Yesterday I directed a photo shoot for the Anomaly brief which wanted you to try and get more people to play table tennis. I chose to aim my efforts towards encouraging students to play because this is the demographic who's needs and lifestyle I am most aware of. I was supposed to have up to 6 people turning up for the photo shoot but I only ended up having four - which wasn't to bad because it meant we could choose the best vests to wear and have more accessories. It did also mean that I had to be involved in the shoot to make up the numbers. I really wanted to just direct the shoot to make sure I got the images I wanted, it just meant I had to rely more upon Ed. This wasn't a problem though because I trust him and know he is good at what he does from past experience.
After we all got changed into our outfits I just asked everyone to muck about with the bats and balls. I wanted everyone to be relaxed and less self-conscious and this seemed to work. We began shooting with all 4 of us on the same shot in a variety of different poses but I soon realised after going back and forward to look at what Ed had taken (another problem of not being stood directing), that it would be better to take shots one person at a time and then photoshop everyone together after. The reason for this was firstly because peoples shadows were getting in the way of each other and also that the compositions were not as exactly what I wanted. I thought I would get much better results if I put the different elements together afterwards so I could pick and choose how I wanted it to look. I also tried to use lighting that came in from an angle to cast a shadow across the face but soon realised that this looked far too dark and sinister for a light hearted comedy table tennis competition and went back to the original front on lighting.
Everyone was really good at throwing themselves into pulling an array of funny, quirky and some downright odd faces, especially Sam who even managed to pull a muscle in his neck on one particular gurn. I told each person to adopt a certain style or persona. For example Jake was the "ladies man" and pulled off a series of sexy and pouty poses. Sam was a bit mental and a competitive power house". Tom - "The geek" (sorry Tom) and I was a meditating hippie. The decision to do this was spare of the moment - it just seemed to fit when we did the shoot and I think it worked really well.... we were like power rangers! I learnt that you cant always plan every single aspect of something like this (although the more planning the better) and that improvisation and adaptation are key to achieving the best results.
Finally I got Ed to take portrait pictures to use for the top trump cards. By this time everyone had got into there characters really well I felt and I was really pleased with what we had all achieved. Thanks for all the hard work guys.
No comments:
Post a Comment