First of all, thanks for hanging in there for a few days awaiting the continuation of the series. I must say it’s been a whirlwind of events over here, with baby shower, nursery prep and decor, family and friends visits, doctors appointments, photo shoots, new clients, retouching, and also sorting out new design and contributions for my other site, so I can keep everything moving through Aug and Sept, when my baby girl is here! Excuses… Excuses… I know ;) But I just wanted to give you an insight on what it might be like to run a photography business and a blog during pregnancy (which of course is material for a post of its own!)

But anyhow, continuing from ‘part 1′ where I discussed what producing entails and how to put together an estimate for a shoot, here is my take on how to approach the next big thing that will inform your entire shoot: concept.

CONCEPT con·cept (kän′sept′) noun

1. an idea or thought, esp. a generalized idea of a thing or class of things; abstract notion
2. an original idea, design, conception
3. a central or unifying idea or theme

The concept may be vague and abstract at the beginning, so you will need to get specific. Usually a concept will come to you as a tiny sentence, sometimes even a word, so it is important to ask all the right questions to breakdown the generic idea into a plan that you can shoot.

On my shoot for Holly Stalder for example, the concept started out as something like this: “Create images that are romantic and soft.” After asking the client and myself several questions, we were able to break it down as follows: romantic (achieve a romantic look by selecting an elegant location and vintage props that complement well the feminine personality of the girl who wears HS designs); soft (achieve softness through lighting, posing, model look).

You can see that becoming more specific helped highlight a few more aspects of the shoot: location (versus studio), props, lighting, character (feminine girl who wears HS designs/ model). You will need to continue to ask more questions until you fully break down all these different aspects and come up with complete shooting plan.

In my upcoming e-book on “producing a photo shoot”, I will cover in detail how to take an idea from “concept to fruition”. I will also be discussing how to explore and breakdown concepts that are not originally defined by a particular ‘shooting’ style (as the one above), but that start off as a style ‘inspired by’ a variable, such as: a model, a famous personality or a theme. In addition, I will also discuss how to approach situations when the client is unsure about the concept (in the beginning and throughout the shoot even!), I’ll offer brainstorming tactics and also ideas for presenting the concept to the client and to the team. See… I could just blog about this forever… That is why an e-book is in the works! :)

LOCATION

Depending on your experience, once the concept is defined, everything else should technically fall into place in terms of the overall vision. When I start a new project, as soon as the concept is clear, all the images start to flash in my mind. I actually see the finished images in my mind way before the shoot date. That is also why I need to slow down, control my enthusiasm and figure out if what I am dreaming about is what the client really wants (details, details ;)). But even if I am producing a photo shoot where I have free reign, I learned that it is important for me to specify what I see as much as possible, to be able to make it happen exactly as I envision it (and to be able to afford it!). So once the concept is clear, I move onto defining the ‘location’.

The first obvious questions to ask in regards to ‘location’ are: studio or location? indoors or outdoors? For the HS shoot, it was decided that it would be indoors. The next step was then to look for an “elegant” indoor location that would incorporate well the vintage prop elems I intended to use (as per the concept breakdown above).  At that point, several location possibilities were presented and discussed, but we finally settled on a beautiful, light-filled Victorian apt, in order to create the perfect mood for the stylish and feminine girl that wears HS’ designs. In my upcoming e-book I will cover the following additional topics: things to be considered when location scouting, how to scout,  proposing, selecting and securing a location, getting permits, suggestions on how to present ideas to clients and the advantages of hiring a professional ‘location scout’ when the budget allows.

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And here is a question for you:

Once you have a concept, do you usually ‘see’ the final images before you go into the shoot? Do the final images come to you in  daydreams and give you a reference on how to plan your shoot? Or do you just show up, feel the moment and see what happens? ps: There is no right answer necessarily, just a personal working style.

coming up (mini series part 3) …

LIGHTING, PROPS, TALENT

Stay tuned ~

And if you like where this is going, please sign up for my newsletter, so you can be the first to know when the e-book is available for pre-order.

xo