Moodboarding
A moodboard I made for an editorial shoot in Upstate New York with actress Anni Krueger.
There’s a lot that goes into creating a great photoshoot and while I try to lend every step of the process equal weight, there’s nothing I enjoy more than the moodboard stage of planning. It’s an opportunity for me to take a step back and see what’s trending, to draw inspiration, to reference poses, moods, wardrobe, lighting, beauty and hair, location, post processing and so much more.
A simple portfolio test shoot moodboard, for models needing that classic NYC look in their books.
Any half-decent moodboard is going to require a lot of foresight and contemplation and research. I’ve been building a collection of folders for years with saved photos and screenshots culled from hundreds of sources — blogs, Instagram profiles, magazine editorials, ad campaigns — and from these highly organized folders I’m usually able to string together 10-15 images that speak to the overall vibe of the photoshoot I’m going for. If you’re not already saving inspiration images, start today.
You’ll want to have some way of easily finding what you’re looking for so label your photos and folders accordingly. For myself, my top-level folders are for Outside, Inside, Studio, Beauty, Mood/Vibe, Product, Style/Wardrobe, Hair, and Location. Sometimes you’ll have an image that fits multiple categories, and in those cases I’ll just quickly duplicate the image and throw them into whatever folders it’s relevant to. Command+C, Command+V baby.
A recent moodboard I loved making. Definitely a Cozy Gurl Club vibe.
After I’ve copied/pasted my favorite images into a separate folder, I start assembling them into a Photoshop document (usually horizontal, 1920x1080), making more relevant images larger within the space.
That’s pretty much it! Easy peezy lemon squeezy. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.