A Photographer You Should Know: Liz Von Hoene Shoots Elegance with Simple, Stripped-Down Setups

WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW HER
Liz Von Hoene isn’t new to the photo industry, but she’s constantly reinvigorating her portfolio with fresh concepts—and she doesn’t need complex setups to do it.
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Looking through Liz Von Hoene’s expansive portfolio of fashion, advertising, beauty and lifestyle work, it’s clear why she’s thrived as a photographer for nearly two decades. Her imagery is alluring, sophisticated, charming and fresh. She knows how to treat light, shape it carefully and beautifully; nothing is lit that doesn’t need to be, and everything that does has just the right amount. You’d think that behind the scenes, her subjects are amid a mess of light stands and a gaggle of assistants holding fill cards and reflectors. But you’d be dead wrong.

Von Hoene is a prime example of how a photographer can make something memorable and iconic using just the bare bones. “I don’t need a ton of lights, I don’t need enormous sets,” she says—and that’s putting it lightly.

The Atlanta-based photographer staunchly boycotts fill light altogether. If it’s absolutely necessary beyond a reasonable doubt to add more light where one light cannot reach—to a particularly dark garment, say—she’ll light separately. But she’ll never fill.

Her main method is pretty simple: sticking to one large light source (an octabank is her favorite—it’s soft but also shapes), she shines it big and close to her subject, off camera right. It’s repeatable across her wide variety of imagery because it just works really well for her. In a world of commercial and fashion photography that so often jumps between au naturel lifestyle and starkly bright catalogue photos, Von Hoene’s work is neither, and it’s a breath of fresh air.

On set she works quickly, efficiently and energetically. When clients like Neiman Marcus, Kate Spade, Badgley Mischka and Macy’s hire her for a shoot, they’re hiring her for her vision, she says, but also for the Liz Von Hoene experience—not stuck up or wound too tight, she likens shooting a photo session to hosting a dinner party— everything is taken care of.

A TOUCH OF CHARM
Getting to this point in her career didn’t happen overnight, but the steps Von Hoene took and the circumstances she faced along the way have certainly contributed to her constant hunger for creating something new without lots of tools at her disposal.

Studying photography at Ohio University in the late 1980s, Von Hoene married a fellow student and upon graduating started a studio in Atlanta, Georgia, doing mostly model testing. Von Hoene never assisted; she just wanted to shoot, she says, and she developed a way of seeing light all on her own. “My husband and I only had the money to buy a couple of softboxes, two packs and four heads, and a beauty dish with a grid,” she explains. “I just started learning to see light in this simple, one-light way, because that’s all we had money for. That’s how I started and that’s how I’ve proceeded.”

Her studio was kept busy with shooting models from Elite Model Management in New York City. She made do with what she had, without a big team of stylists, but she didn’t miss them. “You can make a beautiful picture of a girl wearing something really simple,” she explains. “I would just rent clothes from this little vintage shop. It was easier for me to get vintage clothing that looked cool and interesting than to go to Neiman Marcus and buy a bunch of clothes that I didn’t really have a vision for.”

It worked out for the better anyway; by the mid-90s, her accrued portfolio landed her gigs shooting fashion catalogues for Neiman Marcus, which then led her to other clients like Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue. But not wanting to get pigeonholed into catalogues, and knowing high-fashion designer shoots weren’t for her either, Von Hoene decided advertising photography was the perfect next step: she could bring a fashion feel to a commercialized world that could use the much-needed touch of charm she had in mind.

With this new plan in place and a rep—the NYC-based Stockland Martel—opening more doors for her in the advertising world, Von Hoene found her groove, all from her home base of Atlanta. She travels up to New York a few times a month, for varying amounts of time. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. “In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, people really thought fashion and advertising photographers had to just be in New York, every agent I saw told me I had to move up there,” she recalls. “I started having children really young, and I’ve got four kids now—23, 21, 19 and 9. We had a studio in Atlanta and were working there, and it just took finding the right agent that did not believe I had to be in New York. If the photographer is willing and has the right type of support, you can be anywhere, especially in the digital world.”

WITH A WINK OF WHIMSY
Her images have always had a “nice frozen moment to them,” Von Hoene says, “maybe the way the skirt is given a little pull, or the strength of the composition,” but she discovered her signature style once she really started conceptualizing her shoots to add what she calls “the wink.” It’s the unexpected moment that takes her advertising photography up a notch, from shooting her clients’ products to capturing a beautiful, playful world within her frame.

“The happy images suit me and have always suited me, but I didn’t realize they would go so well and become the ‘Liz thing,’” she says. “I’ve embraced it and look for those opportunities—they’ve become my favorite images to work on.”

Take, for instance, the shoot for Rebecca Moses: Von Hoene placed cutout acetate layouts onto an overhead projector and cast the shadows onto a blank wall, with the model working simultaneously with real objects that were painted black, blurring the line between what was real and “imaginary.” It was thinking outside the box, but it was also pretty simple.

The idea for the Badgley Mischka shoot was similarly off-the-cuff, yet not at all complicated. Von Hoene didn’t know what the clothes would look like until the morning of the shoot, so beforehand she and her assistant went out to get a bunch of different props. One of them was a fish bowl, and as it so happened, she explains, “one of the dresses sort of looked like a fish, so we thought, let’s go get a fish!”

Other times she’ll use a strobe or a 3-foot square silver softbox outside and combine it with daylight to create a certain surreal look, she says—“it’s stylized in a fake way that’s kind of fun.” But even when she plays around with different lights, Von Hoene still largely sticks to her one-light concept—which she says is always preferable when she’s shooting 18 to 20 concepts a day and “simplicity in lighting is all you have time for.” Not to mention, especially for emerging photographers without big budgets, it’s cheaper.

She’s learned it’s best to hone before adding. “Get your front light to where it’s looking really beautiful, and then maybe add light on the background or another light that won’t compete too much with your front light,” advises Von Hoene, who always has a big light on-hand with a few different secondary sources on standby in case the vision calls for it. “If you place that light correctly, you don’t need fill.”

ON FIRE
Von Hoene’s wisdom comes from her years of experience, but also from the range of work that she gets to shoot. Whether she’s shooting for a makeup or furniture company, she’s constantly reinventing ways to communicate playfulness. “I continue to grow and be inspired by different types of projects and clients, and for me that keeps things really exciting,” she says. “We’ve been on fire since the start of this year.”

She’s been called on to shoot some big campaigns for companies outside her usual genre who want the “Liz thing.” Notably, she just did an advertising shoot for La Marca, the sparkling wine brand—a “gorgeous, flirty, fun, conceptual shoot,” Von Hoene says excitedly. “I can’t wait for it to come out. It’s very stylized, playful, and there are lifestyle moments but then there’s the charm.” She was also featured in the September issue (the Women’s Edition) of Neiman Marcus’ The Book, and over the last couple of years she’s filmed ad spots for TV.

“I’m kind of all over,” she says. “We’ve shot through hurricanes, sleet storms, we’ve had to troubleshoot through so many things. I get just as excited as I did 20 years ago. I love taking pictures, planning stories, coordinating with the hair and makeup—I love the whole process, and I love when you get to see it come to life.”

Liz Von Hoene’s Go-To Gear
Camera: Canon 5D Mark III  
Lens: Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II  
Lighting: A softbox or octabank