If you know me, I love being a bit extra in my photos lol. I love colors and flowy clothing. Enter the colorful flying dresses (aka Santorini dresses). I actually first discovered these awesome dresses when a photog friend of mine mentioned them to me and fell in love with these dresses. I love how long and flowy they are. Then add in color and these are like my favorite dresses lol.

Where is the Dress?

It took me a while to find where I could actually purchase the dresses instead of just renting them. As I said, I’m a bit extra, so I ordered five different colored dresses. There was a sale going on and I couldn’t resist lol. I ordered purple (favorite color so I had to), yellow, red, black, and a sky blue. It took about a month to get the dresses (as they had to be made and came from overseas). When the flying dresses arrived at my house, I was like mind blown! They were great! They are wrap dresses so they can fit different body types.

Where to Photograph the Dress?

I knew I wanted to take these dresses out to the desert because can you imagine how stunning these colorful dresses would look on top of a sand dune with a sprawling sandscape in the background??? Before I headed to the desert (which I will be doing this weekend), I wanted to do a test run. So I ended up reaching out to two of my favorite local models, Tanzania and Alaysia to be my test subjects. I also reached out to Q of Q88 Photography and Cat of Cat Warren Photo to participate.

I decided I wanted to shoot the dresses at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego and I wanted a sunrise. Now, before you say anything, yes, I realize the place is called Sunset Cliffs and I should take photos there around sunset lol. However, I didn’t want to have to fight with people for a good spot so I chose sunrise. We got there right around sunrise and it was super overcast. I honestly don’t mind overcast days as they create a soft light.

Test Run Baby!

So glad I decided to do a test run of these dresses before taking them to the desert. It definitely took me a few tries to get the dresses properly wrapped around both my models. However, when they were wrapped…bay bay…they were fire ?. I kept this shoot relatively simple…just the models and the dresses. The desert shoot is going to be more complex. Q and I ended up setting up two lights: Two sets of Godox AD200s in a MagMod 24” softbox (so four total lights). One of the lights lit the model’s faces and the other lit the dresses. This allowed for the models to really pop against the background. We put them at the edge of a cliff (but still a safe distance from the edge lol) and got to work.

We shot Tazania and Alaysia individually as well as together. I don’t have a super wide lens so I was using my Tamron 28-75mm zoom lens. Q ended up using his Sony 16-35mm lens so his shots were a little wider. You can definitely tell the different between the two when you at our images. If I would have stepped back a bit more, I would have captured more of the light stands in the images and I didn’t want that. I did purchase a Samyang 14mm lens for the desert shoot so we’ll see how this lens works out…I didn’t want to splurge on a higher-end wide angle lens as I don’t really use wide angle lenses too often.

Final Thoughts

These shots came out amazingly! Tanzania and Alaysia were amazing as the models. The flying dresses looked fabulous, especially when they were hit with that bit of extra light from the flashes. I can’t wait to take these dresses out to the desert!

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