Collaboration

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a two day photo shoot with a client & friend of mine, David Smoler of Studio Paris. The brief for the shoot was to provide images of professional hair designs for a client of David's, which were to be submissions for a national competition. There was also a lot of very specific fashion involved, which was provided by another client, as well as killer makeup on all the models - again provided by another professional who had a keen interest in the project.

Essentially my job in all this was to assist David in creating the 'look' that he had envisioned for each series of images (as well as getting some much needed exercise lugging lots of heavy equipment around). I supplemented David's lighting gear with my own so he had more options to choose from. I'm into gels and all sorts of lighting modifiers, some of which David hadn't used before, so it was a great way for him to play & experiment, and a great challenge for me to create the lighting effects that another photographer was seeing in their mind's eye.

It was a great experience for me in a number of ways. It's not the sort of shoot I have been involved with in the past, so the different style of photography was great to experience. It was also really valuable seeing how all the elements are co-ordinated for a shoot of this scale such as separate hair, fashion & makeup artists all doing their thing. The client sitting in on the shoot and having a voice in the process as we worked was also a new experience too (all good). David was great in letting me have a fairly free hand in setting up the lighting - we would have a chat about what he wanted to achieve, what sort of mood was required, and away I went. Soft boxes, grids, beauty dish, gels, reflectors - even mixing studio strobes with Nikon SB900s - they all had their place, and all were important tools in the process. I even ended up doing some DJ work with the music on day 2.

It was a long two days for sure, but that it how it goes, and what the job required. The results were well worth it. Over the two days there were 6 different models and about a dozen themes / sets that were shot... culminating in a ton of images to sort through (around 1500 I think) which have to be whittled down to just six finals for the submission. Both David & myself were really happy with the results, as was the main client and all others involved. We were also able to shoot some personal work in amongst everything else which was a huge plus too.

Unfortunately the submission process will not be over until early next year so I am unable to post any final images at this point (except for a lighting setup shot that I really like that doesn't give anything away).

Thanks again to David for giving me the opportunity to jump onboard - the collaboration was a great one, and won't be the last I'm sure.