Posts Tagged ‘matt pereira’

A few weeks back we invited multi-award winning photographer Matt Pereira to take some team photographs of Flourish for our website. I’ll share the actual images with you next, but I thought you might like to see some of the shots that I took “behind the scenes”.

Matt and I decided that we’d use the afternoon to bring the team together, have a bit of a giggle and exercise our creative muscles. I have to say, we had a huge amount of fun, Matt took some corking images and it was a fab experience. I love working with Matt. He has incredibly high standards, he knows what I’ll like and we’ve worked together enough now to be able to push the boundaries whilst still getting the shots we need.

We roped in various members of the team to hold the equipment…

It all got a bit much for Ian.

Some of my ideas worked… Others really didn’t. We thought the “Stuart under the bridge” concept might look kooky and fun. We thought we might use it to advertise the Web Developer position. Actually we decided he just looked a bit like a hobbit (much to the amusement of Guildford’s lunching public).

Some of the shots in and around the high street attracted a lot of interest. Especially when Ian told one lady that we were the production team for Britain’s Next Top Model.

By the end of the afternoon we’d got (almost all) of the shots we needed, had a lot of fun and have some gorgeous pics to put onto the website. Now we just need to start using them…

Tagged as , matt pereira in Flourish Stuff

Five dresses, twelve pieces of jewellery, four hair do’s and two clients. Oh, and my first time art directing a shoot. Well no one said it was going to be easy!

When Clare Yarwood-White invited me to art direct her photo shoot for her latest collection I jumped at the chance. And we worked with a phenomenal team on the day. Russell of Blackburn Bridal was the second client of the day: he had commissioned Clare’s latest collection and so it made sense that they both collaborated on the shoot. Russell has had oodles of experience on magazines and so not only brought with him an amazing eye for detail and vision for his shots, he also pulled together a fab hair and makeup team.

The who team worked incredibly hard on the day and we are all over the moon with the results. Yesterday I shared some of the end images with you, and I thought it might be fun to share the behind the scenes snaps too…

The lovely Anna in hair and makeup at the beginning of the shoot. She eats!

And while Anna had her make up done, Clare and I shot off to Maison Blanc on Cobham High Street to grab a few treats for (ahem) the shoot.

Remember that scene with Martin Freeman in Love Actually where he’s the actor’s double? Well I was a little like that throughout the day. Matt would use me to get the light right and the shot right while Anna was having her hair and make-up redone.

Clare ensuring that the jewellery was “just so”. It was pretty cold too so I gave Anna my shawl for between frames. We quite liked how it worked with the vintage style Clare Pettibone dresses too…

The wonderful Graham of Artefacts who let us loose on his fabulous pieces for shooting the jewellery – remember the pins in flowerpots? The headband on the roller? They were all courtesy of the very generous Graham.

Gorgeous shot and how lovely are those hydrangea in the background? My absolute favourite is that Whistle sign which Graham kindly kept out on the wall (despite having sold it a couple of weeks beforehand) for the photoshoot.

There was a lot of fiddling with the hair…

The brilliant make-up artist Ajani, Russell of Blackburn Bridal and the Nathan the hair stylist.

Erm… who’s the model?

Left to right: Charlotte – one of the Yarwood-White jewellery makers, yours truly, Matt Pereira, Anna, Clare Yarwood-White, Ajani – Make Up, Russell, Blackburn Bridal, Nathan, Hair.

We had a fantastic day, and importantly both clients managed to get what they were looking for. Success all round I think!

Tagged as , art direction, matt pereira, yarwood-white in Case Studies, From The Studio

We’ve been creating a lot of blogs for people recently, and something I must sound like a broken record on in every briefing meeting is my insistance that bloggers work with a {good} photographer to get a professional headshot. I can’t tell you the difference it makes. Actually I don’t need to tell you the difference. You can see it just from the before and after above. I can’t believe I’m sharing this with you but I’m reminding myself that I’m doing it for the greater good…

Let’s start with the presumption that a good headshot will make you look your most attractive, professional and approachable. By attractive I don’t mean sleazy or sexy or like you’ve just stepped off a boudoir shot. I’m talking about a photograph that strokes your ego and makes you proud. But it also needs to look like you.

Before I met Matt Pereira my headshot was a picture I’d had taken in a studio in Birmingham several years before (see above). I was one of the female entrepreneurs invited to take part in a cover shoot for franchise magazine. They had hired a make up artist and after several hours (I kid you not) primping and preening we were wheeled out into the studio where we were draped over a chaise longue . To get us used to the camera the photographer initially took headshots of us on a bar stool. I looked attractive but nothing like myself. I limped on with this photograph for several years but I had to laugh when I met the lovely Shelly Van Litt from the Elmbridge magazine at an Elmbridge Women In Business event I was speaking at. Shelly said to me “I’ve been looking at your website today, I wanted to meet you. You look nothing like your photo! I wouldn’t have recognised you if you hadn’t introduced yourself”. That was me told.

Fortunately a couple of weeks later I had the most gorgeous shots taken by Matt and I’ve never looked back. Like I said, a good photographer will take photos of you that actually look like you. But they’ll be of your best self. He or she will capture the essence of you and present you as someone people want to get to know. A good social media photograph has got to be engaging and approachable. And so that means eyes to camera, smiling and saving those sexy pouts for the boudoir shoots.

And a good headshot isn’t just about helping you appear more engaging in your social media profile. It’ll also help your website and blog appear more attractive. Let me show you how. This post has been utterly inspired by a blog we created for Sam Jones (herself a fantastic photographer) for her Home Truths blog. I loved the makeover Rob worked up for Sam, but was blown away when I realised she’d changed her photo. Here was the blog with the old photo…

And here’s the new photograph. Personally I think there’s a dramatic difference between the two, and all Sam has done is changed the photograph!

Donna Pourtyemour of Cobham Pilates is so sold on the benefits of having great headshots that she insists that all new staff have a professionally taken headshot. This shows consistency on her website and ensures that all members of staff come across professionally. Something Donna has found is that by having her website revamped she’s been able to attract world class teachers to her studio and her business is now expanding at a rate of knots. I have no doubt that the professional and engaging photographs (along with the gorgeous new branding and design of course!) have a lot to do with this…

So next time you think you’ll just upload that holiday snap from two years ago, think again. Find a great photographer and get some professional headshots done. It will pay dividends.

Tagged as , cobham pilates, home truths, matt pereira, photography, sam jones in Blogging, Graphic Design, Marketing, Online Marketing