Rossella Vanon Creates High Impact "Hot" Portraits

Intro by Skip Cohen

The Profoto blog is loaded with great content, especially in their archives. I love posts where we get a sneak peek inside the head of the artist. Fashion photographer, Rossella Vanon, takes you through how she created the shot in this post by Fredrik Franzen from the Profoto archives.

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©Rossella Vanon

by Fredrik Franzén


Fashion photographer Rossella Vanon has created a smoking hot, eye-catching portrait. Want to learn how she did it? 

Ask a bunch of established photographers for advice, and many of them will tell you to spend more time on your personal projects. Letting your creativity run free is a great way to remind yourself why you fell in love with photography in the first place. More importantly, you might just come up with some clever ideas that you can apply to your commercial work.

London-based fashion photographer Rossella Vanon’s smoking hot portrait is a clear evidence of that. This particular personal project started when an American model friend who was visiting London and wanted to update her portfolio contacted Rossella. By coincidence, an Australian makeup artist contacted her at the same with the same inquiry. So the three decided to get together and do something out of the ordinary.

Said and done – the model brought the look, the makeup artist added bronze makeup and reptile-like details, and Rossella brought, as expected, the color and the light.

“I used five lights for this shot,” says Rossella. “I had three D1 monolights and two speedlights. The speedlights were positioned in a 45° angle behind the model, one on each side. The one to the left had a yellow color gel, while the other had a green gel. See the yellow light on her shoulders, neck and hand? That’s the left speedlight. The green light from the right can be seen in her palm and on her shoulder.

“I had two D1 monolights positioned in front of the model mirroring the position of the speedlights. The D1 to the left side was equipped with a dark blue gel, while the one on the right had a lighter blue gel. You can see the effect if you compare the model’s front and back.

“The main light was a D1 equipped with a Softbox RFi 1,3×2′. The softbox was positioned camera left so that the light hit the model straight in the face. The light from the softbox was the only white light and it toned down the colors wherever it hit the subject. This was necessary, as I didn’t want her to be as blue in the face as on her back. The soft light also has the effect that the colors blended ever nicer with each other.

“Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning that the black background was chosen to not have too much color spill there. You can see a little bit of blue light there. But that much is enough. I think it looks cool like that.”

See more images by Rossella Vanon at her website.

©Rossella Vanon