HOW TO... Do a photoshoot

Working as a music photographer for 2 years, I’ve worked with many artists at gigs and behind the scenes and it wasn’t until this year I started taking booking paid portrait shoots. As I have been building up a network for the past couple of years, I am now at the stage where I get enquired for shoots and have since done them with artists like Tyler Gorman and Luna Blue. Before, I would message artists to see if they would like to do them to build up my portfolio and work towards this stage.

In this article, I will be talking you through getting started, the booking process, planning a shoot, the day of it, editing, and how to send them over.

Getting started

When you’re just starting out, the best way to book photoshoots is by asking. You can do shoots with friends to build up confidence and start developing a portfolio so you can gain a bit of experience before working with artists. When you feel ready, you can message local bands and see if they would be interested in doing one.

A good template you can use is:

'Hi,

I’m a music photographer building up a portfolio and came across your band when I saw you are local to *your location*. I was wondering if you would be interested in doing a shoot? I have some great ideas and will send all the photos after for you to use.

Thank you!

*your name*'

Planning the shoot

Three things you need to do when planning a shoot are create a moodboard, choose locations, and plan outfits. You also have many factors to consider when planning and whilst these do depend on whether it’s outdoors or indoors, they all have relevance - lighting, weather, location accessibility, etc.

I worked with the artist Matilda Cole on a recent shoot. Matilda’s aesthetic has a vintage vibe and she always has colourful backgrounds in her photos so I created a moodboard that reflected this. A great website to use for creating them is Canva as you can easily drag in the images and move them about, and have different pages that all save as one PDF document. Some great advice I once received from a Creative Director at a label is to always carry a notebook to sketch and take photos of interesting things you see as visual pointers for present and future ideas. It may sound simple but it helps a lot and means I now have a large collection of inspiration I can look at any time I am planning a shoot. I went through this collection and pulled out some photos I felt fit Matilda’s vibe and put these together for her moodboard.

When planning locations, it is good to know the location well so it’s easier to come up with a list. If you don’t, having a walk around the area and speaking to people you know who live there is a great inspiration. With the pandemic, it meant we weren’t able to do inside locations like before so they had to all be outdoors. This provided a bit of a challenge as I like to use a lot of indoor locations as the weather in Brighton is very unpredictable, but I still found enough.

You need to consider the weather and lighting with the locations and always have a contingency plan prepared just in case the weather is bad. Always have enough indoor locations you can use if needed (if possible) and outdoor locations with shelter. If there isn’t a lot of light in a location, you can solve this by bringing a flashgun or lightbox to use, but beware that these can take away some features from the background. Make sure you know this in advance so you can organise the extra equipment if required.

I wrote up the list and sent it on to Matilda to make sure she was happy with them and to see if she’d like to change or add any.

Once you have your moodboards complete and locations scouted, you need to plan outfits. Sometimes, the artist will already have their style sorted and know what outfits they want to wear, and other times the artist will ask you what they should wear. The best way to do this is to look at your locations and the band’s image and give colour ideas for outfits that match both. You don’t want colours that will clash with the location’s colours - you want something that stands out. If the colours are relatively similar, the editing process will be a lot harder when you’re working on brightening the photos. Even if the artist knows what they want to wear, just make sure it’s not colours that will clash with the background too much. Red is normally a good choice for outdoor locations as it stands out against most backgrounds.

Equipment you will need

Make sure your camera is set up correctly and working before the shoot. I like to use the manual mode as it gives you more control over the photos you take and you can make sure the aperture stays low to give you blurred backgrounds.

Always check your batteries are fully charged before the shoot. You will need at least 2 as it’s very likely one will run out during the shoot and you don’t want to be left with no power.

Even if I’m not planning on using it, I always bring my flashgun (and spare batteries for it) as you will usually end up using it as sometimes a location might not have much lighting as expected and it saves you from having to use a high ISO and producing grainy images. I always bring 2 different flash diffusers too as they both have different effects on the flash - a bounce diffuser softens the image and make sure the flash doesn’t just stay on the face which is great for close up shots as without the image can be extremely sharp and the face overexposed, whereas the rubber softbox just softens the image but can still overexpose the face so is better for long shots. Which one you use depends on how close you want the photo to be. Always point the flash away from the face and instead at the sky, as it has a much nicer effect and won't affect the models' eyes.

