Once upon a time I knew where my summer and autumn would take me, well.. at least to a workable degree.
Summer would be mostly about festivals, either working at them as a photographer at festivals like WOMAD or as a lighting designer, photographer or both at festivals like Glastonbury. Autumn, in between shooting headshots and portraits, would be dominated by September and the multi-headed beast that is London Fashion Week. Fashion Week takes up not only the week over which it runs, but often weeks afterwards editing and supplying images to the various designers and PRs for whom I had been shooting. Even when that was done, I would still be busy adding the latest shoots to my websites and social media platforms.
Beware of mysterious women roaming the backstage areas of Fashion Week in packs of three…
( Well it didn’t end well for the Thane of Cawdor.. just sayin’!)
Simple, Until….
COVID 19 pulled the rug out from under my world and I suspect to a large degree yours too.
Suddenly festivals are off.. fashion week is off and so too is just about every other professional activity I have known over the decades In which I have either been a photographer, a lighting designer or before that a sound engineer to the great and not always good.
At this point Zoom and Skype are now consuming my days, along with endless YouTube videos trying to explain to me how to hack my cameras into my video feed so I don’t have to look at myself rendered in some super wide screen aspect ratio, together with the obligatory magenta and blue cast that nearly all built in desktop computers seem to love.
Equally quickly I notice mundane items like video capture cards that only a fortnight ago could be purchased and shipped out in 1-2 days are like gold dust and a backlog of months is the new norm. At one point I decide to put my old sound engineer hat back on and set up a decent quality mic and place it on a boom arm so I’m not tripping over it to get to my iMac (or sounding like a Dalek). Even those go on back order.. “is nothing sacred?!”I can be heard to shout, together with a lot of unnecessary but satisfyingly colourful language.
Whaddya mean out of stock?!
Boom me up Scotty..
inbuilt iMac camera for your Zoom calls? no way Jose... I’m hacking my Canon thank you very much!
Eventually capture cards and mic boom arms arrive after a variety of devious alternatives avenues are explored and successfully navigated. Every delivery feels like a small victory over “ other people” in other words those who have in my eyes outrageously robbed professional multi-media types like myself of much needed kit by their sudden desire to become bloggers, YouTubers or worse pandemic motivated bandwagon jumping “ influencers” Me bitter? not a chance.
I don’t care how many followers you have lady.. you’re in my spot.
Ahh… The “I” word.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like to move with the times and all that jazz and I get that if someone has 100K followers on Instagram they can be great for your brand awareness. However you’d be amazed at the attitude of some of these people.
if you'd been in the pit at London Fashion Week as often as I have you’d understand what I mean. Trying for example to politely explain to influencer no 345 that just because you sat down in the spot that says “ House Photographer “ while we were backstage doing battle with curling tongs, hairdryers and other implements of potentially life altering facial disfigurement, it doesn’t mean you can throw a massive hissy fit because the actual House Photographer would like to stand is his or her spot.
I get that they can reach a lot of people with their Insta feeds and blogs but have some respect for the fact the house photographer is the guy or or gal whom the designer has actually paid to shoot their show and thus promote their designs to an audience of literally millions. Compared to that you’re not that relevant and anyway, what happened to being a stand up human being and doing your job at the same time?
Anyway, I digress…
So, better quality video and audio successfully achieved it was time to connect with friends and work pals and see how everyone was doing. At that time, I think the majority of people were very happy to have some quality R&R time with their families and the novelty of hooking up over Zoom or Skype, ideally with a beverage to hand had a strong pull. In my line of work most of the people I spend time with are delightful oddballs, being freelance is a strange game with even odder hours so you learn to roll with the punches and make good use of what time off you get.
I even indulged in all manner of activities I had hitherto avoided.. me? in a quiz.. at 2.am?!
“ Is there anybody out there?”
Quiz night… it’s best not to ask.
Anyhoo.. life inevitably intervenes and slowly people start to go back to work and the lockdown eases and you realise you can no longer enjoy being the only car on the road when you’re dropping off the shopping to the elderly in-laws. However, back to work is a rather unequal beast for people in my line of work. You can’t have Fashion Week in any meaningful capacity if no one can touch the models to do hair and make up and as for hordes of people all touching the outfits well.. you get the picture.
That leads me neatly to the next conundrum, how to do headshots without becoming an arty if well meaning Super-spreader?
Solution A) was to shoot outdoors. I am fortunate to live in Bath, City of Spas and Romans and Georgian buildings and Jane Austen. I am even more fortunate to live on the Royal Crescent, so Solution A was to shoot on the resident’s lawn right outside my door. However seeing as one of my main aims when shooting headshots is to put people at their ease, the idea of hordes of tourists pointing their camera and Insta feeds at my upcoming subject presented it self as a somewhat counter-productive approach. The solution I actually settled on at least initially was to set up in the rear garden of my property, the only real remaining issue being the British climate. Fortunately the weather Gods smiled on us and despite having to wrangle hair in the breeze we got a great result.
Socially distanced outdoor headshot session? we can do that. ( don’t forget the hairspray though)
Pleasant as the outdoor headshot session was, it became obvious that the weather would not play ball much longer and another solution had to be found.
Enter Solution B) Having discussed a variety of options with anyone who would listen, I realised that it was not asking too much of a client to keep to just one part of the studio to change outfits and generally beautify themselves as long as I provided a wardrobe rail for them to hang their clothes on. The distance between me and the subject is naturally more than two meters and my studio has very high ceilings.
Firing up the studio heating whilst opening the windows seems to create a perfectly pleasant working temperature and together with a lot of hand sanitiser and anti-viral wipes dotted everywhere, meant that with everyone being careful about what they touched and my scrupulously cleaning everything with which the client might come in touch, we had a plan.
A few tweaks to the usual approach were necessary, bringing your own mugs for tea and coffee for instance and my usual selection of complimentary mineral water had to be abandoned in favour of a BYO approach but in the end, nothing that caused any inconvenience, and before you could say “ Give me a bit more Bond villain in the eyes” we were up and running. ( yes.. I do actually say that.. it’s fascinating what it brings out in the unlikeliest of people)
Despite my first client slightly blindsiding me by saying she wanted “ something a bit wild” in addition to her more corporate headshots, ( it’s ok.. it was all above board if bloody funny towards the end!) it was a big success and it felt good to be back doing what I love, which is gently coaxing your inner Brad or Miley ( or Bond Villain) out of people once they have relaxed and are enjoying them selves.
Dr Evil’s more beautiful sister.. probably.
You can’t argue with a Bond Villain who’s also Count Dracula..well not unless your actually are James Bond or failing that handy with a crucifix..
Nothing is more satisfying than showing someone who isn’t an actor or performer an image of them selves they had no idea they could create and have them say the immortal words “ is that really me?”
Junior.. Aka my son and often my lighting stand-in….unless he’s quick and I don’t catch him!
I love shooting headshots at Fashion Week more than shooting the runway if I’m honest, you have to be quick and you often get shouted at a lot by PRs and stage managers who are seemingly always stressed, but when you get a good one it’s just the best feeling.
I try hard to bring the same level of care and style to the headshots I shoot for people’s social media or their acting portfolio or their company profile picture. I take my time with lighting and will shoot as long as it’s necessary to make everyone look their best, after all..why should the models have all the fun?!
Girl without a pearl earring…
So.. if Zoom and Skype and LinkedIn and Instagram and their ilk are here to stay with a vengeance ( as I suspect they are) and if you feel like discovering your inner Bond villain, get in touch.
You bring the fizzy water and the attitude and I’ll do the rest.
Namaste…