Fantasy photography will almost always involve a certain amount of post-processing. Although you can achieve amazing work with a lot of on-site setup you may find any final image requires additional elements or further work.
This is a very imaginative type of photography that falls under the creative photography umbrella. It allows you to fulfill your creative vision. It is close to being a fine art photography genre and a surrealist type of photography that is popular with the abstract art scene. Dressing up in a fantasy character then creating a dramatic fantasy scene can produce some incredibly beautiful and moving imagery.
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SHOW YOUR LOVE OF PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGH FANTASY PHOTOGRAPHY
Imagination
It is the creative’s imagination that brings ideas in fantasy photography into existence through imaginative sets and backgrounds, costumes and creative post-processing. Fantasy photography can even start with basic portrait photography, then by the addition of fantasy elements in post-processing you can turn what was a great portrait into a beautiful fantasy representation.
There are a number of sites such as Squijoo where you can purchase overlays and backdrops to use when creating fantasy images. Through a little more search effort stock photo agencies such as BigStockPhoto sell overlays and backgrounds that are also very useful.
Dressing up in a fantasy character then creating a dramatic fantasy scene can produce some incredibly beautiful and moving imagery.
Fantasy photography costumes
Fantasy photo session costumes can be hired, purchased or created using desired fantasy elements from scratch. Some of the most popular costume designs for fantasy photography include sci-fi, medieval, warrior and Viking outfits for adults, and prince and princess outfits for children.
Makeup
A highly important consideration is makeup. If the fantasy subject is familiar with dressing in fantasy costume, they may already do their own makeup, or a professional makeup artist can be used. If you are a photographer looking to get into fantasy photography as a part of your business, you should consider teaming up with a local makeup artist so that you can provide that service to your client. Research the portfolio of makeup artists in your area and team up with one or two.
Setting
There are many settings that can be used for fantasy photography including forests, thickly treed gardens, rocky outdoor areas, old stone-walled buildings and even in studio with background elements composited into the photograph.
Post-processing fantasy photography
If the photographer is on a paid professional fantasy photo session it is important to consider to what degree post-processing will be done for the client.
For example, if say 60 photographs have been taken at the session it would be unfeasible to process all of them to your fantasy style for the client due to the length of time it will take to edit each one. So, you will need to have a portfolio showing your editing style and fantasy elements that are added to the photos during post processing.
Fantasy photography session guide
The client would choose a pre-defined number of photos from the session for the photographer to edit in their fantasy style.
A pre-designed session guide made available to the client should outline the editing process and include as many examples as possible. The guide could be brought to the session and processing styles could be chosen whilst there.
Mastering fantasy photography
If you are looking to do this a business, once you master the art of fantasy photography and have developed a unique post-processing style with fantasy elements your work will stand out amongst an ocean of portrait photographers. You will be able to command much higher prices for your work than you would for general portrait photography.
The essential elements to success in this filed is the ability to have a vision and to carry that vision through the photo session and into high-quality post-processing.
Fantasy photography portfolio
This genre of photography can also cross over into cosplay photography, portrait photography, surrealist photography and abstract photography. The more fun you have with this genre to more interesting your images will be. So build a website and create social media accounts at TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, and upload your best fantasy images for everyone to see!
Have fun with fantasy photography!
If you can imagine it, you can compose it.
