratfordStreet style frames need a street with something to say, and the heritage main streets here supply six backgrounds inside one block. Grey limestone, painted brick, iron fire escapes, deep shop doorways, a red door somebody repainted decades ago, and a crossing with a bit of traffic in it. This is where clothes look like clothes people wear rather than like product on a stand, and it costs nothing but a parking spot.
Two problems, both solvable. Sidewalks are busy from about eleven until six, and a narrow street of tall buildings is blown out on one side and in hard shade on the other. Sunday morning is the quiet secret and the light is cool and clean. The other window is the last hour before sunset, when low sun comes straight down the street and lights the whole block like a corridor. Public sidewalk needs no permission. A doorway, a courtyard or a shop frontage belongs to somebody, and they say yes surprisingly often when asked before the lights come out rather than after.
The last hour before sunset down the length of the street, or open shade under an awning at any hour.
Street style, denim, outerwear, accessories, walking frames, and anything that would look overdressed in a field.
Public sidewalk needs none. Doorways, courtyards and private frontage mean asking the owner first.
Parked cars, sandwich boards, patio crowds, and coloured light bouncing off a painted wall onto skin.
Concrete and glass
Parking structures, campus architecture, underpasses, loading bays, glass frontageThe modern register, and the cheapest hard edged look available. Flat planes, repeating verticals, ramps that give you clean geometry from any angle and absolutely nothing decorative to compete with a silhouette. A parking structure in particular is one of the most reliable free studios in the country: the concrete deck above makes the light directional, the open side works as a softbox the width of the building, and you can shoot for an hour without moving a light.
Access is the whole game and it is worth sorting in week one. A crew with a garment rail and a light stand is visibly different from somebody taking a photograph on a phone, so assume private and ask. Campus buildings, business frontage and commercial structures all have somebody whose job it is to say yes or no, and a weekend when the building is quiet is usually an easy yes. Where the answer is no, an underpass, a loading bay or a retaining wall is public and gives most of the same look.
Open shade under a concrete deck, or low sun raking flat across a wall in the last hour.
Tailoring, sportswear, sharp silhouettes, monochrome stories and anything that needs a cold register.
Assume private and ask early. Get a name, a date and a time in writing, and keep it on your phone.
Green light bouncing off tinted glass, moving traffic on a ramp, and security who were not told you were coming.
Gorge and quarry
Elora Gorge, Elora Quarry, Rockwood, Limehouse, the Grand and the SpeedVertical limestone, still green water, cedar growing sideways out of a cliff, and scale that makes a single figure in a good coat look like a film still. This is the location that gives a story drama without a single light, and it is twenty minutes from Guelph rather than a flight away. Cliff faces hold reflected light beautifully, so a subject standing at the base of one is lit from the front by a wall the size of a building.
Treat it as a location with rules rather than as scenery. Conservation areas charge admission, have seasonal hours, close in bad weather and often require permission or a permit for a commercial shoot with a crew and equipment. Ask when you book rather than at the gate. Footing near water is genuinely dangerous in shoes chosen for a photograph, so the practical answer is boots to walk in and the real shoes carried in a bag and changed into on stable ground.
Overcast, or an hour before sunset when the top of the cliff goes gold and the base stays cool.
Editorial stories, outerwear, flowing fabric, swim in high summer, and the frame that gets printed large.
Conservation areas charge admission and commercial shoots usually need approval. Ask well before the day.
Wet limestone underfoot, a long carry from the car park, seasonal closures, and no shelter if it turns.
Field and horizon
Wellington County, Puslinch, Ariss, Erin, Grand Valley, any quiet concession roadThe frame with air in it. Nothing behind the clothes but grass and sky, low sun coming through from behind, and a background so empty that the whole photograph is about a silhouette moving across it. This is where fabric earns its money: a coat opening in the wind, a long skirt catching light through it, a hem lifting on a turn. Long grass at chest height in late August does something no studio can imitate at any budget.
One rule that is not negotiable. Farmland is somebody’s income and standing crop is money. We ask the owner every time, we stay on the headland or the roadside, and we never walk a planted field. A cut hay field in September, asked for politely and left as we found it, is one of the best backdrops in this county and it costs a phone call. Plan parking as carefully as the frame, because a concession road with no shoulder is a hazard rather than a venue.
The last forty minutes before sunset, shooting into the sun through the grass. Nothing else compares.
Movement, flowing fabric, outerwear, wide campaign frames, and anything you want printed at wall size.
Ask the landowner every time. The roadside allowance is public, the field behind the fence is not.
Ticks in long grass, wind with nothing to stop it, mud at the gate, seed heads on dark fabric, and no washroom.
Borrowed rooms
Heritage houses, small hotels, cafes before opening, galleries, greenhouses, a stairwellThe most underused option and often the best one. A room somebody actually lives or works in brings furniture, wallpaper, a staircase, a mirror and a window, which is four backgrounds and a story in one booking. Heritage houses, small independent hotels, a cafe an hour before it opens, a gallery between shows, a greenhouse in February when everything outside is grey. These places have character that no studio can build and they are usually cheaper than one, when they charge at all.
Ask properly and the answer is yes far more often than people believe. Be specific about the date, the hours, how many people are coming, whether anything gets moved and whether you are bringing lights. Offer images they can use, put it in writing, and leave the room exactly as you found it. A greenhouse or a garden centre in winter is the single best kept secret on this list: warm, green, full of soft overhead light, and completely empty on a Tuesday morning.
One large window with the room lights switched off. Mixed light is the thing that ruins interiors.
Narrative editorial, occasionwear, knitwear, lingerie and sleepwear, jewellery, and cold weather shooting.
