Much of your first swimwear shoot is not shooting, and the first frame anybody keeps is usually an hour or two after you arrive.
The gap is spent on a fitting, a strip of tape, a makeup chair, a light being moved, a change, a strap put back. The camera works in between.
We shoot our own ranges on our own floor, so this is a studio day as it usually runs, from the call sheet to wrap and after.
Call time is not the first frame
The call sheet is the logistics note sent before the shoot. It carries the date, the address, a contact, a call time for each person and the schedule, and sometimes the shot list.
Call time is when you are due on set, and the sheet can show a later time for the first shot. On a beach in Goa the call is earlier, to catch the light. Wrap is the end of the shoot day. The wrap time on the sheet is a forecast and behaves like one, so do not book a train or a flight straight after it.
Unless the call sheet says otherwise, arrive with a bare face, dry hair and loose clothes that leave no marks. Hair and makeup start from that.
A period on the shoot day is ordinary. Say so the day before to whoever sent the call sheet, and the order of the pale and unlined pieces can be planned round it.
What to expect at a swimwear shoot, in order
Five stages, and only two of them are shooting.
The room
On a small brand shoot it usually holds the photographer, often an assistant, the stylist, whoever is doing hair and makeup, and the client or somebody from the brand. We photograph our ranges for buyers, so somebody from a buyer's side might be in the room too.
Find where you change before anything else. If the fitting is that morning, it is the first change.
The fitting
Some shoots fit on a separate day, others at the start of this one. Either way it is where the numbers on your card meet the sample.
The stylist makes a sample fit for the camera. On a bikini shoot there is little fabric to gather, so it tends to be ties, straps and tape, with any clip or pin on the side the lens cannot see. It is routine and temporary. It says nothing about the body it is on.
The usual custom on set is that nobody adjusts a garment on your body without saying so first. For a strap or a tie you can reach, say at the fitting whether you would rather move it yourself, since the frame does not care whose hand it was.
Hair and makeup
Somewhere between forty-five minutes and a couple of hours for a plain look, as a rule. The look is normally decided before the day, on the client side, and written into the brief. It is usually checked on the first test frame, because makeup does not read under set lights the way it does in a mirror. Being sent back to the chair after that frame is the test working.
The first look
Often the slow one. A look is one outfit, and the first is where light, exposure, hair and makeup are tested on you and corrected before anyone moves on.
Many shoots are tethered, meaning the camera is connected to a computer and each frame appears on a screen within seconds. The client and the stylist watch it there, and the stylist corrects the garment from what it shows. Comments usually reach you through the photographer, and for position that is the voice to follow.
The pace of the first look is not the pace of the day.
The looks after it
From here it is a pattern. The standard sequence for each garment is front, back, side, then close details. In catalogue work the same positions and turns are repeated for every look so that the product pages match. Consistency is the brief.
Direction is mostly small corrections, and several arrive at once. Chin, shoulder, hand. Move what was named and leave the rest, because the position is meant to match the look before.
How many looks varies widely. E-commerce work can run to forty or fifty outfits a day for one model. The half day we sell to brands is one model and up to six looks, and the full day is two models, up to twelve looks between them and a few short videos. Ask for your number when you are booked. It tells you how often the day stops for a change.
By the afternoon the repetition is the job.
Where you change
A private place to change, a robe between changes, food and drink on set. Written codes and agency terms abroad list all three, and they bind only the companies that signed them. So assume none of it and ask about all of it:
- Where do you change, and who else uses that space
- Is there food on set, or only what you bring
- Is anything being filmed besides what was booked
The third includes phones. The same terms say nobody photographs or films a model who is changing, and none of them names the phones a crew carries, which is the reason to ask.
The swimwear is what was agreed
Video too, if video was booked. Anything past the booking is a new question: a sheerer piece, a smaller one, a wet look, less cover, styling that departs from the brief, a video nobody mentioned. The same codes put that agreement before the day, not on it.
If the call sheet carries the shot list, check the garments on it against the booking before the day.
A new question can be answered no.
What you sign at wrap
The answers to the questions about rate and usage belong in writing before the day. At wrap the new thing can be a form.
Off-the-shelf release forms are often far wider than a booking: every picture, any media, worldwide, no end date. Have the booking with you and read the form against it, for where the pictures appear, in which countries and for how long. Raise a mismatch before you sign, while everybody is still in the room.
The chosen pictures, the selects, are retouched next. They might not appear until the range is released, which can be weeks or months later, and whether they are sent to you depends on what was agreed. A picture from the set can show a range before its release, which is why posting is for the client to decide.
Settle the rest before the day
We book eighteen and over only and check government identification with a photograph before anyone is booked, so have it to hand when a booking is offered.
Ask while the booking is still being written and an answer can go into it:
- How many looks are booked, and which garments
- Who will be in the room while you shoot
- Is anything signed on the day, and can it be sent beforehand
- Will the finished pictures be sent to you, and from which date may you post them
- When is the fee paid, and is that in the written agreement
Read the call sheet the evening it arrives. Any question it leaves open is easier to settle from home than in the room.