Towards the end of May, I got an email from my website letting me know someone had booked a 1-hour head-shot session. This booking was made without speaking to me and from finding me on Google and looking at my work, that is a nice thing to hear.
As a photographer you want to shoot good work/good stories, be successful and also your portfolio to stand on it's own. It seems that the hours of work prepping my portfolio and site were worth it at least in the case of this job.
I called Tony as soon as I could to iron out the details and get a solid idea ready. The brief was fairly simple, to shoot head-shots for web, social media and business use and provide colour, black & white and less formal options.
Once the date was in the calendar and the brief clarified I got to work prepping for the head-shot session by doing some research about my client, who is he? what work does he do?
For research I will check out websites, blogs and social media profiles to gleam information whilst making notes along the way. I usually make a few notes to use as talking points in case things get quite on set. Please let me take this opportunity to say that Tony was great to work with and the shoot flowed well, it's just you sometimes get shy people through the door and it's my job to get them talking and relaxed.
Before Tony arrived at the studio I had a basic set dialled in with lights ready to go because the last thing I want to do is keep people waiting whilst I set up the first set. I make sure the...
1. Appropriate background is set up.
2. The key light is rigged.
3. 2 Lights are ready on the background in case I end up shooting on white.
The equipment I set-up will vary shoot to shoot of course.
Once I was all set it's time to start the warm up shots... wait what?
Let me explain. Whilst I can shoot straight from the start I do prefer to shoot some warm up frames first and make sure all lights are dialled in, no tubes are on the way out, the tether is working. In my experience I have also found that clients/subjects take a little time to warm up also and get use to the camera pointing at them.
With both myself and tony settling in to the shoot we started to get some great head-shots all whilst talking about work, life and whatever subject came up in conversation, Direction was given here and there and collaborative ideas put forward but the bulk of what happens on set other than the technical camera stuff is just simply... talk.
I will leave you with a gallery of head-shots taken on the day.