Always ask, always in writing. Agree hours, crew size, whether furniture moves and what they get in return.
Low ceilings, tight corners for a full length, colour cast off painted walls, and somewhere for the rail to live.
How to choose, without overthinking it
Match the location to the garment, not to your taste
A structured wool coat belongs against stone or concrete. A light summer dress dies indoors and comes alive in a field. Ask what the fabric wants to do and take it somewhere it can do it.
Two locations, not four
Every move costs twenty to thirty minutes once you count packing, driving, parking and finding the light again. Two places properly explored beats four places glanced at, every single time.
Anchor indoors, then earn the outside
Start where the light is guaranteed and the deadline frames get made. Treat the outdoor block as the reward for being ahead of schedule rather than as the plan that rain can cancel.
Scout it at the hour you will shoot it
A location visited at noon tells you almost nothing about what it looks like at seven. Go once at the real time, take three phone frames, and you will arrive on the day already knowing where to stand.
Sort permission in week one
Mills, structures, campuses, conservation areas and private rooms all say yes more often than people expect. They just want notice, a name and sometimes proof of insurance. One email saves the location.
Have somewhere to change and somewhere to hang
The most romantic location in the county is useless if there is nowhere to put a garment rail or get a model out of a wet field into a dry coat. Solve that first and the frames look after themselves.
Our photographers already know these places. Which mill buildings will take a phone call and which will not, which stretch of downtown Guelph is empty on a Sunday morning, where the light lands on a concrete deck at half past six in September, which conservation areas need approval for a crew, and which country roads have somewhere safe to leave a car. Tell us the garments and the register you are after and we will tell you the two locations to build the day around. We are also building a full Photoshoot Locations guide for Southern Ontario, with maps, parking notes, permit details and the best hour for each spot.
A moodboard is a brief, not a scrapbook
Almost every fashion shoot that goes wrong went wrong two weeks earlier, in the gap between having a feeling and having a plan. Somebody collects thirty images they like, sends them over, and everybody nods. On the day it turns out the thirty images contained four different lighting styles, three seasons, two entirely different budgets and one photograph that was shot in a country nobody is going to.
A concept is not a mood. A concept is a small number of decisions written down in plain language: who this person is meant to be, where they are, what time it is, what the light is doing, and what the three or four frames are that must exist by the end of the day. That fits on one page. If it does not fit on one page, it is still a feeling.
The useful test is whether somebody who was not in the conversation could read it and shoot it. If a stylist can read your page and know what to bring, and a photographer can read it and know what to build, the concept is done. Everything after that is craft and weather.
Write one sentence before you collect one image
Who is this person, where are they, and what just happened or is about to. A woman leaving a house at six in the morning in a coat she slept in. That sentence will do more work than any moodboard, and it is the thing to keep returning to when a decision gets difficult.
Cut the references down to nine
Thirty images is a mood. Nine is a brief. Group them into three columns: light, styling and framing, and be honest about which column each one belongs to, because a reference you love for its colour is often confusing everybody about its pose.
Label what you actually want from each reference
Write it on the image. The light in this one. The crop in this one. The attitude in this one, ignore the clothes. Unlabelled references get copied wholesale, and a copied photograph always looks like a copy because the reason it worked was never the thing you liked about it.
Set a palette and hold it
Three or four colours across the whole shoot, including the locations. This is what makes a set of images read as a story rather than as a folder. It also quietly solves half of the styling arguments before they start, because a garment either sits inside the palette or it waits for the next shoot.
Write the shot list as frames, not as vibes
Full length front on seamless, walking wide in the field at golden hour, detail of the cuff, close portrait in the doorway. Ten to fifteen named frames for a full session. Anybody can look at that list and know whether the day is on schedule, which is the only real purpose of it.
Mark the three frames that cannot be missed
Out of the whole list, three are non negotiable. Star them, shoot them first, and check them on a real screen before moving on. Everything else on the list is upside, and knowing which is which is what stops a shoot quietly running out of light with the important frame still unmade.
What a usable brief contains
- The one sentence. Who, where, when, and what is happening.
- Nine labelled references, grouped by light, styling and framing.
- The palette, as actual colours rather than as adjectives.
- The looks in order, with the garments listed and any sizes noted.
- The shot list, ten to fifteen named frames, three of them starred.
- Locations with times, plus the indoor backup if the weather turns.
- Who is coming, what each of them is doing, and who makes the final call.
- Where the images are going and at what crop, which quietly determines how everything gets framed.
Things that sound like a plan and are not
- Adjectives with no picture attached. Elevated, effortless, raw, clean. Everybody agrees and everybody is picturing something different.
- References from shoots with a crew of fifteen and a location you cannot access. Aspiration is fine, a brief built on it is not.
- A running order that assumes nothing goes wrong. Something always does, and the schedule with no slack in it is the one that loses the starred frame.
- Twenty looks. The number of looks a session can carry is set by the clock, not by the rail.
- A location chosen because it photographs well in someone else’s frames rather than because it suits these garments.
- Any plan that depends on golden hour lasting longer than forty minutes, because it does not.
- Retouching promises made to fix a styling problem. Pin the garment properly on the day and the file needs almost nothing.
That is a completely reasonable place to start and it is where most first shoots begin. Bring the garments and one sentence about who wears them, and the concept can be built from the clothes rather than imposed on them, which is often better anyway. A heavy wool coat is already telling you the season, the location and the light. What we would ask you not to do is arrive with no plan and thirty references at the same time, because that is the combination that eats an afternoon in the car park deciding what kind of shoot this is.
