This photo shoot was a fairly regular piece of work, in that I had plenty of time to plan and organise. Organisation is the key to good photography. Unusually, though, I was engaged to do the shoot as a Christmas present to Katie from her boyfriend. He contacted me to book me and I gave him a promissory note to the value of a studio shoot to be arranged at her convenience, to put in her Christmas card.
Katie duly contacted me and we discussed the project. Her garments are representations of, and are inspired by, the circus – ringmaster, lion, clown, and so on. The thoughtful present of a photo shoot would lead to her receiving a professional portfolio of her design work – an essential for any designer.
A studio shoot is very different from a shoot on location. Everything is controlled by the photographer. Lighting, background, position and everything else can be manipulated to create a very particular effect. I enjoyed spending time visualising and planning how I would organise these aspects, and I looked forward to taking some great shots.
Of course, a significant part of my planning came down to the technical choices I made. The camera for the job was one of my Nikon D700 DSLRs with a Nikon 24-70 2.8 G lens. In order to make the subjects stand out from the background and to eliminate any shadows from the shots, I lit the background with two Interfit Stellar 600 flash heads. Front lighting, I used two Bowen 500 flash heads with soft boxes attached. This diffused the lighting and gave a flattering, even light for the models.
The models on the shoot were amateur models – Katie Redman herself and two of her friends. After a few nerves at the outset, they were all fantastic. I showed them a few of the early shots, so that they could see that it was going well. This helped them to trust in me and be confident that they would like the results. The nerves soon settled, they enjoyed the shoot, it flowed well, and I don’t think it is very obvious that they were not professional models. I hope you agree.
