Think Beyond

Photography Tendor - Ash Holdsworth

Q1.

Can you demonstrate the ability to storytell within stylised portraits? 

Please provide examples of your work including: 

• Summary of the brief or art direction

• Your approach, creatively and technically.

• Imagery / outputs

• General overview of any third-party input such as agency briefed work / retouching support / working alongside an art director etc.

Answer

Yes. My favourite thing to do is not just to take someones portrait, but to design a shoot around a person and portray firstly who they are as a person, then what they do and what message they would like to get across. I like subtlety and boldness combined. I think less is more and minimalism along with emotion are two very powerful tools. This ethos can be anything from advertising a business or a product, the theme of a musical album for an artist, to a persons life story.

I believe this can and should be achieved in one image so that the viewer can get an instant emotional response and build up their own idea of what they’re being shown, before reading any information about it. This to me is what connects people to something new. I love reading interviews with people - say, in a magazine, but I love more reading the image of them first and getting a sense of who they are and what they’re all about before reading any words. I think when our empathy is engaged to begin with, we’re not only more open to receiving information, but we actually want to find out more. And that, to me is the power of a striking image.

I have done this several times in different capacities and included work examples of some below.

Plusnet

I worked on the following project with London based Advertising Agency Karmarama for our client Plusnet, who are a Yorkshire based internet provider. They approached me because I’m Yorkshire born and bred and they liked my portraiture work.

Plusnet wanted to get across their Yorkshire roots to their audience as well as championing our counties independent businesses to offer business broadband. We created a campaign called ‘Humans of New Yorkshire’ based on the popular ‘Humans of New York’ series, where a beautiful portrait is taken on the street in New York, accompanied by an interview with the subject about their lives. We took this simple concept and applied it to creative business owners. We hand picked interesting and independent businesses local to Yorkshire, from Bespoke restaurants to master knife makers, illustrators to textile designers and barbers - just cool people basically. We photographed them as an environmental portrait to use as a hero shot, taken at their place of work, as well as detail shots. We also interviewed them on their journey and how they came to be what they are. The shots had to be about what the person does, but also very much about their personality. These images and stories were used across Plusnet’s social media platforms and rotating advertising screens in Yorkshire. 

I tried to shoot these as consistently as possible so that they would be uniform when viewed together, but I also allowed for the locations and personalities of the people to be unique. Every location was different with differing lighting situations. The image above for example was a composite shot, as the shop we photographed in is deceptively long. I had to light different areas of the shop separately and colour match the warm tones on the right, the neon sign to the left and the daylight of the shop window. This was a completely studio lit shot and heavily edited in post production to balance all the components and feel natural.

South Street kitchen has huge south facing windows with incredible light. I had to work around a video crew that day, swapping as we each needed the subjects. At one point the video crew messed up so when I finally got the subject for their main hero shot, the natural light for the area we’d confirmed to shoot at had vanished. I replicated the daylight on the right with a large bounced flash, colouring it slightly to blue daylight and mixed with the warmth of the shop lights.

Estrella Damn

I work with Estrella Damn regularly to photograph their chef ambassadors across the UK. These are usually Michellin chefs, in their own restaurant, sponsored by Estrella and the images are used across magazines and Estrellas marketing material and online social media platforms. Estrella are very proud of the chefs they sponsor so it’s always a fun shoot.

When I turn up to a location I’ve never been to before and have a limited time with my subject, lighting and speed are the most important factors. Estrella like all of their imagery to be very bright, fresh and consistent. Mixed lighting can be a nightmare due to the opposing colour temperatures of daylight, incandescent lights of the building and studio flash as they’re all different colours ‘on camera’, so having control over these is paramount to produce a natural, well balanced shot.

I do two things with them; the first style of photography is an environmental portrait, with the chef in their Estrella whites, with clear branding, producing a beer inspired recipe in their working kitchen, followed by food shots and relaxed portraits. I studio light everything, colour matching to replicate the daylight and mixing this with real daylight, finding a balance that gives me both the quality that Estrella looks for, whilst allowing the subject to feel natural and prepare a recipe as they would without having a ‘camera in their face’, or feeling that they’re in dry and clinical studio. This way it allows the chef to feel more relaxed and unrestricted in their own environment where not much is different, and for me to shoot in a way that captures real moments in a real place. But in reality is a fully controlled studio set up.

I often use ‘composite’ photography to get the best exposures for the background, foreground, props and of course, the subject themselves. I then piece it all together with the best of each element in post-production.

I find this technique not only works great for the subject as they feel unthreatened and more a star of their own show so we therefore capture the best expressions of them, but it also gives a highly ‘polished’ look overall - and whilst giving me complete control to capture the exact lighting style that Estrella like to use across their branding.