Who else is in the room, and what each of them is actually for
Fashion is the one category on this website where the photographer is genuinely not the most important person on the day. A shoot with a good stylist and an average photographer usually beats the reverse, because clothes that fit and hang correctly photograph well almost regardless of who is holding the camera, and clothes that do not cannot be rescued by anybody.
That does not mean every shoot needs a full crew. Plenty of excellent work gets made by two people and a garment steamer. It means knowing what each role solves so you can decide what to spend on, and it means nobody standing around on the day wondering whose job something is.
Team sourcing is something we can handle if you want it. Southern Ontario has a real network of stylists, hair and makeup artists, models and assistants, and the useful thing we bring is knowing who is good with what, which is not something a search result tells you.
The one to hire first
Sources and pulls the garments, decides the looks and the order, and on the day is the person kneeling behind the model with clamps and tape making a sample fit somebody it was not cut for. If you hire one person beyond the photographer, hire this one. The difference shows in every single frame and it shows most in the frames you thought were about something else.
Consistency, not glamour
The real value is that look three still matches look one three hours later, and that skin holds up under a hard light for two hours. Book one artist covering both where budget is tight. Brief them with the same references everybody else got, and be specific about whether the register is natural, commercial or genuinely editorial, because those are three different faces.
Someone who can hold a garment still
Fashion asks for a specific physical skill: putting a garment into the right shape and holding it while a light gets moved, then changing it on a one word instruction. Fit matters more than anything on a sample shoot, because a sample that does not fit will be clamped, and a clamped garment cannot be photographed from behind.
The cheapest time you can buy
Holds the reflector, moves the light, carries the rail, watches the bag while everybody looks at a screen, and steams the next look while the current one is being shot. On a location shoot with two setups an assistant does not cost you time, it buys you about forty minutes of it, which is usually a whole extra look.
Only if somebody must decide
On a brand shoot with several stakeholders, one person needs authority to make the final call in the moment. That role is often the brand owner and it does not need a separate hire. What it does need is naming out loud before the day, because a shoot where three people are politely deferring to each other loses light faster than one with a disagreement in it.
Usually the location, occasionally a chair
Most fashion work here does not need a built set. What it does need is one or two considered objects: a chair to sit on, a mirror, a piece of fabric, a length of something to hold. Props give hands a job and give a frame a second layer. A whole built set is a different budget and belongs in a themed or concept shoot rather than here.
Decide the crew size from the shot list, not from ambition
Count the looks and the locations. One look in one place is two people. Three looks across two locations wants a stylist and an assistant, or the day quietly turns into a logistics exercise with a camera in it.
Look at full sets before you hire anybody
A feed is a highlights reel. Ask any stylist, artist or model for a complete shoot from start to finish. It tells you whether the standard holds across forty frames, which is the only thing that matters on a working day.
Agree rates, hours and overtime in writing
Before the day, in a message everybody has. What the fee covers, when the day starts and ends, what happens if it runs long, who pays for parking and admission, and when payment arrives. This is normal professional practice and it prevents almost every awkward conversation.
Be honest about a trade rather than dressing it up
Collaborative shoots where everybody works for images are a real and useful part of this industry, especially for building a first book. They only go wrong when one side thinks it is a favour and the other thinks it is a job. Say which it is at the start and everybody relaxes.
Send one call sheet to everybody
Date, address as a map pin, start and finish, who is coming, phone numbers, the looks in order, the shot list, parking, where to change, and the weather backup. One page, sent two days before. It is the single highest return document in this entire process.
Agree the credits before anything is posted
Photographer, stylist, hair and makeup, model, and the brand. Write the list into the call sheet so nobody has to reconstruct it from memory a week later. Missing credits is the most common reason a good collaboration does not happen twice.
A stylist with clamps and a steamer will improve your images more than any lens ever sold.
This is not modesty, it is arithmetic. A garment that fits the person wearing it, hangs correctly, and has been steamed within the hour will photograph well in ordinary light. A garment that does none of those things cannot be saved by equipment, technique or editing, and every attempt to save it costs an hour that could have gone into the frames instead.
A crew of two makes good work all the time. If it is you, the clothes and a photographer, the way to win is to move the styling work earlier: steam everything the night before, pin what needs pinning at home in front of a mirror, bring a friend whose only job is holding a reflector and watching for a twisted strap, and cut the shot list to what two people can honestly make. A tight set of six strong frames from a small day beats a scattered twenty from a day that was too ambitious for the people in it.
Fashion runs one season ahead
Every other session on this website is shot in the season it happens in. Fashion is the exception and it catches people out constantly. Autumn clothing is photographed in the heat of August so the images exist before anybody wants to buy a coat, and spring pieces are shot in the last cold weeks of March. If you are photographing a collection to sell, you are almost always working ahead of the weather rather than with it.
Which creates the real seasonal question here: how to make August look like October, and how to shoot a heavy coat without a model quietly overheating. It is solvable, it just has to be planned. And if you are shooting editorial or portfolio work rather than a sales season, none of that applies and you get to use the weather honestly, which is the more enjoyable version.
Spring
April to early JuneThe most useful season for transitional wardrobe and the hardest one to schedule. Light gets long enough for an evening block without a nine o’clock finish, greenery arrives, wet pavement in a city street photographs beautifully, and layering finally makes visual sense because it makes practical sense. If you are shooting summer product to sell, this is the window to do it in.
It is also the least reliable weather we get. Wind is constant, the ground stays wet well into May, and a forecast three days out means very little. The answer is an indoor anchor and an outdoor bonus rather than the reverse. Treat a grey day as a gift: overcast is the most forgiving light there is and spring supplies a great deal of it.
