During my last semester of studying Photography at Durham College, I took a portfolio development course. In this course, the students were challenged in organizing creative shoots to make images that would later be included in our published portfolio books.
One of my many challenges as a student photographer was finding models. I had changed my plan for this project many times, as I kept finding and losing models to help me with the project.
For this specific project, I needed to create a series of six images that fit in with my portfolio, but were slightly out of my comfort zone. For the first half of my portfolio, I had done some basic, and I hate to say it but kind of boring white backdrop, in studio portraiture. Beautiful images, don't get me wrong, but not the only thing that I wanted to be known for as I built my business. So naturally, I came up with a new plan. Colourful studio portraits. Exciting, right?
My plan was perfectly falling into place. I coordinated with six different models, bought monochromatic outfits in six different colours to match the fun seamless backdrops, and was ready and excited to shoot. That was, until the day before the shoot, when the flu decided to make it's way through town and got not only me, but four of my six models scheduled to come to the studio that day.
Usually, I would be the kind of person to push on through, but this was not one of those times. For the first time in my life, I had to cancel a photoshoot. I was devastated. I felt the most unprofessional that I ever had, and I began to worry if these models would ever trust me again. Not only this, but my deadline was quickly approaching, and I no longer had a solution.
I took a few days to rest, and within 72 hours I was feeling like my normal self again. However, I was now 48 hours to my deadline with no set plan and what felt like a weight laying on my chest. I couldn't take the feeling anymore, so I did the only thing I thought could work: I sent out a Hail Mary text message to a group chat of my closest friends asking if any of them would be interested in modelling. Of the eight people I messaged, one replied, and that was all I needed. I was beyond relieved.
Both my model and I had a very tight timeline, as we were hosting an even together later that afternoon. So suddenly, we had three hours to shoot, and six distinct images to capture. Originally, we were going to go to the studio and do those colourful portraits, but I got to thinking that maybe the studio stuff was becoming too repetitive. It wasn't representing me accurately as an artist.
So now, we were downtown Bowmanville, with a suitcase full of clothes, my camera, flashes, and a vision.
Prior to the shoot, we went to all creatives favourite little corner of the internet, Pinterest. We had a vision to create a beautiful editorial shoot, with next to no plan. We ran around our hometown scouting out locations, which ended up including the outside of a travel agency, the booths in our favourite cafe, the quaint bar on the corner of the Main Street, the laundromat, and the record store.
I used to be a very introverted person. Become a photographer had forced me out of that. When you work in this industry, you need to be able to talk to sell yourself and your work. In this particular case, you needed to be able to ask businesses and locations if you could shoot on their property. Usually, I was more organized than this. With emails being sent out before shoots, and having everything planned out to a T. This was not one of those shoots.
To our surprise, each business we entered was more than happy to let us shoot in their space. In fact, some of the businesses asked for the images in order to use for promotional purposes. What started as a student project turned into continuing to build my client base.
The hardest part of this all was quick-changing the outfits. Although the entire project was shot within three hours, that was the last thing we wanted it to look like. We wanted each location to have distinct outfits that contributed to the narrative of that particular image. We worked to make the outfits match their locations, whether that was purely off of the vibe of the venue, or matching colours and textures of clothing to their background counterparts.
We wanted the outfits to create this 70s vibe, which was also partially achieved by the punchy flash technique that I had decided to use. Hard, direct lighting.
However, this project was shot in February in Ontario, which is nothing short of absolutely freezing. We brought along blanket and a clip to achieve quick changes outdoors when needed. My model arrived wearing layers of clothes underneath her jacket, so that when we were done with one outfit, we could remove a layer and instantly be onto the next outfit, and head to the next location.
Sometimes, we got lucky, especially when we went to establishments that had restrooms or change rooms. That felt like a reward, almost.
My favourite location that we shot in this day was the quaint little bar on the corner of the street, that we had been in a few times before. I twas 11am, and we walked in the moment of opening. I walked over to the owner of the bar and pitched her my idea, and asked if I could use the space for 15 minutes.
She was more than happy to allow us to shoot, and then offered us the private upstairs room of the bar. When she showed us this space, it was like a little studio upstairs. Plenty of natural light, textured brick on one side of the wall, and a beautiful beige on the other. It felt like we had hit the jackpot. We decided to take some time an use this space to try out some other ideas we had, not necessarily ones that would be going in the portfolio.
I really think that the moral of the story is that things aren't always going to go the way that you planned, and that that is going to happen more often than you think in the photography industry. Things fall through, and it is important that you learn how to adapt and overcome.
I am thankful that my original photoshoot fell through, because it lead me to discovering a style of work that had quickly become my favourite. Since doing this project, almost all of my work takes place on location, which is something that I never even considered including in my portfolio before. Although sure, those colourful portraits would have been fun, this allowed me to discover my style as a photographer, and I never plan on turning back.