I’ve also worked with some Estrella sponsored restaurants directly and developed their own look and styl,e like the ones for Home below. As large group shots can be difficult to light and capture everyone looking their best at the same time, I went for a controlled yet creative set up. This was an Annie Leibovitz inspired shoot where I establish an overall set up, bringing all the subjects in to find a flattering composition overall. I then take everyone out and re-introduce them gradually, lighting each individual or small group separately to capture the most flattering lighting for them and the best expressions. Then I piece the whole thing together in Photoshop.

The second style of work that I do with Estrella is documentary photography, where I photograph a chef doing live cooking demonstrations at a high end food event. For this they adopt the classic black and white documentary look. This is different from the usual event style photography in that it has a more timeless and stylised approach. My aim is to capture genuine moments throughout all the action, whilst including food and Estrella branding in one shot and against the clock. They use these across their social media platforms.

Leeds City Council

I worked with Leeds based design house The Archipelago to create an Ad Campaign for Leeds City Council with the aim of attracting visitors to their ‘Five Centuries of Fashion’ Exhibition at Lotherton Hall. We shot on location at Lotherton and some of the dresses in the shots are 500 years old so had to be handled by museum experts for our positioning. During our planning stages we selected our favourites and used modern day dress designs for the model, by Yorkshire based designers Cunnington and Sanderson to bring us to the modern day. I approached this set up knowing that we wanted to create a very soft, ambient and calm feel to the images, whilst also highlighting the exhibits. These two lighting styles are usually in opposition to each other so balancing the two was key. To create the lighting I used a mixture of natural daylight, at a long exposure to soak up the ambient light and give the room a soft glow as well as studio lighting, which I diffused and back lit the subjects to accentuate the folds and flow of the dresses, and composited together in post. All items and the model were lit separately and in some cases blue light was added to recreate the day light and yellow light for subtle flare. This all meant that we could highlight what we needed to stylistically as well as keeping a natural feel to the whole image and keep in theme with our pastel tones. The images were used on large scale billboards, magazines, standees and online to promote the event.

ASDA

I worked on an advertising campaign just before lockdown for ASDA. This was a very large scale production across 3 weeks working in Manchester and Spain in collaboration with a video production house at Media City called Equinoxtv. The shoot was a mixture of stills and video and I, along with a photographer friend planned, auditioned models, tested, shot and retouched all the images for the whole campaign, assigning which scenes each of us would do and shooting simultaneously day by day. ‘ASDA Money’ runs across multiple departments; loans, travel insurance, currency exchange, pet insurance etc. and our job was to cater for each of these areas to specific demographics like; single mums, families, gay couples, young male car owners etc. We worked with multiple models every day, with several outfit and scene changes, working to strict deadlines daily to get everything done. We also had animals and animal handlers, children and chaperones and worked along stylists, make up artists, art directors, set dresses, video camera crews, over multiple locations including houses, bars, restaurants, beaches, markets etc. as well as ‘in studio’. All had to be ‘reccied’, lit and styled, and then in some instances composited together to get the best moments. As the production crew were largely video based and unfamiliar with stills, my fellow photographer and I art directed everything ourselves, working with all the individual crew members we had available to us, shooting what we needed and then inviting the video crew for each scene after, so that everything was consistent. We worked to the briefs for each individual scene highlighted by the client, for example: ‘friends on tablet searching for car insurance’, ‘family with sleeping kitten’ etc. The style of this shoot is considered to be ‘Lifestyle Photography’. It focuses heavily on capturing real and genuine moments of emotion to portray a particular message, with particular people in a particular environment so that everything in the scene is easily and instantly relatable to the focus of the advertised product. One of the challenges was working with the ASDA ‘Scamp’ which is the text and graphics used on the final advertisement. We had this as an overlay to work with on the day to make sure our images fitted and as you can see below the scamp itself takes over half the page in both portrait and landscape formats, meaning the edge of the camera lens is not ideal. Composition was extremely important in this instance and many shots had to be positioned in post production, so that we could use the best part of the lens. Extending the canvas to gave us freedom of placement and a visually satisfying flow to the image. These are not the final advert graphics but rather placeholders to give an idea of the final adverts.

Other Work

I’ve worked on a number of other jobs with magazines and direct clients on editorial style shoots, which is usually a set of images to accompany an interview or story. This could be focusing on the relationship aspect of a plant shop, to a social entrepreneur furniture designer, a jewellery designer who works in a specific geometric style, or an artist who uses a bold and unique technique in his work. All of the below images have been inspired by the artists themselves or their place of work and to communicate what they do and who they are in an image.

