Tips For Producing a Fashion Editorial On Location In The Winter Months
In the UK, the coldest, dampest, darkest part of the year has well and truly arrived - and as someone who enjoys producing most of her editorial work on location, that isn’t always that fun! Last weekend, I produced an editorial for a magazine entirely on location, and in the run up to the big day, as well as on the shoot day itself, I DEFINITELY learnt a thing or two. So here are some tips from me to you, on how to survive when producing a fashion editorial when its almost 0°C outside!
Plan Your Timeline Extensively:
I’m known for being organised during a shoot any time of the year, but honestly, if you’re going to get OCD about anything, make it your location shoot during the winter. I've added a screenshot of the timeline I sent everyone on the call sheet here so that you can see what I mean. You need literally plan your timings as much as you possibly can!
As you can see on my timeline, I’ve used my experience to gage how long things will take. In my experience, things always take a little bit longer than you think. For example, when the team arrive in the morning, they may arrive for 8am, but they won’t necessarily start actually prepping the model for 15 minutes while they set up, say hello, grab a coffee, etc. Also, sometimes people get caught in traffic, and they’re 10-15 minutes late as well. So literally always give yourself more time than you think.
You’ll also see that I’ve accounted for travel time. The location for this shoot was really close to the prep location, so we didn’t need long. But you still need to make sure you account for that travel time! If you don’t, you’ll quickly realise that you under estimated how long everything was going to take.
I also make sure to allocated each look a time slot. I shoot fast, and I don’t use artificial light on location, so I knew that I could get each shot done in 15 minutes (I also had planned each shot out extensively to speed things up - more on that later).
Some looks were quicker than 15 minutes to shoot, others longer. What matters is that I knew that I was sticking to my allocated overall timings, and I would have only known that if I’d planned it out as much as this!
Start as Early as You Can:
I’m typing this in December, when the hours of daylight are about 6 to 7 hours long each day. That’s not very long! You can see on timeline that I’ve written out exactly when sunrise and sunset was for the specific location. It’s so important that you look up that information and know your timings. Also be aware that if it’s overcast on your shoot day, you’ll loose light a lot earlier than if it’s sunny. So take that into account!
With all that said, I made sure that we started as early as possible. Fun fact: we were ideally supposed to start this shoot at 7am, but because of trains not running as early on the Sunday, we had to start later. This made it even more critical that I knew what I was doing for each shot! But by starting as early as possible, it meant that we had as much daylight as we could get. And the bonus was that ended up finishing earlier than I had anticipated - so everyone got to go home and sleep!
Plan Your Shot List
This point is CRITICAL. I used to be a fashion photographer who winged in on shoots. I’d have a vague idea of what I was going to create, but never really came to shoots with a shot list. All that changed in the last year, when I began to tell much more vivid stories in my work. The extra effort has not only elevated my work massively, but it’s made me even more efficient on set, and get the job done faster.
When it’s cold, the light is fading fast, or the weather isn’t on your side, it’s even more critical that you get on location and know what you’re doing!
In the run up to the big day, I moodboarded like mad. I ordered props. I visited the location a bunch of times, and took images of the specific areas that I knew I’d want to put my model in for an image. I also went as far as drawing out a storyboard with the location images that I’d done (yes I know, I’m an absolute artistic genius!!!).
All jokes aside, this step made not only my job easier, but the whole teams job easier. We knew what we needed to do, where we needed to go, and how we needed to do it incredibly fast. My model thanked me for being so quick!
Watch The Weather Forecast Like A Hawk (but not too much)
In the UK at this time of the year, the weather is generally grey and gloomy. It can also be changeable, and that isn’t very helpful for location shoots. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make a final decision on the actual shoot date until a few days before once I had a clearer idea of the forecast. For that reason, we had two options, the Saturday and the Sunday. Everyone was on stand by, and we spoke as a team to decide which day would work best. In the end, the weather forecast was probably more stress than anything, because they got it totally wrong. They forecasted rain on Saturday (the day we ideally wanted to shoot) which didn’t happen. Thankfully, the Sunday’s weather was also fine.
So even though this time it didn’t work out properly, I don’t regret the way that we went about things. Having shoot options and not making a final decision until a few days before the shoot worked. If you can do that, I’d recommend it. But if you can’t, watch that forecast!!!
Plan For Changes
As I mentioned, the weather forecast made us have to change our plans. Thankfully, I’d already prepared two call sheets! One for the Saturday and one for the Sunday. This meant that I could quickly send the right one out to everyone at the last minute, as I’d written it out days earlier. I knew everything was in order and the team knew what to do. Plan for things to change - because they will.