New green, wet stone, bare branches turning, and the clean light of a sky that has just cleared.
Summer product, transitional layering, light outerwear, and denim.
Mud on hems, wind on long fabric, blackflies in the last week of May, and a forecast that turns on the morning.
An indoor first block, boots to walk in, and a second date held in case the outdoor half gets rained off.
Summer
Mid June to early SeptemberThe easiest season to schedule and the one where fashion has to work hardest against the calendar. Golden hour runs until nearly nine at the end of June, the gorge and the fields are at their best, and light fabric photographs the way it was designed to. It is also when autumn and winter collections have to be shot, which means asking somebody to stand in a wool coat in humid heat.
That is a real thing to plan around rather than a joke. Shoot heavy garments in the first hour of the day or the last, keep the coat off between frames, bring water and something cold, and expect makeup to need attention more often. The other trap is the time of day: because everybody is free all afternoon, summer sessions get booked for two or three, which is the harshest light of the year. Book the last two hours of daylight instead and the whole shoot improves for nothing.
Long grass, warm skin, deep green, and forty minutes of orange light at the end of the day.
Autumn and winter collections, swim, linen, and any wide field frame you want printed.
Overhead sun at three, heat under heavy fabric, sweat on a collar, and mosquitoes near water at dusk.
A late start that feels wrong and looks right. Half past seven in July is the sweet spot.
Fall
Mid September to late OctoberThe best season for this and it is not close. The sun sits low and warm from about three in the afternoon, so the usable window widens rather than narrowing into a forty minute scramble at the end of the day. Air is clear, colour is doing something remarkable in the gorge and along the river, and outerwear finally photographs as clothing rather than as an endurance test. Tailoring, wool, leather and knitwear all belong to this light.
It is also the season where the most editorial work gets made around here, because everything that makes an image feel like a story is available at once: low gold light, texture, weather with an opinion, and enough chill that a coat looks purposeful. The only real cost is the calendar. These dates go first, so six weeks of notice is normal rather than cautious, and by mid October sunset is near half past six.
Low gold light for hours, turning colour, wet stone after rain, and a coat that finally makes sense.
Spring collections, editorial stories, outerwear, tailoring, knitwear and anything with weight to it.
Sunset near half past six by mid October, cold hands in frame, and every good date already taken.
Booking six weeks out, starting outdoors while the light is long, and finishing under cover.
Winter
November to MarchThe most underbooked season and, for a studio anchored shoot, close to ideal. Nothing indoors changes, dates are easy to get, and outside there is fresh snow, which is a clean white backdrop the size of a county and a giant reflector throwing soft light straight up into a face. Winter frames are frequently better lit than summer ones and almost nobody has them, which is precisely why they stand out.
Golden hour lands near quarter past four in December, so the outdoor block happens in the afternoon and everybody is warm again by six. We shoot it in bursts: ten or fifteen minutes outside, back indoors to warm up, out again. Two practical notes that matter more than they sound. Bare hands go red inside ten minutes and that shows in every detail frame, and a garment carried from a warm car into cold air will hold condensation for a few minutes, so it goes out before the model does.
Clean white, bare branches, breath in the air, and light bouncing up off the snow into the face.
Summer collections indoors, knitwear and outerwear outdoors, and any studio work at short notice.
Red hands inside ten minutes, salt on boots and hems, ice underfoot, and a four o’clock sunset in December.
Short outdoor bursts, a warm room to return to, and the indoor block carrying most of the session.
A garment tells the truth when it moves
A jacket standing still is a shape. A jacket walking is a jacket. The way a hem swings and settles, how a coat opens on a turn, whether a fabric holds a fold or collapses, all of it is information a shopper is trying to read and none of it survives in a photograph of somebody standing to attention. This is the single biggest difference between fashion posing and portrait posing, and it is why fashion shoots look like somebody kept asking a person to walk in a circle. Somebody did.
The other half is stillness, which sounds like the opposite and is really its partner. A frame that has to show a seam clearly needs a body that can arrive at a position and hold it precisely while a light gets moved. Fashion asks for both skills in the same afternoon, and most people have neither at the start, which is completely normal and takes about twenty minutes to change.
The first ten minutes will feel stiff and self conscious. Everyone experiences that, including people who do this professionally. Those frames are the warm up and they are not the ones we keep. Scroll on, and the three rows below will move with you.
Placeholder frames. Replace with your own fashion and editorial work before launch.
Eight adjustments that do most of the work
- Weight on the back foot, front knee soft. Standing square to a camera turns a person into a passport photo and a garment into a rectangle.
- Space between the arms and the body. A visible gap at the elbow is the difference between a jacket with a shape and a jacket with an outline.
- Lead with a shoulder rather than the chest. A few degrees off axis narrows the frame and shows a lapel properly.
- Walk, do not pose a walk. Real steps taken at a real pace produce fabric doing real things. A held stride looks exactly like a held stride.
- Hands need a job and a shape. A pocket, a cuff, a lapel, a strap, hair. Flat palms and splayed fingers read as tension in every frame.
- Long neck, dropped shoulders. Almost everybody raises their shoulders when a shutter fires and nobody notices themselves doing it.
- Breathe out before the frame. Held breath shows in the shoulders and the mouth, and it changes how a fitted garment sits.
- Move between frames rather than holding one position. Small change on every click gives fifty usable variations instead of one repeated ten times.
Where fashion posing differs from portraits
- Check the clothes before the face. A gaping button, a twisted strap or a rolled waistband ruins a frame that is otherwise perfect.
