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What's Next For Fashion Photography?

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Designer
barcelona
Laura Albertí
A collection
based on
sensitivity
and delicacy
and fabrics
with volume,
which give a
sense of
freedom

School
Parsons Paris
A leader in art
and design
education
since its
founding in
< Back to features 1896,
23 November 2015 By Katja Horvat Parsons has
What's Next for Fashion Photography? cultivated
outstanding
artists,
designers,
NJAL’s Katja Horvat questions whether fashion photography has a scholars,
future amidst the radical shifts in publishing. How does our current businesspeo
technological milieu fundamentally alter fashion photography as we ple, and
know it? Is the ubiquity of smartphones, advance in-image editing community
applications, social media, and the rise of fashion film rendering the leaders for
canonised medium of fashion photography obsolete? more than a
The evolution of photography over the last two centuries demonstrates century.
the medium’s capacity for vigour and until recently, it’s showed no sign
of internal exhaustion. Yet, if we focus on fashion photography today,
one could say it’s visibly exhausted in an era of constant technological
acceleration. What’s going on right now is the paroxysm of styles, and
an array of new publishing formats redefining what was formerly known
as photography, to the contemporary realm of “image-making”. Where
there is no a priori criterion and where there is no enshrined narrative for
fashion imagery, everyone can become a photographer, and with the
right resources, a successful one. Yet “success” doesn’t always equate Shop Matter
to “skill”.  Matters | £85
Mini Zipped
Pouch in
Red/Blue

Designer
copenhagen
Beate
Godager
Godager's
conceptual
cursor this
season
questions
where the line
between the
skin and
clothing lie
 clothing lie

Editorial
Industry
Made in the
USA
NJAL Archive
| Twice a
year, the
fashion flock
take New
York City in
their talons,
obscuring the
locals with
their bright
plumage,
waving their
wings to hail
cabs, and
drowning out
the call of the
city traffic
with the
sound of
stilettos on
sidewalks

Shop Anderst
| £340
Cross Back
Dress

Now more than ever, our current technological milieu is altering the
market, but the majority of buzzy young names in fashion photography
will not pass the test of time. Simon Rasmussen, Stylist & Creative
Director/Editor in Chief of Office Magazine NYC, says: “Everybody can Designer
overnight become a fashion photographer and we see younger and budapest
younger photographers shooting editorials and executing look books Cukovy
and such. The successful ones already have a huge following due to Inspired by
their knowledge of how social media works and the power within.” It the work
would seem that though these young photographers might not lack the Olafaur
talent or the creative mindset, it remains increasingly difficult for these Elisasson's
photographers to sustain the momentum of their social-media accrued play on light
hype for more than a fleeting moment. If these photographers are and reflective
making work for the immaterial age, and it solely relies on the currency surfaces,
of “likes”, will they have the energy to pursue their practice in the long Cukovy's
run?   design DNA
Hype in the most contemporary sense is a product of social media. is driven by a
Internet based social media has made it possible for one person to need to
communicate with thousands of other people and migrate content to experiment
micro-communities aggregated under niche, and organised hashtags. In
the context of mass-marketing, social media has reoriented our
economy of attention and the entire landscape of traditional advertising
and publishing has had to rapidly adapt.
Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough, while speaking to BoF Founder
Imran Amed even said, “Blogs posting things about us, going viral,
spiraling throughout the internet and it has an extraordinary impact on
the business." So, what we are witnessing can be described as a
revolution – one that can be felt all around us, even if we are not actively
involved in it. It's dominating all aspects of our world, even the way we Shop Petra
use Internet.  Ptácková |
£300
Unisex
Garden
Button Pants
Saša Štucin, Co-Founder of Soft Baroque and Editor at Large at POP
Magazine, recounts an opinionated post by Matthews Leifheit on
Facebook. Leifheit referenced New York Times photography critic Teju
Cole in conversation with Geoff Dyer, Ivan Vladislavic and Laura Weller.
The conversation addressed Instagram and the impact of mass imagery
on social media will have on photography. Leifheit responded to the
photographer’s negative response to their contemporary condition and
questioned, "If you’re tired of the billions of photographs that the kids
are taking, then maybe you’re tired of photography?"
Though Štucin doesn’t wholly agree, she did say that Leifheit's
statement is the “realest thing I've heard in response to that
conversation.” Štucin does believe that society has to progress in
tandem with technology. “This is 2015, and there’s a very rich, intense
and incessant output of photography going on around us, and all the
time. Photography is not just, you know, black and white stuff made with
plate glass cameras by old white dudes," she says bluntly. Štucin
alludes to a distinction between “high” and “low” photography today
that seems somewhat ironic, given the historic struggle photography
endured to become a rarefied artistic medium in the first place. At its
inception, photography was never considered art and firmly sidelined to
the realm of science.
Today, the medium of fashion photography is fractured, given the rise of
fashion film as the industry’s new medium of choice for both artistic
expression and campaign advertising. Yet, there will always be true grit
photographers committed to preserving the art of still photography,
even when the very notion becomes archaic. There will be
photographers invested in the medium’s rampant technological
acceleration, as there are photographers committed to preserving by-
gone analogue aesthetics and their outdated apparatuses. Today, the
large proportion of photographers working inside in fashion, have to be
more flexible with their skills and knowledge, as well as aware of the
effects, and the social-media applications which will proliferate
attention, and once again adapt to new shifts in the industry's
parameters for fashion photography.