Old Market Plants is an extremely beautiful shop. The style and range of plants there create an amazing atmosphere as soon as you walk in - ‘gert lush’ as they say in Bristol. The day of the shoot however was overcast and major building work was been carried out outside the shop windows with scaffolding blocking most of the natural light. I took advantage of this and attached studio lighting to the scaffold to recreate the usual south facing lovely sunshine. I usually also take detail or action shots that can be used elsewhere in the article to build a whole picture of the business and of the people.

Nathaniel Joseph is a carpenter by trade and has built up a bespoke furniture design company in Bristol. He is also a social entrepreneur who helps people in recovery by teaching them a trade and giving them a job, allowing them to further their lives both financially and in self confidence. We shot the below portrait at his studio which is an amazing place, but the basement of an old mill building, meaning there are no windows or natural light, only overhead fluorescent tubes. I side lit this to give the wood some shape and depth as well as some thoughtfulness to the subject and added in a tiny bit of flare to add some dynamism to image and keep it from being flat. Nate is a bit of a mad scientist when it comes to carpentry so we used key elements to compose the shot, giving an idea of who he might be and his passion for what he does. We shot various styles of image for different purposes, in keeping with his branding for each.

Carl Noonan is a bespoke jewellery designer based in Sydney, Australia. He is obsessed with geometry and bases all of his designs around the platonic solids, even creating a line of pieces which when brought together, all create one geometric shape. I wanted to create a timeless photo, that kept in with Carl’s minimal but striking branding and to show his ingenuity and gentle but precise nature by subtly hinting at what he does. I utilised a piece of art made from wire at the studio we shot this in, photographed it’s shadow separately at multiple angles and positions and built up a geometric version of his shadow - not instantly seen, but when spotted creates an air of mystery and wonder. Carl used these shots across his companies website.

Brad Robson is a mural artist based in Sydney, Australia. He travels the world painting giant commissions on the sides of well known buildings. I wanted to take a portrait of him using a mixture of inspiration from his own work, as well as the photography style of David Hockney which I’d seen when I was young, utilising multiple small photographs to create one image.

Laura Slater is a Textile Designer based in Leeds. She commissioned me to photograph her first major campaign to create an entire branded website from scratch, including product shots for her shop so customers can purchase her work directly, bio portraits, detail shots, environments etc. As a supplier to The Hepworth, YSP, John Lewis and the editor of Vogue wearing her design, styling was very important so that it worked across the whole website. This is one of the earliest environmental portraits I took and I wanted to capture exactly what she does in one shot.

Personal Work

I also spend time on personal projects photographing the interesting people I meet or portraits of friends who may have a unique job or talent.

Homeless Street Angels

I’m extremely passionate about working on projects that are close to my heart and raise awareness of social issues like mental health or homelessness. I volunteered to work with a charity towards the end of 2019 called Homeless Street Angels to help raise clothing and food donations during the extremely cold winter. I came up with a very quick idea to implement as a mini campaign. Getting the shots was harder than I expected but I managed to photograph some very nice people. My aim with this imagery was to break the stigma of walking down the street and seeing a homeless person, rather than a person. I tried to do this very obviously by showing the humanity of a persons face first and then a contrived ‘behind the scenes’ shot of how and where we photographed it on the street. All subjects are homeless people I met through the project. At the time the organisation was run by two very passionate sisters who donated all their time to helping people and weren’t even an official charity. They’ve since attracted an army of volunteers and they used the imagery to gain status as a registered charity just before lockdown, even receiving funding and praise from Lord Alan Sugar himself.

Three Questions Exhibition

I exhibited a show last year called Three Questions in which I photographed and interviewed people with the same three questions, who have suffered with or who were suffering at the time with clinical depression. I conducted these interviews in a way which was non obtrusive, getting the subject to view their depression objectively. This, along with the specific questions and some prompted guidance, I found became a healing experience for them. The large scale prints were accompanied by a transcript of the interview itself and the subjects words of wisdom for the viewer. It was a highly successful show and is an ongoing project I wish to turn eventually into a book. The portraits themselves I wanted to be as simple as possible, very raw and unflinching, with the same treatment and either a black or white background, or both and for the viewer to instantly connect with the person they were looking at in the image. I achieved this with the simple approach I use for all my portraits, which is to have a genuine conversation with the person I’m photographing, hold space and ‘allow’ them to be themselves rather than coax anything out of them. Over the years I’ve learnt that being a portrait photographer is half technicality and half being a psychologist. I find planning and preparing all the elements of a photograph beforehand and then going with the subject is always the best way so that all they have to do is be themselves.

Click here to go to Think Beyond Q2.