Client: Elle Décor
Creative: Laurel Benedum, Market Editor

Conventional wisdom says photographers need to specialize in one genre, and hone a particular style and voice to distinguish themselves from the competition. But in her work for Hearst publications, photographer Allie Holloway has shot just about every genre of photography, and learned to tailor the look of her photos to the needs of different publications or art directors. “I know it’s traditional to have a lane you stay in, but trying different things keeps me very engaged and interested,” says Holloway, who worked for Hearst full-time for two years, and went part-time in 2019 when her side gigs for fashion and beauty clients outnumbered her vacation days. “I think it makes me a more well-rounded photographer.”

[Check out what it’s like to work with a professional prop stylist and set designer—during a global pandemic.]

She often shoots images that can be used in multiple formats or in publications with different styles, or for creative directors with different needs. Art directors are grateful, she says, when she can shoot a fashion story and also shoot still lifes of accessories while the model is changing clothes. She is often called to shoot in multiple genres, including not only fashion but beauty and “journalistic portraits,” she says.  

As an example of the latter, she recalls a photo she made for an Elle story media treatment of middle class white women accused of crime. It features an interview with Angelika Graswald, who pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the drowning death of her fiancé in a kayaking accident. She made some natural light portraits of Graswald both outside and looking in a mirror in her home. The editors wanted a portrait of Graswald—who still kayaks—near water. The day was overcast and rainy, so after a few hours of working with Graswald, Holloway asked her if she would pose in a bathtub. Holloway captured the overhead image using only the soft light coming through a nearby window, shooting at ISO 1200, which added to the grain in the image. Art director Katelyn Baker featured the image prominently in the story. 

By contrast, her still lifes for the Elle Décor gift guide were shot in the controlled environment of a studio. The idea was to photograph sets of housewares and accessories in the style of different movies from 2019, and give them each a slightly different tone or mood. This kind of studio shooting gives Holloway opportunities for “lots of experimentation,” she says, and on one of the still lifes, she tried a modifier whose effect she had liked. 

[For more about editorial photography: Inside The Hollywood Reporter & Billboard: Q&A with Photo/Video Director Jennifer Laski]

Logistics

Each of the still lifes represented vignettes of movies: a picnic for Little Women, a table set with glasses, whiskey and cigars on what looks like a restaurant table in a scene from The Irishman, some luggage on a movie set for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. To reference the biopic Judy, in which Renee Zellweger stars as actress Judy Garland, Holloway photographed a breakfast tray on a bed in what appears to be a hotel room. The objects on the tray included a diamond bracelet that sells for more than $18,000, luxurious linens and some Wedgewood china. 

The editor wanted to make sure the bed’s headboard was visible, but Holloway also had to make sure each element of the still life was in focus. Holloway shot at a low angle with her camera on a Foba stand placed close to the mattress. 

For the online version of the gift guide, Elle Décor needed GIFs of all the still lifes, and looked to Holloway to come up with ways to create motion. For the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood image, she made lights sweep over the scene. For Little Women, she sprinkled tree blossoms on the picnic blanket, and used the tree branches in the foreground as a cuculoris; by moving the branches, she changed the dappled light falling on the picnic. For the Judy image, she had a pill box spin and pop open, spilling out some capsules.    

Lighting

The lighting on all the images was slightly different. The Judy image included several blue and yellow objects, and Holloway wanted to give the image a glow evocative of old glamour. She decided to attach to her Profoto Proplus heads to an accessory she had seen: a Jinbei diffuser. “It just it looks like a giant lightbulb,” she explains, but “tends to go warmer” than other beauty dishes or modifiers. She positioned the light “about two feet above the mattress level because I wanted to keep the shadows long,” she says. “I think that helps with the cinematic feel.”

The strobe and diffuser were at camera left. To add fill, she chose to use mirrors held to the right of the camera and the foot of the bed. “I like mirrors not only for the hardness of the fill, but also the additional shadow” which they create around objects, she says, unlike using an extra light at low power. She got the idea from seeing morning light reflected off her bedroom mirror. “I like lighting that it looks like it could be real life.”

The mirrors are about 4×4 inches, so she can hand hold the to adjust the fill as needed. I’ll hold it up and move it around until I like the reflection we’re getting,” she says. Then, if needed, she or her assistant with attach a pigeon plate to the back of the mirror and affix it to the c-stand, so the mirror is steady. “But I like the flexibility of handholding.” To bounce light onto the breakfast tray, she positioned mirrors at the base of the bed and to the right side. 

Camera 

For most of her clients’ needs, Holloway says, “I typically will shoot the Canon Mark IV.” For her lens, she is often shooting the 24-70mm, which is “sharp overall.”  When shooting still lifes for the gift guide, she says, “I try to be pretty considerate of how shallow my depth of field is when selling items, so I pretty much stick to f/11.” Shooting at f/11 for the Judy still life, for example, “most everything stays in focus— from the shoes to the pillow.” Working with a strobe, she shot at 1/160th.

Post-Production

Holloway says retouching beauty and fashion images “is a studied skill, I leave that to the professionals.” But she does do color correction and toning to ensure her images have the palette she wants. For the Judy Garland homage, for example, “I knew I wanted it to add yellows in the highlights and some blue in the shadows to give a vintage vibe.” On set, she adjusted the color balance in Capture One. By processing each of the movie-inspired images differently, she brought out certain tones, enhanced the mood of each, and delivered images of subtle variation that her clients have come to expect.

Related:

Work From Home: How Photographers Can Book and Shoot New Sessions Now

How Photographers Make Good Portraits in Lousy Settings