What are the expectations around set dressing?

The abbywinters.com paradigm is based on the everyday – natural women, in naturalistic settings.

If it is not possible to shoot in a model’s own home (more info), the hired location needs to be believably that of a young woman, with suitable colours, style and a feeling that this location is lived in. These ideas are expanded upon in the Location and environment in-brief SDLP.

When we say “location”, we mean the whole home, the street address. When we say “setting” we mean, the specific area of the location that a given shoot is being shot in. Some shoots may shoot in several settings.

When a location is hired, SP’s utilises set dressing to ensure:

  • Any reused settings feel like completely new spaces (if this is not possible, a different setting must be used)
  • The setting feels genuinely lived in
  • Settings are on-paradigm (young woman, colourful)
  • Setting contains details of the model
    • eg, night creams, book she is reading, wall calendar of dancing dogs in hats, birth control pills on the nightstand, phone charger, etc

See some practical set dressing tips.