A mood or inspiration board is essential in photography production - from the early planning days to when it arrives in the digital darkroom. It’s hands down the best way to communicate visual concepts that can be difficult to express in conventional language.
Photo by Jeremy Frechette
The reference imagery in a mood board is a roadmap that the whole creative team can reference through every step of production. It’s what the stylist can use to reference wardrobe or props; what the photographer can use to reference lighting inspiration, perspective, and angle; it’s what models can reference for expressions and posing.
As a retoucher, I use mood boards in a number of ways. The first of which is as a tool to check how well the captured imagery compares to what was preconceived. In the creative journey that is a shoot day, lots of changes, discoveries and new directions unfold – taking a look back to the where things started gives me the chance to see ensure the character of what was captured matches up with what was dreamed up. If it doesn’t, this informs decisions that will need to be made in post production.
Moods boards are also essential to me for compositing, where a larger aspect of the visual conception of the final work happens. In the early stages, this can be in the form of a comp - a quick image composition where we audition different elements, either captured or stock to inform our direction. Sometimes comps are even provided to me by talented in house members in certain cases.
I also often use my own mood boards by utilizing a library of reference images I keep in an ‘idea book’. It’s a practice I’ve kept on for years, collecting screen grabs of works that are visually interesting to me and categorizing them. There are many ways you can do this - I use a Lightroom catalogue. It’s incredibly useful to have this in my back pocket as I approach the postwork on a project - it informs me of visual culture and trends; inspires me and fills in any gaps in the teams collective reference imagery.
I hope you enjoyed this quick read. As a retoucher, I’m enamored with process. No matter how a project’s collaboration unfolds, having a moodboard is a blueprint for producing great work.