Day in the Life of a Photographer - Location

Most of my work in my portfolio is studio based. There's many reasons for this. The lighting is easier to control, if something goes wrong it's easily fixed and since I am a student, I'm taking advantage of the free studio before I no longer have one! But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy shoots on location. A few weeks back, an MUA approached me asking if I would consider collaborating with her for a bridal shoot. She had connections with a bridal shop and they were allowing her to borrow one of their dresses. As the dresses were expensive, they couldn't leave the shop meaning the shoot had to take place in the top of the shop. I documented the whole day and this is what happened.

The shoot took place at Noor Bridal House (https://www.facebook.com/Noorbridals.con/). It was due to start at 1pm and we were allowed to stay there until the shop closed at 6:30pm. I arrived 15 minutes early and waited for the model and MUA to turn up. This was in city centre Birmingham so naturally there was a lot of traffic and the MUA was 30 minutes late. It happens. All I could do was wait until all the team had turned up.

Everyone finally arrived at about 1:30 and we were taken upstairs. My first thought was that the lighting was fairly decent. I had no portable lights on me and in the studio I had flashes to help. With neither of these, I was relying a lot on natural and room lighting. They gave us the dress that we were allowed to photograph and the model went to the changing rooms to try it on. Whilst we were waiting, I had a wander to see what sort of shot I could take. The dresses in this shop were absolutely stunning! This was the first bridal shoot I had ever done and I wanted to take pictures of everything I saw. Unfortunately, we were only allowed one dress. But the dress was so beautiful I didn't really care.

The make-up process then started. Now, for Asian brides, for them to look as amazing as they do, the hair and make-up takes A LOT of time and effort...4 hours to be precise. We were already running late and I was worried that we wouldn't have enough time to get decent shots. The make-up had to look perfect! I knew how long it would take before I even agreed to do the shoot but that didn't stop me feeling the pressure to get this right, especially with unpredictable lighting.

Whilst the make-up was being done, I tried to make myself useful. My role didn't come till after the hair and make-up was finished so I helped hand things over to the make-up artist when she needed things, spent a good hour trying to find a light switch that apparently didn't exist even though there were lights in that room that were off. What I did mainly though, was to try and find a good backdrop. On location, you have to find a place appropriate to place the model. When you're in a studio, you have a backdrop. This is where your imagination has to come in. Fashion photos can be taken anywhere if you know how to do it. One of my favourite blog posts was explaining how photographer, Jenna Martin, did a location shoot with a model in a home improvement store to prove that you can take stunning photos...well literally anywhere! It might look a bit weird taking a glamorous model in a ball gown to B&Q for a fashion shoot, but the photos would look amazing.

https://fstoppers.com/bts/photographer-shoots-home-improvement-store-prove-good-photos-can-be-taken-205201

The main backdrop that I used was a golden curtain that was placed in front of a rail of dresses to cover them. The dress had gold in and it contrasted perfectly with the red. The creases also made an interesting affect. I got her to sit on a pink sofa...thing and took beauty shots from a height so that it cropped out all the clutter from the shop in the framing.

I had 1 hour to shoot before the shop closed. That’s not a lot of time! To avoid extra pressure, I set my camera to RAW so at least if I used the wrong settings, it could be easily fixed in the post processing. I had no choice but to work quickly. I took over 400 photos in an hour which must be some sort of record! I was really proud of the photos that came out of this shoot as were the MUA and model. To look at some more of their work, there social media accounts will be linked below!

MUA: https://www.instagram.com/naazneenmua/

Model: https://www.instagram.com/kieannaa/