Anatomy of a Shoot – Challenged to Create
Paul reflects on his perfect portrait session, full of fun and laughter, and featuring a couple of familiar subjects well used to his camera. With the opportunity to regularly change models, looks, hairstyles and lighting, it was a challenge that made for a brilliant end result!
WORDS & IMAGES: PAUL WILKINSON
I SHOULD SAY right at the start of this month’s column that I love shoots such as this one, the image featured here being the end result of an entire afternoon of laughter and portraits. Oh, and a team of make-up artists and hair stylists involved, making sure everything remained constantly on point throughout. What could be better?
I’ve known a couple of the people involved in this shoot for a long time – some of you might recognise Vicki and Katherine from previous articles. Up until now, they’ve been models for us, but this time they were here as clients. Vicki and her business partner, Rosie, have set up a new hair salon, Keeble & Brooks, and they asked us to create some commercial images for them.
Creating portraits for commercial use, whether it’s for authors, musicians, artists, CEOs, entrepreneurs or, as here, hair stylists, is always one of the most creative things I can be asked to do. Of course, you’re nearly always under time pressure as well, which just seems to add to the energy of the occasion.
The shoot was a blast: constantly changing models, looks, hairstyles and lighting. When I’m working like this, I find it useful to imagine each image on a poster, in a brochure or published in a magazine. You know, the kind of one you might flick through while waiting for a haircut.
