Moodboard antics

This time of year used to be dedicated to shooting clothing either in my old studio, or on location somewhere un-glamorous. One of the more interesting repeated briefs, was the creation of mood boards for website use – images made up of various clothing and prop elements, shot against some sort of contextual background related to a particular season and style of clothing range. The couple of shots here show compositions around the themes of gardening and motorcycling. The shooting itself is pretty simple, as long as you have the equipment to do it in the space provided. I needed to be up high on a platform ladder, shooting with a longish lens to minimise distortion. Three flash heads were bounced off the silver ceiling from a distance to create very even, very soft & flat light as per the brief. The shots were usually manipulated after the basic files were supplied, with Instagram type filters applied or whatever.

The hard work was really in the preparation of the space, and the creation of the set, including the styling. Each frame was an effort in lifting, sourcing, and styling the various elements into place, test-shooting, reviewing, re-shooting etc until the acting art director was happy with the composition. Some of the sets had kids ride-on cars, full size motorbike tyres, oil cans, bags of sand, gravel, artificial turf, as well as the actual garments being highlighted. It would generally take a full day to complete six finished images. One of the shots needed the impression that there was the glow of a fireplace nearby. This was achieved by positioning a speed light to the side of the set, and covering it with a Sainsbury’s carrier bag. Low tech solutions often work best.

I miss the cut and thrust of this commercial work. It’s a different sort of life I have now, with weeks that are less intense, and way less profitable than before, but you need to balance your quality of life against the amount of cash you have in your pocket. Definitely getting harder to have both in these tough times.