Note, a lot of this information is outdated or overkill with the ease and quality improvements in digital cameras, but the basics are not, diffused lighting is the holy grail that gets you good detail even now…

The unofficial name for this lecture should be “Photographing Costume Porn” What is costume porn, and why would I want anything to do with that kinky Japanese stuff?  You are confused.  What you are thinking of right now is Cosplay porn, where comely young girls dress up in costumes from Manga comics and Anime films and are photographed fondling each other.  Costume porn, on the other hand is perfectly respectable.  The Victoria and Albert Museum actually does it best.  Costume porn consists of close-up luscious photos of costumes that make costumers get far more excited than any sane person should get by a museum publication showing old clothes.  If you can open the pages of Fashion by the Kyoto Costume Institute, or Historical Fashion in Detail: The 17th and 18th Centuries from the V&A and not begin to breathe heavily, you are NOT a costumer.

If you’ve ever tried taking photos of your own costumes wanting them to look like that and instead had them come out like bad snapshots, you’ve probably wondered how those almost edible museum photos were taken.  Books that tell you about fashion photography don’t tell you much about how to do this sort of shot, and what little they do tell you implies you need to buy lots of fancy equipment.  You don’t.  You do need a bunch of equipment, in fact you need to build yourself a temporary photo studio to take this kind of detail rich shot, but it can be relatively cheap, and you can make or assemble much of it yourself. But before I tell you about that, here are some definitions of photo terminology just in case photography is Greek to you.

Some Basic Photo Terminology:

Camera Types:

• Digital Cameras This is what I now use and recommend.  They do not use film, so they pay for themselves quickly, despite being fairly pricey.  Models now available range from junk that makes disposable snapshot cameras look good, to fancy professional models that can do anything an SLR can do and more.  Quality of images is counted in Megapixels.  Do not bother getting anything below 5MP. Most digital cameras are easier to operate than a normal SLR, but less easy than a fixed focus snapshot camera. 
• SLR (Single Lens Reflex) Pro-type film camera, good adaptability, difficult to learn, but can produce highest quality results.
• Snapshot Camera Simple film camera, easy to use, cheap, but very limited in what it can do.

Film Speed: 

• Fast film (400 ASA and higher) is good for low light and/or fast movement. 400 ASA is the slowest film you would dare use to film a brightly lit show indoors.
• Slow Film (360 ASA and lower) is good when using a tripod to photograph still objects for a long exposure, or for color- rich photos taken in bright outdoor light.

Film Type:

• Daylight film (what you can buy anywhere), color is correct for outdoors and with flash, but will tint orange under incandescent and stage lights.  Tints a little green-gray under fluorescent light.
• Tungsten film (For sale in specialty camera stores and online), color is correct for incandescent/stage lights, but tints blue outdoors in daylight. Also tints a little bit green-gray under fluorescent light.

The key to detail rich costume “porn” shots is quite simple.  They are low-contrast shots in perfect focus, usually pulled into tight details of the costume.  The means to create them involves careful setup and control of a few factors: lighting, film speed, exposure time, color temperature and mannequin set up.  To gain control of all of these save film speed, you need to put together a temporary photo studio that does the following:

• Provides as much light as possible, as diffused as possible.
• Includes a tripod for keeping the camera and costume still for a nice long exposure with slow film and NO camera mounted flash
• Has a method of displaying the costume to it’s best advantage on a dress form, mannequin or live model.
• Controls the color temperature by either matching the film type to the light source, or by modifying the light source either with camera filters, light filters, or digital enhancing.
• Removes distractions from the background.

Some of the materials you need to do this you may already have on hand, or can borrow to make your own temporary photo studio:

• Decent film camera (35mm SLR) or digital camera (4MP or higher). Digital cameras tend to self-correct color temperature, or produce images which are easy to correct in a photo processing program like Adobe Photoshop.
• Get a cheap tripod especially for studio shots.  Then you can use slow film 200asa and lower for these shots to get the best color and detail. You can also take good photos of yourself in costume using a camera’s timer.
• If you have a film camera and are filming indoors you will also need either a blue filter and daylight film, or no filter and tungsten film.  Choose film with a low ASA speed, like 200 or lower, Kodak’s tungsten film KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA 100T is especially good for this type of work because it is low-contrast.

As much light as possible, any way you can manage it.

Clip lights, or various lamps with the shades taken off. Clip lamps are a great thing, you can buy lots of them because they are cheap, but even if you use “Reveal” bluish looking bulbs, the light coming off them is orangey-yellow (tungsten), this means you will need to color correct some way, either with a blue filter on the camera, blue gels on the lights, tungsten (not daylight) film, or a lot of fiddling in Photoshop later.

A bright sunny window with a white sheet across it as a diffuser.

If you are filming outdoors just get some friends to hold up a white bedsheet between the costume and the sun to act as a diffuser.  Diffused light is the single most important factor in taking good costume porn.

Squares of buckram, paper or Pellon, to diffuse the lights. Clothespins to hold them onto clip lights like this.

Translucent filters cut out of buckram, interfacing or paper may be attached to clip lights with clothespins to diffuse the light.

Dress forms, head/hat stands, or mannequins as available for displaying the costume items.  If using live models, do not forget makeup.

Chairs, boxes & stools to hold small items up to a level where they can be photographed, and/or to serve as lamp holders.