- Reset the garment between every setup. Fabric settles wrong after thirty seconds of standing and nobody in the room notices except the camera.
- Arms away from a coat so the silhouette stays readable. Pressing an arm into the body flattens the whole side of a garment.
- If the sleeve or the hem is the point of the piece, the pose exists to show it. Everything else in that frame is negotiable.
- Expression sits lower than in portraits. Editorial wants stillness and attention rather than a smile that reaches the eyes.
- Full length frames need a clean floor line. Feet turned slightly out and heels planted, or the whole figure looks like it is falling over.
- For anything fitted, seamless underwear and no elastic on the wrist. Both are visible in more frames than anybody expects.
- Between takes, stand rather than sit. A sat in garment is a creased garment, and steaming it again costs ten minutes.
What to do in the two weeks before
Fifteen minutes in front of a mirror, three or four times, is worth more than any amount of scrolling. Find which side of your face you prefer, find where your hands go when you are not thinking about them, and practise walking toward a fixed point and stopping cleanly, because stopping is the hard part.
Then film yourself. Ten seconds of video, phone propped against a lamp, walking and turning slowly. Watching it back is uncomfortable and it is the fastest feedback available. You will spot the raised shoulder, the flat eyes and the one angle doing all the work, immediately and permanently.
What to skip: memorising poses from an image search. Copied poses look copied because the body arrives at them from the outside rather than moving into them. Learn the mechanics above and the poses appear on their own.
The instructions we actually use
- Walk away from me, turn on three, and keep walking toward the lens at normal speed.
- Shift your weight onto your back foot and drop the shoulder nearest me.
- Open the coat on the turn and let it fall back on its own.
- Hands in the pockets, then take one out. That is the whole adjustment.
- Look at the far corner, then come back to me slowly on my count.
- Same position, different face. Give me nothing, then give me a little.
- Take up more space than feels normal. Now half of that.
- Do the last thing again, but slower and smaller.
If you have a side you prefer, a scar you would rather keep out of frame, a feature you are self conscious about, or something about your body you do not want emphasised, say it in the first two minutes. It is not vanity and nobody will make it a thing. It changes which side we work from and how you get lit, and it is far easier to handle at the start than to fix afterwards. The same applies to garments: if a sample does not fit and you are uncomfortable in it, say so rather than enduring it, because a person who is uncomfortable is visible in every frame. You can stop, take a break, or decline any specific frame at any point, and you never need a reason.
Fit and steam beat anything you can buy on the day
Wardrobe advice on most session pages is about what to wear. Here it is about how garments get prepared, because on a fashion shoot the clothes are the subject and the two things that decide whether they photograph well are fit and finish. Neither is glamorous, both are almost entirely fixable the night before, and together they account for most of the difference between images that look professional and images that look like a person standing near some clothes.
Fit is the first one and it is not about size. A sample cut for one body will not sit correctly on a different one, and that is normal rather than a failure. The fix is mechanical: pin and clamp at the back, take up a waist, tape a gaping placket, and shoot from the side that has not been altered. A garment clamped at the back photographs perfectly from the front and is unusable from behind, so the pinning decisions and the shot list have to be made together.
Finish is the second one. Steam everything, hang everything, and steam it again on location if there is any way to do it. Creases are the most common fixable problem in fashion images and they are the most expensive to remove afterwards, because a crease across a shoulder in a full length frame cannot be edited out convincingly at any price.
Colour is the third, quieter one. Set a palette across the whole shoot including the locations, and check that the pieces you are excited about are not fighting each other. A garment that looks brilliant alone and sits badly against everything else in the set is a problem to discover on your living room floor rather than in a mill building.
Styling the looks
- Build each look complete, including shoes, layers and anything going on the wrists or in the hair. A look missing its shoes is not a look, it is an outfit waiting for a decision on the day.
- Hold a palette of three or four colours across the whole shoot so the set hangs together when it is laid out in a grid.
- Texture beats pattern on camera in almost every case. Wool, leather, linen and heavy cotton all give a frame something to read. Tight repeating patterns shimmer and print badly.
- One statement piece per look, everything else supporting it. Two competing pieces in one frame means neither of them is the subject.
- Order the looks from safest to boldest. Bodies loosen up over the first twenty minutes and the look you care most about should not be worn while everybody is still finding the rhythm.
- Match the styling register to the location before you leave the house. Tailoring against concrete, knitwear in a warm interior, light fabric in a field.
- Accessories last and sparingly. A bag, a belt or a single piece of jewellery adds a layer. Four of them add clutter and date the image.
- Photograph every look laid out on the floor the night before and send the photos over. Missing pieces get found now instead of in a car park.
- Bring one more layer than the plan needs. Weather turns, a look falls flat, and a spare coat has rescued more shoots than any piece of equipment.
Preparing the garments
- Steam everything the night before and hang it, never fold it. Then steam it again on location if there is power. Cameras find creases that mirrors politely ignore.
- Transport on a rail or hanging in the car. A garment bag on a back seat arrives creased along exactly the line that will be in every frame.
- Bring the kit: clamps, bulldog clips, safety pins, double sided tape, a lint roller, a soft brush, scissors, a needle and thread, and a spare set of laces.
- Remove every price tag and swing ticket, and check inside collars and cuffs. A tag showing in a frame is a reshoot or a retouch, and both are avoidable in ten seconds.
- Cut loose threads before the shoot rather than after. They are almost invisible in the room and extremely visible at full resolution against a plain background.
- De fluff dark fabric constantly. Black wool collects everything, and a roller in a pocket is worth more than any filter.
