Visions, a Blog

How I Work: Before the Shoot

Everyone has their own style of working, subtleties in their style that influence the overall product. For retail photography I can give you the rundown of how I work so that there may be a much better understanding of the process.

Yes, we work at night after store closing. Makes it much easier for all involved save the poor store manager or employee who gets “stuck” with us. I hate being in the way of store employees and their customers as we have quite a bit of equipment and have the need to pretty much take over a space while shooting. Moving product, merchandisers and the like are pretty much norm and having lights with cords around makes for easy entanglement. Liability wise, it’s much better to leave anyone unnecessary to the shoot out of it.

I usually try to get on site before store closing. As my assistant and I try to fly into the city earlier in the day, we check into the hotel and get some food in our stomachs before the shoot. I like to have the client along for dinner to discuss the project and generally B.S. Usually, we’ll bring a stash of eats to keep us sustained throughout the night and as any of my art directors will attest, we bring it all to share.

Usually, it’s not the most healthiest of foods, so let me know ahead of time if you prefer anything special. After doing this for so long…we know what you like. Seems like it’s always the same stuff that is the first to go-it’s not usually the healthy stuff either…chocolate and Red Bull sound familiar?

After the meet and greet, we usually do a walk through to get the feel of the space. Sometimes, we have already received blueprints and “happy snaps” from the client so we have a feel, but nothing is better than being on site to get the feel for the space. My assistant calls this the “designer bitch” where we hear of all the issues that went with the design and installation of the space. I will sometime take a camera with me through the walk through and take a few handhelds to bring up the images on my computer to discuss angles. That helps us plan for the evening. And then we roll up the sleeves and have at it….