Headshots with Sophie & Kane

Guest Lecture: Simon Buckley

Simon Buckley is a photographer working in many fields including studio portraiture, reportage and travel. He is currently running the website Road, Rail & Sea - a website aimed at selling holidays and experiences to people that do not want to fly. 

He gave lots of good tips during his lecture such as:

• Be self confident with your ideas and what you are asking for
• Observe EVERYTHING

• We all have a little bit of arrogance

• For editorial portraits you get limited time so keep lighting and ideas simple
• ASSIST
• "They don't know what they want until you don't give it to them"

• In regards to interviews, never interrupt the interview, always listen to the questions and answers, ask to take the portrait after the interview and photograph in a way that will be relevant to the interview
• Silence is usually a good sign
• Give yourself 5 minutes after the shoot to calm down
• Keep lighting simple (but experiment with different techniques)

• Always try and get your foot in the door through networking

• Build up personal project portfolios as this could get you jobs in other fields of photography that you are not currently working in

• Think about the type of job - if it is editorial, where are the words going to go? Where will the headline sit on the image?

Advice on portfolios:

• Good to have digital and print
• Keep it simple, fresh and updated
• Between 15 to 20 images

Headshots with Zoe Patrick

After the success of the quick headshots shoot with Rachel I decided the easiest (and most fun) way for me to raise money would be to do a special offer so I put out an advert with the following written on it: 

"For a small fee of £5 you can have up to a maximum of 10 high quality photos taken professionally in a studio environment with a FULL lighting kit. Contact me via e-mail at: sarah.ashworth11@bathspa.ac.uk or via facebook.

All funds raised will go towards the Photography and Digital media Graduation show in London this summer."

Zoe was the first person to get in touch, she needed professional photos for her acting portfolio. A simple grey backdrop and 2 soft box layout was best for this type of shoot! Her eyes were beautiful.. would be great to do a macro of in the future?