Social media democracy, and its inherent accessibility has made the
fashion industry, and the consumer as diverse as ever. The fashion
industry, largely because of social media is defined only by front-end,
consumer-facing innovation. No longer are the rarefied print pages of a
niche fashion bible ripe ground for brands to visually communicate with
their customers. Today, 91% of all consumer engagement happens on
Instagram, and it's this very application as well as its limitations that
have redefined the parameters of traditional photography and
presentation. Tech-enabled methodologies deliver different results as
we know it, all visual information is pushed, pulled and shared on every
media platform there is, and as a result, quality is no longer heralded
media platform there is, and as a result, quality is no longer heralded
over quantity. This era of accelerationism churns out content at an
aggressive rate, and discourages smarter, and informed decision-
making by its very design.
Simon Rasmussen says, “I truly believe that traditional photography is
still alive and it's a part of my job as an Editor for a print magazine to
maintain a high level and demonstrate excellent quality of control in all
images we put out there.” While Rasmussen is quick to champion
emerging talent across all creative disciplines, he also notes the “huge
difference between young, self-taught photographers versus an
experienced photographer who went through school and assisted for a
decade.” The distinct differences separating these creative generations
isn’t just quality, but everything from professionalism, technique,
aesthetic affinity, and a more general approach.
Perhaps the most glaring difference for Rasmussen is the younger
photographer’s propensity for social media, “I hope that younger
photographers aren’t just booked for their Instagram clout anymore,” he
says.  There’s no doubt a social media “clout-score” will be important to
some, but Rasmussen explicitly prefers that his young photographer do
not even have an Instagram account. “Luckily taste and aesthetics is still
something you have to have and cannot just simply copy and repost,”
adds Rasmussen.

Do the fundamental changes in fashion photography as a medium

reflect the paradigm shifts unfolding in wider society? The context of
creativity has drastically changed; it's no longer simply about the
medium or a single artistic discipline but a cross-pollination.
Photography can readily align itself with fine art, architecture, politics,
just as fashion photography emerged as a distinct medium amongst
photography’s wider interdisciplinary engagement. However, what has
changed is that the formula of skill, knowledge and process is no longer
a criterion for the medium’s success. Instead, its ruled by an immediate
currency of reaction, and its ability to capture and harvest data, which in
a fashion context—translates into sales.
It’s this unapologetic commercial alignment that’s also driving a younger
generation to preserve the archaic process and practice of traditional
photography. Though it's less about conservation for these younger
creatives, the tanglible labour, and mosaic processes of physical
photography is a bold, artistic statement in the age of immaterialty. It’s
about carving out a niche aesthetic and cultural cachet that sets you
apart from the Instagram-ready masses. This cross-pollination of
process and practice, and by-gone aesthetics with metaphysical
modernism is resulting in a hybrid of new aesthetics and anti-aesthetic
styles, where traditional techniques and contemporary technological
styles, where traditional techniques and contemporary technological
freedoms intermingle. Saša Štucin adds that these contemporary
conditions are symptomatic of, “thinking about what photography could
be if we forget what we know about photography entireley.” 
The metamorphosis of the photographic medium is forgetting its
preconceptions without ignoring them. While we can’t necessarily
predict what the fashion industry will look like in the future, one thing
remains certain, and that’s documentating fashion will become even
more intricate and complex in its design and dissemination.
Further Reading
Nick Knight Says Heart and Mind are the Key to Fashion
Imagemaking
The Death of Photography: Are Camera Phones Destroying an
Artform?
Of Cameras: ‘Traditional Photography’ is Most Certainly Not Dead