Creativity from crisis: How Covid-19 made fashion embrace photography shoots by FaceTime

Covid-19 could be turning the world ugly, reaching into every part of our lives, nonetheless it seems there is one part it cannot alter: creativity.

With the majority of the world still under lockdown (or simply leaving it) all normal working routines had a need to make magazines has been turned on its head, forcing teams to create new alternatives. Thankfully, the industry that is built on creativity has recently figured out a solution. Welcome to the FaceTime fashion shoot.

Using nothing but a bit of ingenuity, an iPhone and a good Wi-Fi connection, increasing numbers of photographers are switching to the chat service to envisage, direct and create beautiful photographs, despite everyone now being in different building, cities and even countries.

Among the first adopters of the technique was i-D magazine, a title already known because of its disregard for convention. Beneath the title “Safe + Sound", it tasked photographer Willy Vanderperre with shooting models such as for example Gigi Hadid, Binx Walton, Adut Akech and Mona Tougaard for cover images.

The models all had to accomplish their own hair and make-up, and so are wearing their own clothes within their own homes, but with Vanderperre giving direction via phone, the resulting images are raw, candid and refreshingly unpompous.

Fashion photographer Kat Irlin has also embraced FaceTime to make a series of individual black and white portraits including two of the original supermodels, Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen. Totally unstyled and unretouched, the images are beautiful because of their absolute simplicity.

Sharing the images on social media, Crawford explained "there’s an initial time for everything. Fashion and photography will be different for some time, but that doesn’t mean we must stop being creative."

Singer Demi Lovato, too, has been quick to embrace the brand new approach, teaming up with Los Angeles photographer Angelo Kritikos for a FaceTime shoot. In contrast to the standard crowd of stylists, hairdressers, make-up artists and assistants, on the other hand this story involved just Lovato and Kritikos.

Of the experience, Kritikos said: “A couple of days in to the stay-home order, I texted Demi my virtual shoot idea ... we wished to inspire people to stay home and get creative. I don’t feel any pressure to perfect my virtual shoots because I must say i love the gritty and raw feel to the images. If you ask me, it’s cool how imperfect the photographs turn out."

Gigi Hadid’s sister, Bella, in addition has starred in a fashion editorial for the April problem of Vogue Italia, with photographer Brianna Capozzi and stylist Haley Wollens.

Shot totally in her living room, the images show Hadid going right through her poses while clutching a balloon. Of the knowledge, Hadid wrote on social media that “times are changing and working at home includes a new meaning".

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She also starred in another marketing campaign for Jacquemus, again shot inside her house, this time around with photographer Pierre-Ange Carlotti. Wearing no make-up and with her hair scraped off her face, the images are lit by sun coming through a window.

Although the ultimate images are rather racy, also, they are are fresh and uncompromising, having done away challenging artifice of fashion. Because of a whole lot of ingenuity and a little of technology, these FaceTime shoots could mark a fresh direction in photography that forgoes big teams and retouching for something raw, unpolished and looking every bit thrown together.

Candid, stripped back and surprisingly normal as a result of it, this might you need to be a glimpse of fashion shoots to come.