With sustainability blooming within the fashion industry I couldn't resist picking up a new project with Hayden Hill. A brand new brand based in the USA and UK, it seemed like an exciting opportunity to launch this brand into a market that is massively growing within the fashion industry. Hayden Hill is soon to be launching a collection of sustainable and eco friendly made garment storage pieces. With regular content creation and social strategy days lined up, it's going to be exciting to be involved in the growth of a new brand. Watch this space! First content photography shoot took place in my studio in Dorset and the Dorset countryside.
You don’t need a team of creatives to create your own content
My style of work focuses on telling an untold story, usually behind the scenes and taking a natural approach to my photography work. I work with outdoor and lifestyle brands as a photographer and social media strategist. Alongside this, I also create content, usually modelling myself, to give brands engaging lifestyle imagery to bring their products and brands to life.
Why not use a model? Sometimes I do but I think it depends on the brief. Especially starting out or just trying to create some content for social media, I think the best thing to do is take a product, head to a location and play around with creating engaging photographs yourself!
I think working solo brings out another element of creativity and makes you think about how you are going to create a series of images on your own, whilst still making them appear professional. There are a few factors to consider, the main one being that I always factor in whether I would be suitable for the brand. I always try to approach brands that I would wear myself or I feel comfortable modelling. This way your photographs will have more natural results.
Here is a recent example of a series of product lifestyle photographs I shot with Hunter Boots. I live in wellies. I have tried so many different boots but nothing has compared to my Hunter Fields. Winter or Summer, walking in these boots has been comfortable and practical. I wear my Hunter Boots on photography shoots, exploring, walking the Dorset countryside and even shopping! Unlike other wellingtons that feel like an effort to spend long periods of time in, my Hunter Fields have been the ultimate walking boot! So I chose this product to work with…
I took some time to head to one of my favourite walking locations in Dorset with my pair of Hunter boots, my Canon 5d mk iV, a film light (because the light was quite flat), tripod, remote trigger and my dog and Landrover Defender (the props!). I had some idea of composition and what I wanted to achieve from the shoot but the majority of my inspiration came from the environment and just exploring the area. It is quite a workout shooting and modelling all by yourself, although I use a remote, I like to refer back to the preview to check the composition and how it looks. If you do this, remember to mark the spot you took your first shot! Throughout every series I do, my message is alway to ‘highlight an untold story’ so I include a range of angles that highlight different aspects of the product I’m focusing on. This includes close up product details as well as details within the landscape. You want to show the whole surroundings to give your audience a sense of the environment.
I styled this shoot with Hunter Boots based on the environment. Neutral and beige made a nice colour palette for this series and I thought about the colours and tones and how this would appear on my feed. My outfit choice didn’t really need too much thinking about but I choose something that was a little quirky, a bit of me and also a little relevant to Hunters brand image.
Once you start building up these shoots and a bank of content / your portfolio, you can then think about how you are going to use them. Whether you are creating content to build up your social media presence, adding to your website content or turning your shoot experience into a blog post. Here are a few ideas of some of the ways I’ve been reusing content recently that I have found has increased engagement and kept my clients brands still active and in the forefront of their audience and followers mind when scrolling through social media.
Reusing photographs to create new blog posts - even though you may have used these photographs in a previous blog post, use them again with a new meaning.
Reach out to your customers, connections, fans for reviews and testimonials - each review can create a new post
Get your blog posts on air as podcasts - podcasting has gotten pretty big lately. If you have a detailed blog post in your achieve, pull them out and dust them off. With a little reformatting, editing and scripting, they make excellent podcasts.
Tagging the right people - Reposting what others have shared from your feed you still remain forefront of peoples mind and active online.
Collaborating with influencers and like minded content creators could also be a low budget option if you are looking for fresh new content. I offer this content creation service to outdoor and lifestyle brands and it is something I love doing. Check out examples of all of my content creation and solo photography projects here
Howes and Wayko
Beautifully handcrafted in Great Britain, Howes and Wayko London work with textures, colours and sustainable exotic materials to produce the finest luxury countryside and shooting clothing and accessories. Shot in Somerset at the Owl Lodge Shooting School, this photography shoot aims to capture these beautiful qualities and bring the details to life within the countryside environment.
On Home Turf with Candace Campbell
It’s been a while since I have done a photography project for myself. I love experimenting with fashion and styling and fashion photography really does allow you to experiment with so much. From lighting, equipment to props and imagination. I love telling stories within my work and I knew my friend and model, Candice Campbell would be able to help me convey the right story. Lockdown has meant that I have had to work close to home but with Dorset on our doorstep, it wasn’t a problem finding the perfect location for a country styled fashion shoot. An early Sunday morning, a vintage Burberry and a knit co-ord, boots from Zara, hat from Hicks and Brown and a classic 35mm Canon later, these were the results…
Content Creation close to home... with Hicks and Brown
Introducing the latest Fedora hat from Hicks and Brown with some new lifestyle photography to support the Hicks and Brown launch.