Have Everything Ready the Night Before
I do this for almost all of my shoots anyway, but it’s even more important when you’re going to be shooting outdoors, on location, in Winter! Have all of your kit charged, packed, working and ready to go so that when you get up at the crack of dawn for your shoot, you’re not running around trying to get kit ready.
Visit The Location at Various Different Times in the Day
I had the advantage that the location for this shoot was only 10 minutes from where I live, which made it incredibly easy to go and see how it looked throughout the day. I know that for all shoot that isn’t always possible! But if you can, do go and see it in the morning and in the afternoon at least. It will help you to understand where the light will be, how it will be reacting at different times of day, and where you’ll want to shoot!
Even better? Go during different weathers. If you can go on a sunny day, and on a cloudy day to see how it looks in different lights, you’re onto a winner.
If you can’t do that, check if there are any webcams in that location that you can view. If that fails, head to Instagram and search for your location and look through other people’s images. You’ll be able to get a better idea of what the location looks like that way than if you had never been before!
Make Sure You’ve Got Permission
Shooting on location is generally more tricky than shooting in studio because you need to check that you actually are legally allowed to shoot in that spot. If you dont’ already know this, public land isn’t often public. For example, in the UK, the national trust owns a lot of the land that people can visit or walk on. They also own the rights to who can take photographs and film on that land, and you would need to purchase a permit from them to produce an editorial. I know that the national trust can be extremely expensive, but it is important that you check where you’re shooting, and who owns the land.
In this instance, I was lucky that the area I wanted to shoot in was managed by the village’s council. I contacted them directly, and in exchange for a donation to one or two of the local charities, I was given permission to shoot there. I had to do a simple risk assessment and show them proof of my public liability insurance, and private indemnity insurance, and I was good to go!
It might sound like a lot of hassle, but it’s so important to do this. It meant that the whole day whilst on location, I was relaxed and knew that if anyone asked what we were doing, we were perfectly fine to be there, and I wouldn’t get any nasty surprises!
Keep Your Model Warm
This is the most important part of this whole post I think. You absolutely need to make sure that you’re keeping your model warm as much as you possibly can. On the day we shot this specific editorial, the maximum temperature was 4°C. It was very, very, very cold. To keep the model warm I had:
a hot water bottle
a flask of hot tea
gloves
hand warmers
leggings
blankets
a warm coat
a hat
warm socks
cars nearby so that she could jump in and warm up if needed
She was an absolute trooper and really powered on through despite being cold. But not only is it incredibly important to keep you model warm from a humane point of view, but if you want to get beautiful images, you’ll only manage that if she’s able to model properly! And she won’t be able to do that at all if she’s frozen solid. So do it not only for your model, but for your images too!
In order to keep her as warm as possible for as long as possible, we only unwrapped her when I was absolutely ready to shoot the images. That meant walking her over to the shot I’d be shooting with her wrapped up, and only taking all of her warm bits off once I’d checked my settings, metered the light, and framed everything and knew I’d be happy. Then we’d strip her off, quickly take the images, and wrap her back up again asap!
Another tip is to speak to your stylist, and coordinate shooting the looks in order of warmest to coldest. This meant that our model was being kept as warm as possible, for as long as possible, and ending the shoots with the coldest pieces of clothing. That meant that she’d be able to run back to the car, and get warm again!
Take Breaks
This final point is key. I know that on days when the light isn’t around for long, the temptation is to just “power on through” and not take any breaks. But at the very least, you must make time for a lunch break. When its cold, people need a chance to warm up, sit down, eat some food, drink something hot, and get ready to go out again. Not to mention toilet breaks! So on this particular shoot day I scheduled in an hour long lunch break. It ended up being a god send!
I initially wanted to have two smaller breaks as well (between looks two and three, and five and six) but we ended up just going four looks at a time, and having a slightly longer lunch break, which worked well for everyone. But had everyone needed a break, I’d accounted for enough time in the shoot day to make that happen.
So there you go!
My top tips on how to shoot in cold weather. Honestly, the reason that I’ve written this is because when I was prepping for this shoot in particular, I was looking for a blog post on this topic - and I couldn’t find one. So hopefully this will be helpful to you all going forward!
I know there’s a lot in this post, and shooting on location can be a challenge at any time in the year, let alone when the temperatures are freezing. But I believe that as long as you’re prepared, think about those who are going to be with you and how you can help make things easier for them, and be as efficient as you can, you’ll do absolutely fine.
