Let me start with some special kudos to the awesome Achim Dunker von Netlektionen.de for helping me with this video and to Phottix, for trusting me with the precious prototype of their new Indra500 TTL Flash. They allowed me to use it in a workshop, in which I had a huge, random crowd of photographers with all kinds of cameras shooting our scene, all using this Indra500. I don’t know of any other brand than Phottix that would have the balls to pull off something like this. That’s one more reason why I love this brand.
 

When Phottix is building a mobile studio light that got all the bells and whistles of a speedlight (Imagine shooting HSS with a studio strobe) then I am certainly willing to go the extra mile to try it out. In our case, we had to go about 40 miles to the Photokina trade fair in Cologne. Phottix allowed me to use the prototype of their awesome new Indra500 TTL Studio Light on stage in a little workshop that we did on stage.

That’s where I then explained my top 4 tips for cover worthy glamour photos. The tips are supposed to make it E.A.S.Y., with EASY being the acronym:

E – Stands for Eye Contact
A photo with a strong eye contact sell more than one without. This is because the subject with eye contact tends to engage the audience of your magazine. Let the model therefore maintain a strong eye contact with your lens.

A – Stands for Angled Light
The shooting angle of your light has to be steep enough to visualize the features of your model. Lighting full frontal from your camera position will flatten out your subject and lead to boring photos.

S – Stands for Sharpness
Make sure that the closest eye to your lens is really sharp. Furthermore you need to have a deep depth of field, avoiding any blurriness in your subject. Choose an aperture of f/11 or even smaller.

Y – Stands for Yield Space
Don’t cut into your model if you are after shooting a cover photo. Leave some negative space around your model. This will give the editor of the cover some room for positioning other cover elements like logos. If the background should be part of the cover, meaning that you will not isolate your subject, then leave a lot of room and let the editors do the cropping rather than trying to crop yourself.

I wish you good light!
Michael

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Model: Coxy Dominika,

Photography Coach: Ortwin Schneider, Studio Fotomagic 

Video: Achim Dunker, Netlektionen.de