- Clean shoe soles matter in any frame where the feet leave the ground, and shoes get carried to a location and changed into on stable ground rather than walked in.
- For anything fitted, seamless underwear in a tone close to the skin, and nothing with a visible edge under a light fabric.
- Keep a clean sheet or a mat for anything that has to be laid down, and a bag for what comes off, so worn looks never mix with unworn ones.
What to skip
- Other brands’ visible logos. They make an image unusable for the brand paying for it and they date the frame.
- Neon and hot fluorescent colours next to skin. They bounce coloured light straight onto the chin and neck.
- Thin stripes, small checks and tight repeating patterns. They shimmer on camera and they print badly.
- Anything that needs constant adjusting. If it has to be fixed between every frame it will be wrong in half of them.
- Shoes nobody has walked in. Location shoots cover more ground than people expect and blisters end sessions early.
- Heavy fake tan or a first spray tan inside a week. It photographs orange under studio light and it stains pale garments.
- Elastics on the wrist, phones in pockets, and jewellery somebody forgot they were wearing. All three are in every frame.
- Perfume or product near a pale sample. Marks on a garment that is going back to a designer are a genuinely expensive mistake.
Natural first, built up from there
Hair and makeup can be added during a session and cannot be removed without a sink and twenty minutes, so the running order is always natural first and stronger later. That single rule prevents most of the timing problems on a shoot day.
The register should match the register of the images. Commercial and lookbook work wants clean, even skin and hair that stays consistent across three hours, which is much harder than it sounds and is most of what you are paying an artist for. Editorial can go further, and going further should be a decision written into the brief rather than something that happens gradually across the afternoon.
Brief the artist with the same references everybody else got, and give them a call time that is genuinely early enough. A shoot that starts an hour late because hair took longer than anybody planned loses its light at the other end of the day, and the light is the part you cannot rebook.
This is normal and it is solvable, but it changes the shot list. A garment clamped or pinned at the back photographs beautifully from the front and cannot be photographed from behind, so if the back of a piece has to appear in the set, that piece needs to fit properly or the frame needs a different body in it. Decide that in advance rather than discovering it at the point where somebody is already dressed. The other honest option is to shoot the pieces that fit as full looks and the pieces that do not as details and crops, which is a legitimate approach and quietly what a lot of small brand shoots actually do.
Light decides whether fabric has texture
In portrait work light is mostly about the face. In fashion it is about the surface. Whether a wool coat reads as wool or as a dark shape, whether a silk catches, whether a knit shows its structure, whether a black garment separates from a black background at all: every one of those is a lighting decision and none of them can be fixed afterwards.
The useful shortcut is that texture needs direction. Light coming from the side or slightly behind rakes across a surface and lifts every fibre. Light coming from the front fills the weave in and flattens it, which is exactly what a clean product frame wants and exactly what kills an editorial one. Knowing which of those you are asking for is most of the skill.
Here is what each part of the day gives you, including the two most people think are bad and are not.
Morning
The first two hours after sunrise, and the reason to consider itMorning is golden hour running in reverse and it comes with something the evening cannot offer: empty locations. Downtown Guelph at eight on a Sunday belongs to you. A mill car park is quiet, a main street has no patio crowds, and a cafe will let you in before it opens. For a shoot with a garment rail, a crew and several looks, having the place to yourself is worth more than the light itself.
Two differences worth knowing. Morning light is cooler and cleaner than evening light, which suits tailoring, monochrome and anything with a sharp commercial register, and slightly undersells warm nostalgic stories. And in summer it is the only comfortable hour to photograph heavy autumn garments, which is not a small consideration when somebody is standing in wool in August.
Busy streets and structures, tailoring, monochrome stories, and heavy garments shot in summer.
Clean, cool and quiet. Editorial rather than nostalgic.
Dew soaking a hem, cold hands in detail frames, and a call time that has to be genuinely early.
Your location is impossible at any other hour, or the collection is heavy and the month is hot.
Midday
Eleven until three, bad for portraits and useful for thisFor most portrait work this is the worst light of the day. Overhead sun puts hard shadows into the eye sockets and under the nose and it makes people squint, which changes the shape of a face in a way no editing fixes. If somebody books a soft flattering portrait for one in the afternoon, they have made a mistake.
Fashion is the exception and it is worth understanding why. Direct midday sun is free hard light, and hard light is the register a great deal of contemporary editorial work lives in. Used deliberately, with the sun placed rather than endured, it gives graphic shadows, saturated colour and a genuinely modern look for nothing at all. The rule is that it must be chosen rather than tolerated. When it is not the plan, we move into open shade, which is soft, even and completely usable at any hour of the day.
Deliberate hard light editorial, graphic shadow, saturated colour, swim, and open shade lookbook frames.
Bright, hard and modern when chosen. Harsh and accidental when it is not.
Squinting, blown highlights on pale fabric, and dappled light through leaves, which is worse than full sun.
Open shade, a north facing wall, or committing to the hard light properly instead of half fighting it.
Overcast
The grey day everybody wants to rescheduleDo not reschedule. A solid grey sky is a softbox the size of the horizon and it is the most forgiving light that exists. No squinting, no hard shadows, colour rendering that is close to true, and every direction works equally well, which means we can shoot anywhere on a location rather than chasing one good angle around a building.
For fashion it has two specific advantages. Colour is accurate, so a garment photographs as the colour it actually is, which matters enormously if somebody is going to buy it from the image. And the window is all day rather than forty minutes, so a shoot with four looks fits comfortably instead of racing a sunset. The cost is that frames come back quieter and more editorial. If you want warm and glowing, a grey day will not deliver it. For everything else it is the best natural light on this list.
