Mimicking the Look of a High-End Campaign With No Budget

Many of the most expensive shoots spend inordinate amounts of money on incredible locations, models, and photographers. But, if you're willing to accept models that aren't A-list celebrities, you might be able to recreate the same standard without being bankrolled.

High-end fashion photography is a strange beast. The greatest and most renowned advertising photographers in the world typically have portfolios with wild swings in image style; one moment they're photographing elaborate scenes on a wide-angle lens, and the next they're shooting a close-up on a telephoto prime. Some shoots will be splashed with color in all directions and use every inch of the frame, others will be black-and-white, minimalist, and use negative space. The image that prompted this video is the latter.

Although you could argue it's something of a cliche, minimalist black-and-white photographs are alluring to me, and their power in advertising campaigns is indisputable. Perhaps they have always been that way, perhaps they became popular and now it's a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy — who knows — but they're effective and surprisingly easily replicated. In this video, Peter Coulson recreates an A-list advertising campaign image with just natural light, a model, and his camera. How do you think he did? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.