PORTRAITS | CELEBRITY CHEF | STEVEN WALPOLE | SESSION 4

This is the last in a series of photo sessions (the previous three described here, here and here) for some new promotional images for celebrity chef Steven Walpole and his agent.

The final shoot entailed making some of my signature theatrical head shots for Steve for him to use in web media.  I find squarer cropped photos are all the rage as bio photos for 'serious' professionals and artists so this is what I had in mind.  They work well in crowded social media sites too where high-contrast black and white images can stand out from the rest.  The head shot of Steve on the left is deliberately small to show you what I mean.  If you click that image you'll see a bigger sized version pop out.

As is my regular modus operandi we met up in a country park on a cloudy day using very simple kit (camera and just a few reflectors) and made images for just under an hour.  I then took them home and worked on some of the best images in post-production to give them the feel that they might have been taken with traditional black and white film and cropped them to a squarer, less rectangular size as is standard for theatrical head shots.

So at the end of this series of four posts I hope that I've demonstrated how its possible to interpret a brief from a client in a number of different ways and then to create a some very different sets of images that can be used by the client in different forums.

Portraits | Celebrity Chef | Steven Walpole | Session 3

So to continue the series of photo sessions (the previous two described here and here) for some new promotional images for celebrity chef Steven Walpole and his agent for the third session I traveled over to Steve's product development kitchen in the heart of Gate Gourmet next to Heathrow airport.  This is where first class airline food is designed before it gets put into production.  And Steve is the guy who designs it.

A kitchen environment is a familiar place for me to be but not whilst being a photographer.  Come to think of it I think this was probably the first time I had taken portraits in a kitchen.  Fortunately, Steve's kitchen is a long rectangle like a ship's galley and one of the long sides is mostly windows.  So before I drove over I had decided that we'd go for natural window light rather than using portable flashes.  A few test shots when I arrived confirmed that it was do-able on that front.  Phew.

The results worked particularly well with the daylight because of the large amount of stainless steel cladding and furniture.   Stainless steel surfaces=light reflecting surfaces.  Lots of light bouncing about and a few portraits were taken using a steel table in the same way I'd use a photographic reflector.

Pleased this session went well because this was the most important of the four I had planned.  It was important to get some images in a work environment that could be used outside of the context of Steve's agent's web site in other promotional material that would instantly identify him with his vocation.

Portraits | Celebrity Chef | Steven Walpole | Session 2

This is a continuation of my previous blog post about how I went about making some new promotional images for celebrity chef Steven Walpole and his agent.

After wrapping up our shoot at the white wall in Chelmsford, Steve, Yvonne and I went over to the public car park at the other end of the centre of town where there is a well known landmark of a long graffiti-covered wall.  Steve's agent wanted some of the images we were making to incorporate Steve's love obsession with motorbikes and so he had ridden his Suzuki to the location for us to use.

This time I wanted a completely different much more dramatic look in colour and I had timed the shoot to be around 9pm when the sun had just set and the twilight sky would be doing the things I wanted it to be.  I set up with two portable flash units and got Steve to pose with said bike as the light faded around us.  I used gels on the flashes in combination with a white balance setting on the camera to create the deep blue sky in-camera (its not a post-production effect).  I thought the colour blue would be a good dominant theme to go with because of the bike's colour and Steve's blue jeans.

We tried some shots with his chef whites on and with a biker jacket but I prefered this one with the chef whites that links Steve with his profession.

Portraits | Celebrity Chef | Steven Walpole | Session 1

So the brief was simple; to improve erstwhile celebrity chef Steven Walpole's online presence.  This wasn't such a difficult task because, as Steve will admit, he overpaid his last corporate portrait photographer to make some pretty average point and shoot images.

"Don't make me look like a total psycho holding my kitchen knives like a maniac like the last one did." He said, recalling his last corporate portrait session.  

And then he shows up to our shoot with a Travis Bickle haircut...

Steve is the guy who designs the airline food for British Airways and other major carriers and from time to time pops up on TV to muck about with someone's dinner or diet.  Prior to that he taught at Westminster Catering School and prior to that cooked food for Members of Parliament in the Houses of Commons.  His star is ascendant.

I have been friends with Steve for over a decade now and the last time I took his picture was last year when I was asked to shoot his wedding.  That all panned out pretty well so Steve thought of me when his agent asked for some more up to date images.

After a few days to think about what I could come up with I had four completely different looks in mind for him that might appeal to his agent

The first look was inspired by two rock photographer heroes of mine; Anton Corbijn & Kevin Westenberg.  Both do a lot of black and white photography and as I had been asked by Steve's agent to help him look like a serious chef I thought a few shots in monochrome couldn't do any harm.  I had in mind pretty much any image you care to think of a band like Depeche Mode in the 1980s and 1990s.

So with Yvonne, Steve's wife, along for moral support and a bit of heckling we set out onto the streets of central Chelmsford on a warm July evening to a white wall I had in mind and came up with some shots like this.

And then it was onto the graffiti wall on the other side of town for a completely different approach to incorporate Steve's obsession with motorbikes into some portraits...

Theatrical Headshots | Summer Is Here

The summer is properly here I think.  Yellow oil seed rape fields already turned green.  Check.  Long light evenings.  Check.  English summer rain.  Check.

Aside from dodging the showers (only a very recent phenomenum because we've had such a dry Spring in South East England this year) I've been trying to use the light hours of the evening to do some more theatrical headshots and other shoots.  The day is so much longer and my creativity levels are higher too at the moment.

I've been working with a few people pro bono to make sure I'm continuing to develop my skills as a photographer in the theatrical head shot genre.  Working in evening light on a dry and sunny day is a little different to working on a cloudy day.  Somewhat counter-intuitively a cloudy day is actually a much easier kind of light to work with.  But sun-lit evenings aren't the worst possible conditions if you plan to work in a useable location.

This shot of model Victoria Mellish shows how shooting in the shade of an avenue of trees an hour or two before sunset can provide a really lovely light that flatters the subject and also creates an interestingly illuminated background.  

Had to show you this in colour.  Whilst classic British theatrical headshots are in black and white this evening light is best seen in colour.