If you are a seasoned photographer or a newbie, one thing's sure, taking editorial shoots as a photographer is part of your photography journey. Editorial shoots are not shoots you just carry out without help or tips especially if it is your first time as a budding photographer. There are tips you can't help but follow to make your editorial shoots come out great!

Here are the tips below to improve your Editorial shoot.

Preparation

The secret to any successful shoot first is preparation. The secret is to plan ahead of time the work you'll do.

It doesn't matter how big or small the shoot is or whether it's paid or just a test shoot. You always need to show up prepared with a mood board and a vision to show your team.

Ask yourself the following questions. What do I want to create? What's the theme of the shoot? Do I want to shoot indoors or outdoors with natural or artificial light? What time of day should I plan the shoot? What kind of model and styling do I want?

These are just a few things to get you started. Coming prepared to shoot will give your team and clients a good and professional impression of you having your mood board required gear and everything ready to go and you'll always kill it. For this shoot.

For instance, you want some pictures to come out as if they came straight out of the 90s. You create a mood board with your team and discuss everything beforehand. So you know you are all on the same page.

Another important part of an editorial shoot is the team that you work with. You must get like-minded people who have a similar vision and who understand what you're going for. And once you've built up teams of people like this, it is really fun to come together and collaborate and see what each person brings to the table.

Create a mood board

This gives everyone a sense of direction but also don't forget to let the creatives take a little bit of freedom in what they're doing because you'd find out that they get a little more excited about it as well. Sometimes just give them a theme and watch everyone creatively run with it and create in their way.

Know when to shoot

It is said that one of the most beautiful images is shot when there's natural light. It's really important to consider the time of day that you'll be shooting so you can have a good idea of how the sun will be, where the shadows will be, and where the light will be. And you can plan out where each looks beforehand.

When working with a stylist

You can give directions but most times it's not good to tell your stylist exactly what to do because you find that with a lot of stylists when you show them a reference image. They just try to copy the exact outfit. But when you give people a little bit of creative freedom, that's when the magic happens.

So just give them a decade or an era and maybe a mood board full of 15 or 20 images and just tell them that that's the mood that you're going for, not necessarily a replica. Usually, when you approach it that way, the chances of getting better results become higher.

Creatively spice things up

You could shoot through Crystals, which gives your model an ethereal look. This is a high-end trick, but they're various tricks you could learn to give your photos these harsh edges. If you don't have crystals you can always shoot through other objects like glass bottles. There's a trick of adding Vaseline to the lens so you can spot through plants.

Getting your model into poses

It can be difficult managing a big group of people and also focusing on the model and her poses. But know that when it comes to an editorial shoot because you're trying to create a certain mood. You want to make sure that the poses that she's in match the flow of the shoot.

What helps with this is to create a separate section of the mood board just for poses. So that when you do get into that time crunch, you could reference that mood board and get the model into those poses quickly and efficiently to get the desired shots.