Lookbook frames outdoors, accurate colour, detail shots, and any shoot with several looks to get through.
Calm, even and slightly cinematic. Colours read deep rather than bright.
A flat white sky, so we keep it out of frame or use it deliberately, and texture going soft on flat fabric.
The window is the whole day, which is the only time a location shoot is not fighting a clock.
Golden hour
The last ninety minutes before sunsetThe sun drops low enough to come at you sideways instead of downward and everything improves at once. Skin warms, hair lights from behind, and fabric glows along every edge, which is the single most flattering thing that can happen to a garment. Backlit linen, a knit rimmed in gold, a coat with light coming through the gap under the arm. There is no substitute and no filter that fakes it.
It moves fast, which is the only thing to plan around. In late June the good light runs from about half past seven until nine. By mid October it is finished by seven and in December it is over by half past four. That is why a multiple look shoot cannot live entirely inside golden hour. The clean frames get made earlier, indoors or in shade, and the look you care most about is saved for the final forty minutes so it lands inside the window rather than after it.
Field frames, flowing fabric, movement, outerwear, and the campaign image you plan to print large.
Warm, nostalgic and slightly unreal. The look most people arrive picturing.
How quickly it goes, a treeline that cuts it short, warm cast on pale garments, and mosquitoes near water.
Ending outdoors rather than starting there, with the boldest look saved for the last forty minutes.
Blue hour
The twenty five minutes after the sun has goneAlmost everybody packs up when the sun disappears and leaves the most distinctive light of the day on the table. For roughly twenty five minutes afterwards the sky is a deep even blue, streetlights and shop windows come on, and the balance between the two produces frames that look nothing like anybody else’s. In a season of near identical brand imagery, that is worth a great deal.
It only works downtown or somewhere with light of its own, because in an open field blue hour is darkness with a nice colour above it. This is where the boldest look earns its place: neon, a lit doorway, a wet street, headlights through a frame. It is the natural end point of an evening shoot and it costs nothing except staying twenty minutes longer than anybody planned to.
Street and storefront frames, occasionwear, the editorial look, and the image that surprises everybody.
Cinematic and grown up. The opposite in temperature to golden hour.
How short it is, colour casts off shop signage onto fabric, and how cold it gets the moment the sun is down.
Ending the shoot here rather than starting it, and keeping one look back for it.
Studio light
The only light that does not care what time it isEverything above is borrowed from the sky and comes with a clock attached. Studio light does not. It is identical at nine in the morning and nine at night, in January and in July, which is the whole reason a commercial fashion shoot is built around it. Four looks in controlled light is a comfortable session. Four looks chasing a sunset is a scramble that shortchanges three of them.
It also gives you the one thing no natural light can: repeatability. Forty frames across three hours that all match, so a lookbook grid reads as one set rather than as a slow change in the weather. And within the same room you can move from a large soft key for the clean frames to a single bare source for something with edge, which is two visibly different registers with no travel and no forecast involved.
Lookbook and product frames, full lengths on seamless, detail shots, hard light editorial, and multiple looks.
Deliberate. Nothing in the frame is accidental, which is exactly the point of it.
Everything looking the same if the lighting never moves, and specular hotspots on satin and leather.
Starting here regardless of the forecast, then going outside if the weather earns it.
Change the light before you change the clothes. It is faster, it is free, and it reads as range either way.
Sunset in Southern Ontario moves by about four hours between June and December, so the same shoot starts at seven in July and at three in the afternoon in December. Tell us the month and the collection and we will tell you what time to arrive, which block happens indoors, and which location will still have light on it by the time everybody gets there.
Ask to see a whole shoot, not eight favourites
Technical ability is table stakes. Almost anybody advertising photography can expose a frame and put it in focus. What separates a fashion photographer from a very good portrait photographer is whether they think about the garment first, which is a genuinely different instinct and one that shows up in the frames nobody puts on a feed.
So look at complete deliveries rather than highlights. A grid of eight hero images proves somebody can make one strong frame in a day. A full set proves the colour is consistent across three hours, the clean frames are actually clean, the crops match, the back of the garment exists, and the retouching is restrained. That last one matters commercially: an image that flatters a cut rather than describing it produces returns, and returns cost a small brand more than the shoot did.
Then ask the questions specific to this category. Whether they shoot tethered so colour and focus can be checked on a real screen while the garment is still on the model. Whether they use a grey card or a colour checker at the top of each setup. What their retouching policy is on garments and on bodies, which are two separate conversations. And how they handle a sample that does not fit, because the answer tells you whether they have done this before.
Usage is the conversation nobody has early enough and it is the one that causes the most trouble afterwards. Who owns the images, what the brand can use them for, whether that includes paid advertising, for how long, in which territories, and what the model released. Everybody in the frame has a stake in that: a model has released their likeness for a specific purpose, a stylist may have borrowed garments from somewhere with its own conditions, and a brand needs certainty before it spends money on an ad. Get it written down before the shoot rather than negotiated after somebody has fallen in love with an image.
At Sunday Media you are working with a small team of seasoned photographers, which is deliberate. Small means the person you speak to is the person who turns up, they have read the brief and the shot list before the day, and they have stood on enough Southern Ontario field edges, mill floors and concrete decks to know where the light will be at seven o’clock in October before anybody gets in a car.
Four things and we are ready
The one page brief with your nine references, a photo of the looks laid out complete, the shot list with the three starred frames marked, and where each image is going so we frame for the right crop. That is everything needed to arrive already knowing the plan and the running order.
