The Lookbook
The six-step wizard — model, pieces, ground, lock, variations, develop. Locking one approved frame is what makes a set read as one shoot.
A lookbook is one approved frame and its variations. The wizard runs in six steps, ordered from the choices that constrain the most to the ones that constrain the least. It is the order a physical shoot is planned in.
The Lookbook →The six steps
- Model — who is wearing it. One or several. See Models.
- Pieces — what they are wearing, pulled from a collection.
- Ground — the set it happens on. See Grounds.
- Lock — the house develops one reference frame. You approve it or you do not.
- Variations — what should differ from the lock: pose, full or medium, a note.
- Develop — the run starts, and it does not need you.
What the lock holds
Approving a frame carries six things forward into every variation developed from it:
- the model's identity, held by the collage;
- the ground, including the invisible floor-wall line;
- the light: key position, softness, fall-off;
- the framing register: air above the head, air below the feet;
- the camera language: body, lens, focal length, aperture;
- the realism clauses: skin with pores, fabric with weight, no retouching.
What it does not hold is exactly what you asked to vary. A variation should differ in the one axis you chose, not in five you did not.
Spend on the lock
The most expensive mistake is accepting a reference that is nearly right. A fourth attempt at the lock costs a handful of frames. Forty variations of a stiff stance costs the whole set.
Going back
Before the lock, every stage is still open and nothing you have chosen is trapped behind a step you passed. Changing an early choice keeps the later ones unless it genuinely invalidates them.
After the lock, the model, the pieces and the ground go quiet. They are not gone, and reopening one is a single explicit unlock with nothing lost. The house asks first, because an approved frame is the one thing here worth protecting from a stray click.
Batches
Drop many pieces in and the house proposes a variation set per piece, with a preview of what each would be. It also knows what a frame will contain: a medium shot does not need the shoe reference, so it does not ask for one.
Related
- The craft argument: the locked frame.
- Holding a face across the set: the same model, every frame.
- Watching many runs at once: the Darkroom.
Packshots
Clean catalogue frames at volume — on the mannequin, ghosted, on the hanger or laid flat, ironed or as-is, with four angles priced per shot before you commit.
Models
Casting in FLAM — a board of models, free, for sale or exclusive, or one you bring yourself. A model is a collage, which is what holds a face across a whole set.