Behind The Scenes on Marie Claire Arabia
Whilst I was on my break from creating content for you all, I put together one of my most ambitious editorials ever for Marie Claire Arabia. You've probably seen it by now, but in case you haven't you can see it here!
I've shared before how much I love to shoot on location, but in the UK, Winters make shooting outdoors really tough, and honestly, not a lot of fun. So for the past two years, I've been working hard to build a portfolio of work where I bring nature into the studio. This editorial was another addition to that project.
The idea came to me in the late summer, when I stumbled on a backdrop for hire featuring a moonscape. I loved it, and built an entire moodboard for a shoot based on it. Sadly, when I enquired about hiring it, it was no longer available, so I knew then that I'd need to bring a set designer on board. I asked Kiara Gourlay, who I've worked with a few times before, if she would be interested in doing the shoot with me, and she said yes.
Above, you can see the first three slides of the proposal that I put together for the shoot. I used this proposal not only to share with the people that I wanted to come on board to do the shoot with me, but also the magazines that I was pitching to.
I want to be transparent - I sent this to a lot of magazines before Marie Claire said yes to it! It took a few weeks, but it always does. Pitching concepts for editorials to magazines is tough, but if you love your idea enough and keep pitching, someone will eventually say yes.
I knew for this shoot that I wanted two sets - one with a moonscape, and another with a painted backdrop that we could play with lighting on. I also planned to do a bit of light painting - a technique that I've not actually done a lot of, but felt like it suited this concept really well. I REALLY enjoyed light painting, and since shooting this story, it's something that I definitely want to do more of!
If you're wondering what light painting looks like, you can see a TikTok video of us creating these images here.
The rest of the lighting set ups were quite simple. I knew from my references that I wanted to keep things soft, but directional (meaning that you can still really tell where the light was coming from).
For the image above, we had one very large Source 4 light pointing at the backdrop, and lighting most of the scene. This also created the lovely round shape on the backdrop in the images See below to get a behind the scenes view:
On the left of the image, you can also see the large dome that we hired for the main continuous light. This dome created a really lovely, soft, glowing light, but that didn't spread too far… it felt a lot like actual moon light!
It created this image:
Another thing that I always do when planning shoots is create a slide focused on the styling direction I imagine the story to take, and also the hair and make up.
I share all of this with the creative team, and then they share their thoughts and ideas, and we build on my initial ideas together.
What I love so much about fashion photography is how ideas grow and develop thanks to team work!
This shoot became so much more than I ever dreamt of, thanks mostly to everyone else who came on board and brought it to life!
I need to give a massive shout out to both my assistants Sasha Vanner and Lily Sadin for this shoot, because they REALLY stepped up and lead the way with the lighting. I'll always put my hand up and say that I am not the oracle when it comes to lighting. I know what I want to final shots to look like, I share my vision, and then we work as a team to bring that to life. Sasha and Lily were monumental on this day. Having strong assistants to work on your shoots with you is worth its weight in gold! Spoil your assistants and make them feel appreciated.
If you're interested in learning how to put shoots like this together for your own portfolio, my online course “Perfect Portfolio” will be back on sale again very soon, ready for a new cohort of students! The doors to the course will open February 20th, so mark your calendars if you're interested in joining. You can learn all about the course here.