Anything we should be careful with
A side you prefer, a scar, a feature you would rather not emphasise, an injury that limits movement, a sample that does not fit, a garment that must not be pinned or must come back unmarked, or a level of undress you are not comfortable with. Say it early. It changes how we work and it is never negotiated on the day.
The questions worth asking
- Can I see a complete shoot from start to finish rather than a highlights grid.
- Do you shoot tethered, and do you set colour with a grey card at each setup.
- What is your retouching policy on garments, and separately on bodies.
- How many looks and locations does the time I am booking honestly allow.
- What does the licence cover, for how long, and does it include paid advertising.
- When do sneak peeks arrive and when does the full gallery arrive.
The day before
Almost everything that makes a fashion shoot feel rushed was decided the day before, and there is more to decide here than on most sessions, because clothes, people and light all have to arrive in the right order. An hour of preparation the night before is worth two hours on the day, and it is the difference between a shoot that gets through its list and one that quietly loses the frame it was booked for.
The day before
The day of
Eat a real meal, arrive early, and give the first ten minutes away without deciding they mean anything. Here is the whole list.
Shoot day checklist
You did it. Now the good part.
It is done, the awkward first ten minutes turned out not to matter, and there is a rail of clothes in the back of a car in no particular order. Almost everybody says the same thing walking out: that was more physical than expected and less painful. Get the garments hung before they get creased, then go and eat something.
Then keep an eye on your email and whichever channel we have been messaging on. Your photographer will be in touch, and the first thing to arrive is always the fun one.
Sneak peeks
A small handful of finished frames sent straight to you. Enough to know how it went, enough to post something while the shoot is still current, and enough to stop the group chat asking. The rest is worth waiting for.
Two folders, two jobs
Lookbook and product frames arrive colour accurate, consistently cropped and sized for a shop or a line sheet. Editorial frames arrive fully finished at full resolution and print ready. They come separately so a developer never has to guess which is which and a press kit never accidentally ships a product cutout.
The full gallery
The complete finished set delivered to your private gallery on our website. Exact timing varies with the package you booked and the season, and your photographer will tell you the date to expect before you leave the shoot.
How to edit down without wrecking it
- Fewer, stronger. A tight set beats a long scroll, and a season is judged on its weakest image rather than its best.
- One frame per idea. If two images are doing the same job, one of them is diluting the other.
- Check the set for a thread rather than for favourites. Three frames that feel like the same afternoon beat nine that feel like nine.
- Every garment needs its front, its back and one detail. Sentiment is not a reason to leave a piece with only a three quarter.
- Lay the whole set out as a grid before you decide. Images that look strong alone can fight badly side by side.
- Ask two people who will be honest, and ignore anybody who only ever says they love all of them.
Where the images actually go
- Product listings and the line sheet, using the clean set at consistent crops so a grid reads as one collection.
- Lookbook and press kit, using the editorial set, with a short note on the concept and the location.
- Paid social and banners, which need frames shot with empty space in them, which is why that gets planned rather than cropped for later.
- Stockists and wholesale, who almost always need clean frames on white and will ask for them at the worst possible moment.
- Portfolio and book use for everybody who worked on it, which should already be agreed in the usage terms.
- Credit everybody in the frame: photographer, stylist, hair and makeup, model and brand. It is standard practice and people notice when it is missing.
This is the part that causes trouble later, so it gets settled early and in writing. Everybody in the frame has a stake. A model has released their likeness for a defined purpose, and using an image for paid advertising when the release covered organic social is a real problem rather than a technicality. A stylist may have borrowed pieces from somewhere with conditions attached. A brand needs certainty about territories and duration before it spends money placing an ad. And every creative on the day usually wants portfolio rights to their own work. None of that is difficult, it just has to be a conversation before the shoot rather than a discovery after it. Ask us and we will put the terms in plain language in the agreement so nobody is reading anything unexpected.
How to open your photos
Your gallery is private and it lives on our website. Everything you need is in the delivery message: a link, and an access code that looks something like this.
Please do not share your access code with anyone.
It is the only thing standing between your photographs and whoever it gets forwarded to, and on a fashion shoot that matters more than most, because a gallery usually holds unreleased product and the likeness of everybody who worked on the day. Send collaborators and stockists the files rather than the code. If somebody genuinely needs proper access, tell us and we will arrange it. If you think the code has gone somewhere it should not have, message us and we will reset it the same day.
Fun tutorial: take our easy to use gallery for a spin before your own photos arrive. It is built in house, and the code above is a working demo key. Tap the access code to copy it, then use it on the Your Gallery page.
Go to our website
Open sundaymedia.ca on any device. Phone is fine for looking, a laptop is better for downloading and for resizing files to a shop or a press kit specification.
Open the menu and choose My Gallery
It is in the main navigation at the top of every page.
Type in your access code
Exactly as it was sent, capitals included. That opens your shoot and nobody else’s.
Download, request edits, or order prints
Inside the gallery you can download the full resolution files, download the lookbook and editorial sets separately, ask for edits on specific frames, and request prints made from the set. If a download will not open or a folder is missing, message us and we will sort it out.
Decide which half you are shooting, then go and make it properly.
Use this page even if you never speak to us. And if you would like us there, send the brief, the looks and where the images are going, and we will handle the locations, the light, the running order and the team.
Every fee is discussed before payment. Travel, insurance and any studio, permit, admission or team costs are agreed in writing before the binding contract, so nothing on your invoice is ever a surprise.
Fashion and EditorialFashion and EditorialNice one. Want this list to go?
You just checked your first box. We can hand you the whole list as a file, so it lives on your phone instead of in a browser tab you will lose by Thursday.