Tears of joy

Research is one of the best parts of my job as a fashion editor -- not just looking for upcoming trends and story ideas, but also finding inspiration for photo shoots. As I mentioned in an earlier post, many fashion editorials are based loosely around of a variety of pages ripped from magazines ("tears," as they're called in the industry) and pieced together in the hopes they'll form a cohesive, beautiful story.

Years ago, collecting tears used to involve hitting the library and newsstands to find bits and pieces you liked from different magazines -- a hairstyle from this story, the model's pose in this story, the type of shoes used in this story. Nowadays the internet has made photo shoot research exponentially more convenient and far-reaching. It seems like every fashionable blogger out there has a tumblr page where she re-posts her favorite fashion shots of the moment -- some of which were published in magazines I've never even heard of. I subscribe to quite a few of these blogs, in addition to checking photography portfolios, networking and fashion websites.

Below are some tears that have inspired me recently, and what I specifically took away from the picture. Who knows -- maybe someday a few of them will influence a photo shoot I help produce.

Shapes.

Lighting.

Pose.

Hair.

Pose.

Pose.

Pose.

Styling.

Composition/editing.

Lighting. Pose.

Styling. Lighting.

Styling.

Lighting. Makeup.

Lighting. Styling. Hair. Pose.

Pose. Hair.