After you’ve considered dress code, flattering your body, your personal style, your professional and social message, there’s one last critical step to dressing for a red carpet – the camera test. The camera has all kinds of unexpected effects on the way you look in a photograph or video. For important events, a camera test is a must!
Here are some common issues that can have catastrophic results:
Camera flashes emit ultraviolet light that shows up in digital photographs, but can’t be seen with the naked eye. This is why so outfits look transparent on the red carpet. The outfit wasn’t transparent in real life, only on camera.
The level of ambient light effects the impact of the ultra violet light from the flash, so an outfit will look different when photographed outside or inside, during the day or at night.
Fabric and embellishments can look different on camera versus in real life. Some will appear shiny and highlight figure imperfections that looked fine in real life, some will reflect light that blinds the lens, some will appear to be a different color altogether.
Your pose and the color of the background will effect the appearance of your figure. The wrong pose on the wrong background can distort your body look too big or too small, too curvy or too straight.
Here is an example of a camera test I did to get ready for a Red Carpet event at New York Fashion Week. We tested the dress in different light for transparency, poses against different backgrounds for flattery, and the full look with accessories to see how it translated in a photo. Here are a few of the pictures from the test.
