Mood boards are a visual representation of images that create an inspirational focus for the team. A set of images curated to provide your team or client with a visual reference guide that signs of a shoot prior to the actual shoot, everyone can agree on before your photoshoot. Mood boards can seem like extra work but are for me essential in guiding the team through the shoot realising mine and the stylist vision completely signed off by the client mood boards are actually extremely simple to create and include into your photography workflow.
JAMES NADER CREATES MOOD-BOARDS FOR FASHION SHOOT
LOCATION RECCE – STORYBOARD YOUR LOCATION & TELL A STORY
The location comes first – a recce to the desired location suitable for the client is almost always essential but not necessarily guaranteed based on time and budgets. The full location story can then be shared with your team. The stylist who if you’re shooting editorial would love to get your vision. The client if they are unable to attend then they too can see your boards and ideas.
Below is the one I am working on for a shoot proposal based on cold waters or in Icelandic Kalt Vatn. This location is in Wales at Lake Bala. I nice day out collating images and presenting them on a board created in Photoshop. I always brand mine up and add watermarks. A good idea as there are some unscrupulous people who will pinch it and use it for themselves.
MODEL MOODBOARD- STORYBOARD YOUR MODEL IDEAS
So the next part of the puzzle is to find online images that might tell your story and you can find these in Google images or Pinterest. Copyright could be an issue but if you are using the low key and copyright is to all respective photographers then generally this is ok. You are not out to copy these images only using them for maybe a compositional vision, models and how they may be interpreted in the image. It’s also a great way to see how models are placed in a location and how they interact with it.
The mood board is not meant to be taken literally but merely used as a guide. More so in editorial, however, in advertising and conceptual shoots the mood boards or visuals will be taken more literally and in filming they might indicate the shots the composition and the cuts and lens choices for each scene but these boards are more visual of what really needs to be captured.
STYLING MOODBOARD – STORYBOARD YOUR INTENDED LOOKS
The stylist will generally work on this and then set their style and vision often suggesting a pallette that they are working to, then send you their vision so you may add their content into your boards to create a final board to present to the client. This then becomes your working document to help guide your shoot along and the team.
USING PINTEREST AS A MOOD BOARD CREATION TOOL
Of course, if you don’t have the skills for photoshop or word then you can always use Pinterest to get you story ideas across to your client and your team. Pinterest allows you to all join into the board and allows the team early on to get an idea of how it all can look.