With my content creation package, Hicks and Brown came to me looking for a collection of new country photographs using the Olive Green Fedora Hat. A day out in the Dorset countryside I photographed this series. Also styled by myself, I wanted to have a green colour palette for this shoot to match the Olive hat however, I shot with a small soft artificial light on this occasion to illuminate the hat to ensure it didn’t get lost amongst all of the green environment.
“We are really pleased with this collection of photographs India has produced, a completely different style to our usual one but really refreshing to see the hat in a different light!” ~ Hicks and Brown
For the good of the ocean..
NAECO - is ocean spelt backwards. Made from 4 plastic bottles my friends at NAECO recently sent me a pair of their new range of sunglasses. They are doing wonderful things to protect our oceans as well as creating a sustainable luxury clothing brand only using recycled materials to create high-quality clothing. With sustainability at the core of what they do and their extra measures to minimise water-usage, energy and emissions on their earth-friendly luxury garments, NAECO is definitely a brand worth checking out! #DoGoodLookGoodFeelGood
For more info on my content creation package - https://www.indiarosecreative.com/content
On Location with Charli Fisher
It was an after hours event at Wolf and Badger, London during London Fashion Week 2020 when I first met Charli Fisher. We soon got talking and before departing for the evening, we did what anyone in the creative industry does nowadays, exchange Instagram profiles.
We had the connection of living down South (Charli left London to visit family occasionally) so we remained in touch ever since in the hope of one day doing a photoshoot. The lock down bought us together, but from a distance, and we soon ended up working together.
Charli rustled up a few fashion brands such as Nicola Sexton, Aspinal, Burberry, Naeco, Loveness Lee, Trubikini, UN-NYE and Adeline Rusu.
I had a location in mind. One of my favourite beaches in Dorset - I had always imagined doing a fashion shoot here. The flat, quiet beach, golden sands, dried pale grasses and the tree stumps all made an ideal location to fit with the brands Charli was modelling. Plus, the red telephone box located on the edge of the bay gave me the cinematic shots I had always imagined would tell a great story.
Huawei UK was also on board - the landy was the ideal prop yet again!
“Working with Indy was an absolute pleasure. Very professional, fun on location and the images turned out amazing. I will definitely work with Indy again!”
— Charli Fisher, Presenter
At Home Product Photography With Tutti & Co. Jewellery
When it comes to shooting at home, lighting is key. The morning light is so beautiful at the moment that I chose to shoot some of my favourite jewellery pieces from a brand called Tutti & Co.
For this shoot, it was early enough to get soft light outside and still create the ‘early morning, fresh sheet’ look that I was aiming for to fit with this particular brand.
Things you will need:
Camera / Phone
Table
Duvet / white sheet
Product / jewellery of your choice
Leaves
A couple of props to play around with - I used pastel pink almonds but fruits could be an alternative idea
Step 1: Position your table where the light can hit the object whether inside by a window or outside. Play around with your positioning to avoid shooting into the light.
Step 2: Place down your white sheet - I used a duvet to give the ‘Lazy Sunday morning’ vibe and also add some texture and depth around the product and props.
Step 3: Play around with your layouts. I thought about the composition when shooting mine - placing the jewellery as centre focus and positioning a beautiful glass bowl of pink almonds (House of Dorchester Chocolates) closer to the light to give off some lovely detailed reflections on the sheet. I also really like it when props bleed out of the frame too but I experimented with a range of framings.
Step 4: Play with the light. I used a leaf from a fern and had a couple of different shaped leaves to swap in and out depending on how much white space I wanted to keep around the product. These shadows added a nice ‘summery’ feel to fit with the brands aesthetics.
Step 5: Editing - I wanted it to be soft and light and make the pink in the almonds ‘Pop’. I lifted the shadows and whites and lowered the highlights slighting to capture a bit more detail. Below are some of my befores and afters!
I hope you enjoyed! I have more product photography shoots lined up soon with new experiments, so stay tuned…
2020. A year of sustainable fashion
2020. A year of sustainable fashion, ethical brands and upcycling. Attending the 2020 London Fashion week was not only about capturing fashion content for sustainable clothing brands but for me, capturing the people, the expressions and ‘behind the scenes’ emotions that you don’t see whilst watching a catwalk. Not only has social media and content creation changed the way we think when attending an event, I put down my phone and experience what is changing in fashion, in environment and the emotions of London Fashion Week.
Social Media Content Photography with Marvin Brooks
Love Island contestant, model and Personal Trainer. Marvin lives in Dorset and I was recently connected through mutual friend, Rhi Duffin. Working with influencers is an important part of social media growth and should be thought about when putting together a social strategy. I worked with Marvin for a few of his influencer collaborations as part of his fitness services, offering him a bank of imagery to use for his social media content and social media partnership collaborations.