Lens wise, 50mm f/1.8 are known to be the best for portrait photography, but you don’t have as much control as the zoom length is fixed. A great one is the 24-70mm f/2.8 as it’s so versatile and can be used for all types of photography. I alternate between the two when doing a shoot, but prefer using the 24-70mm and use it the most. However, you can use any lens, but the lower the aperture they have, the better.

I also bring a notebook with notes for the shoot in, as well as the moodboard, portable charger, and a hairbrush and hairspray (to make sure hair is in place - this means there’s no stray hairs on the face and makes the editing process easier).

The day of the shoot

On the day, agree a location and time to meet. Depending on the number of locations, 3-4 hours should be enough for a standard shoot where you can produce at least 15 photos. I decide my order of locations depending on how far they are from each other and how the weather is likely to progress throughout the day.

Make sure you are shooting in RAW as although these save as larger files, it means you can adjust the photos highlights, shadows etc which you can’t do when they’re saved as JPEG. Also check that the copyright in settings is set to your name as otherwise the photos will import with the wrong metadata and you will have to change this on each photo individually, which can be quite time consuming.

For the shoot with Matilda, we met at Brighton station as our first location was under the station bridge. Take photos from different angles and different zooms, and make sure to get a variety of poses at each location.

A challenge we came across was the weather. Although the forecast had been sunny, there were quite a few showers. We adapted by doing the locations with shelter whenever it rained, and moving to the ones without as soon as the rain stopped. You will find quite a few locations you hadn’t thought of before as you’re doing the shoot, so don’t stress if it isn’t going as planned - these spontaneous locations often end up producing the best photos! Near the end of the shoot, the sun came out just as we were walking back through the Pavillion Gardens, so I decided to get just a few more photos there as the sun wasn’t out when we were shooting there earlier. The lighting ended up being perfect and we got some incredible shots that we weren't able to get earlier with natural lighting.

The editing process

After the shoot, make sure you thank the artist, and follow up with when you expect the photos to be ready. This could be between 3-7 days depending on how many photos you took and how quick you are at editing. You’ll find at first it will take you longer, but as you get more experience and start creating presets, it will get quicker.

I edit mine on Lightroom CC & Photoshop as I find these to be the best softwares for photo editing. However, there’s many others out there like Snapseed, so see what software works best for you and stick with the one that you’re most comfortable with.

I start by making small adjustments such as contrast, highlights, shadows, before moving onto the tone and point curves. These curves can really change what your photos look like, and you can set your own editing style with these. I then move onto white balance and vibrance/saturation, before using the colour mixer to adjust any colours that are too bright/too dark, before colour grading the images. The last steps are clarity and dehaze, both which can soften/sharpen the image, and then grain if I want to go for a film look. You can then copy and paste the settings onto other images and make slight adjustments where needed, and save this as a preset for future shoots if you’re happy with it. This will make the editing process much quicker and easier next time as all you will have to do is paste it onto the photos and make a few adjustments.

If there’s objects or writing in the background I’d like to remove, or any stray hairs I want to clean up, I open the image up in photoshop and use the spot removal tool to do this. You can also use content-aware fill, although this isn’t always accurate. When you are done, save the image and close Photoshop - the edited image will reopen back in Lightroom automatically.

When exporting the photos, make sure metadata with copyright is on (so your images are protected). You can save in a JPG file, making sure the quality is set to 100%. For general use, I save with small dimensions as these are already quite high quality and load faster. If you need the photos for a use such as in a magazine, save them in the full size. The file size is a lot bigger and they take longer to download, but the quality will be great for large prints.

To send the photos over, WeTransfer is the best site to use. You can transfer all the files at once and either send them in an email or get a link. When downloaded, they all save at once and it is an easy process for the artist. You can also see who has downloaded them. When sending them, always make sure to include the download link in the message and thank the artist once again for doing it and ask them to credit you when they are used.

A standard message you could send is:

'Hi,

Here's the link for the photos from the shoot on *insert date* - *insert link* - thank you so much for doing it! Please make sure my Instagram is tagged in any photos that are used.

Thank you!

*insert name*'

As you own these photos (unless otherwise discussed), post them on your social media and use them on your portfolio! It’s a great way to promote your work and build up a following, and it will lead you to eventually being asked to do shoots.

Good luck!