How ‘flying dress’ shots grew to become so well-liked on social media

(CNN) — It appears to be tailor built for Instagram likes: shiny blue sky, white partitions and a ruby-coloured gown swirling elegantly in the breeze.

These photos, identified as “traveling costume” shots, started out out on the picturesque Greek island of Santorini and have due to the fact turn out to be well known in other tourist places like Dubai, Tulum and Italy.

When the images look like they could have been taken for a large style magazine, the photograph shoots are somewhat cost-effective and have become a additional widespread presenting on journey working experience booking internet websites like Viator and Klook.

Born on a Greek island

The pair have been both marriage and portrait photographers and Babenkov was reportedly functioning on a shoot in the Dominican Republic, during which a stylist included a lengthy educate to a robe to include far more drama, providing him the idea to replicate the look for vacationers.

Since then, they have expanded their company to Italy, Cuba and Dubai.

Volokitina and Babenkov took benefit of Search engine marketing — research engine optimization, a way to pack a web-site full of key terms that make it a lot easier to obtain in a fast Google search — and now it is really basically extremely hard to discover a traveling dress photograph on-line that will not direct back again to their web page or social media profiles in some way.

Good results, although, has offered other people today in other markets the notion to try out out a similar photography business model.

Chrisan Hunter is one of them.

She was performing as a marriage ceremony planner in her native Montego Bay, Jamaica, when the coronavirus pandemic strike.

Somewhat than pursue her possess travel desire — heading to Santorini to phase a flying gown photograph shoot — she made a decision to capitalize on the trend in her household state.

She also obtained blessed. Although Jamaica has had some small lockdown periods and curfews during the pandemic, the state has largely remained open. Visitors from the US and Canada continued to head to Jamaica for their vacations, indicating Hunter was however in a position to entice customers.

And, ironically, very a handful of of her consumers have been people today who experienced planned excursions to Greece that fell apart because of vacation limitations or variations.

At the rear of the scenes

Just one of the most common questions she gets requested is regardless of whether she owns a wind device to get the dresses to swirl so considerably.

“All our shoots include an assistant,” Hunter points out. “We get our customers dressed and almost everything, and then at the time it is time to shoot, we coordinate with the photographer and it truly is a 1, 2, 3 rely. We throw up the dress, he catches (the shot) quickly.”

Now, like most tendencies, traveling dresses have absent past solo ordeals. Hunter has coordinated team shots for up to 14 gals in distinct dresses as effectively as numerous maternity shoots.

Other similar images businesses have experienced to find their have techniques to up the ante.

Flying Dresses Tulum, based in the well-known Mexican resort city, expanded their choices to include things like watertight “flowing dresses” that are great for floating in cenotes, the colorful h2o-filled sinkholes that are identified throughout the Yucatan peninsula.

Other providers can consider the shots by drone or organize a proposal to take place mid-shoot, consequently guaranteeing that the ring images will also seem Insta-completely ready.

Each rose has its thorn

Nevertheless, there are some points that even the most stunning gown won’t be able to very easily hide.

Christina Kumar did a person of these shoots in the California desert.

“The cameraman experienced to do a fast rattlesnake examine at my standing area,” she tells CNN, introducing, “there were thorns all over my costume for the reason that it was in a area with quite dense mother nature, and it was pretty sizzling.”

She ended up shifting around as tiny as doable through the shoot, permitting the spectacular dress do the perform.

Despite the potential for disaster, Kumar’s shoot went off nicely and she loved the last solution.

Hunter suggests one particular of the biggest worries for her business is Jamaica’s unpredictable local weather. But there is generally a included region that products can stay in right until the storm clears up, and a community photographer employed to doing the job with the situations can grab a number of stunning images in seconds.

Potential journey hazards aside, the ordinary shoot requires just an hour — but the pics can final endlessly.