Quick Tip April 2025 Blog

By Gary Bernstein

Shooting Beauty – The Essence of Photography!

It’s all about beauty. It’s all about making it a special visual and visceral experience for your subject. You want the subject to love his or her image as you captured it. IF you do that – then the commercial effect takes over immediately, meaning…

…before you shoot, you’re no different than any other photographer. If, however, you capture images of your subjects that they adore…then you have something they will pay a fortune to secure i.e. that’s art for money’s sake because they cannot get the image anywhere else but from you!

I keep telling you that if you want tips to make that dream of “beauty = dollars” a reality, buy my first book People Photography (to start with)! That’s my plug for this month.

Now a Denny plug:

I watched the great new Denny Video on Youtube today. It rocks! And (Denny), it’s pretty darn trite to use a beautiful blond to sell product! LOL…

Yes, beauty sells products as well (duh)! You see a beautiful lady against a pure white background – an image that rocks your world – and all of a sudden you just have to have a pure white background.

Let’s start with that pure white background, and use the modeling talents of some of the most beautiful women on the planet (yes, it’s always been a tough job, but somebody has to do it ;)!

NOTE – DETAILED EXPLANATIONS OF PRODUCING THESE SHOTS ARE IN MY BOOKS (oh, that’s another plug - sorry)…

My number one beauty of all time:

Lena Harris - this one I shot for The American Express Company and Tiffany (yes it was a good pay day (that’s how you keep score)) –

Made with 3 lights. You pick the lights (hot, strobe, whatever) as it is placement and balance that is important. 2 lights on the background at 45-degree angles to the background to avoid keystoning (flare and density problems). The lights were bounced in 30-inch umbrellas, but it’s the evenness - that’s important. One main light was placed over the camera on a boom creating a 12 o’clock catchlight in Lena’s eyes (a half step under the exposure on the background). Yes, the cat is real – and was not remotely a nice kitty ;) – as we had to replace this leopard with a lion cub every roll we shot – and to be sure, Lena had very little skin left on her arms. That’s why super models get paid so much! AND the necklace on the cat is worth hundreds of thousands!*

*regarding my wife, Lena...

I recently sent a shot of Lena and me together to a bud. His response? “Are you IN this photograph???” But I digress.

Lena, again below, against a background that I asked Denny to produce. I found the burlap - sent it to him - and he created it. You can do the same thing; just call ‘em.

This shot is simple – one light in a 14-inch pan – and yes, that single light was placed to create the edge surrounding her body at the bottom to separate it visually from the background.

One last shot of Lena – against a Denny fake brick background (made with one light in an umbrella):

Below - another beautiful brunette – an actress named Susan Lucci – an Italian beauty (as many are ; from Ferraris to Florence)…keep reading)…

She is laying on white seamless paper – one main light creating a fall-off of 2 steps on the background which creates the medium editorial gray…

Which expression is best? Only Susan knows. I like ‘em both. Lens length? Always 2x normal for this kind of perspective (and perspective is critical) – shot medium format in New York City (Susan will not fly so I flew to her as I was living in LA)…

OK, a blond – Kathy Speirs – a true knockout…

I took 2 headshots of Kathy (I was photographing her for Max Factor ads) and put them together in photoshop to create the double image – each shot against a black background. This is one of the published ads from this shoot:

IF you do something like this for your portrait clients – meaning, make something special for them (no, they don’t have to look like Kathy, Lucci or Lena)…

…again, it will pay you back in dollars – plus they show the image to everybody – it’s on their walls – it’s on your wall, so her girlfriend wants the same thing or maybe you do it with the kids…or a husband and wife…I did the one below Kathy’s images with our two daughters…