Hat racks, music stands, or any upright poles for clip lamps to grab on.

Bed sheets, bulk fabric yardage in various colors, or roll paper for background. You can make a great neutral backdrop for photos by sewing together two bed sheets.  Put one end beneath the mannequin, and hoist the other over the top bar of a rolling rack, or a curtain rod. 

Clothesline, clothing rack or pole to hold up the background

Extension cords with power strip surge suppressors for safety and easy turn-off of multiple lights between shots.

Nylon stockings, netting, fiberfill, clothes hanger wire to make bendable “arms” for a costume on an armless dress form.

Crumpled newspapers to fill out skirts or sleeve puffs to correct fullness.

Duct tape, for keeping lights in place, heads on mannequins, and the background taut and smooth.

Straight pins, and fishing line for invisibly getting figures to pose as desired.

Photo processing program for fixing color problems and minor mistakes using your computer (Adobe Photoshop Elements is a good choice).

Set up your “Studio” in a configuration like one of these:

More Hints for taking Portfolio Pictures

• The Simon/Maginnis Family method: Take LOTS of photos and throw out the bad ones.  If for some reason you can’t take photos of an event, consider doing the wedding reception method: hand out lots of disposable cameras to everyone, then gather them up, process the pictures, and see what you get.
• “Not even Kodak can take pictures yesterday”.  Don’t put it off.  Start taking photos while you are building the costume and don’t stop till you have several good shots of every aspect of the costume.  A digital camera often encourages this because of its photos’ cheapness.
• Foggy Funk? Has a dim, gray, foggy day got you in a funk? Don’t let it! The grayer and more miserable a day, the better for taking costume photos outdoors. You don’t need ANY of the diffusers, extra lights, tents, etc. if you have a gray enough day. It’s like having a huge free photo studio that requires no setup to get perfect lighting!
• Once you’ve spent all the time setting up your studio and mannequin, take lots of photos from many angles, especially pulling in very close for  maximum detail. This is the essence of the costume “porn” shot, the images that excite your fellow costumers with rich details and textures.
• Mannequins look great if you spend just a few minutes adjusting and pinning the costume so it looks like a big puppet of the character.  You can fatten out arms just by stuffing net into the cut off legs of a pair of pantyhose. Consider posing multiple characters together in relationships.

You can make a great neutral backdrop for photos by sewing together two bed sheets.  Put one end beneath the mannequin, and hoist the other over the top bar of a rolling rack, or a curtain rod. 

Photograph costumes on the performer while he or she is in character.  If you can’t get the original performer, make sure your live model or mannequin stands in a characteristic attitude, not just like a lump. 

• For photographing live performances use “fast” film, 400asa or HIGHER if you can’t use a flash.  99% of the time flash is a bad idea anyway even if it is allowed.
• WHEN TO SHOOT THE ACTORS: Good times to snap during a live show are at still moments, and at the ends of actions like the momentary “freeze” at the end of a musical number, or the second’s pause of reaction in a fight. Even in a dancer’s leap, the point at which the body is fully extended in the leap, is held a moment longer than the motions leading to it, and is besides, more visually exciting to look at.
• Try to get a formal “photo call” for posed shots of at least 2 hours in length put into the rehearsal/performance schedule for the show as early as possible so everyone expects it (the least annoying time is often just after the 1^st Sunday matinee).  Work out (with the other members of the production team) a list of which scenes you want to photograph, who is in them, and in what order, and make sure everyone has a copy so the process moves fast.  Since these are posed shots you can use a tripod and longer exposures than when photographing a live show.

This photo call shot shows how being allowed to freeze actors for a long exposure allows one to get an impression of costumes under stage lighting conditions that would be too dim for taking show shots of moving actors without flash.  The Grand Tarot, UAF Student Drama Association Special Presentation, 1996.

• Even a whiny uncooperative cast will willingly line up to pose for you backstage in character in costume if you truthfully tell them that you are taking their photos as their opening night gifts, and then order double prints so you can give them photos of themselves, and have a set to keep.  People will often willingly ham it up in character at great length, getting you really good character costume shots. This way you can also control the lighting and give yourself a blank background, without distractions.
• If you do renderings, make sure that you also get a photo of the costume that demonstrates how closely it resembles your original drawing.  You can ask performers to pose in a manner similar to your drawing, or choose a “live” onstage shot where the performer is in a similar pose.
• If your costume involves a spectacularly transforming makeup, make sure to get a face photo of the performer both with the makeup and without, so people can see the “before and after” difference.
• If you have done something clever to make the costume that isn’t obvious while it is worn, do a detail photo of the inside where you have hidden your secret.
• Learn to use Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Photoshop Elements is fine too) for fixing color problems, removing extraneous background details, and combining photos into portfolio layouts.
• Portfolio page layouts (whether done in Photoshop or by normal scrap booking methods) are especially effective if they include multiple images of a costume.  An ideal layout might include a rendering, a build and/or detail shot, a show shot, and a posed close-up.  Swatches help too.
• Once you get good photos make a point of keeping them together and semi-organized so you can find them when needed.  If you have them in digital form, back them up and store the backups with a willing relative or friend.  Home made CDs and DVDs often have little more than a 1-2 year shelf life.  Make sure images are backed up on a hard drive as well as disks, and, when you can have them, prints and negatives.