Monday 14th January 2019

I was absolutely delighted to be booked to document a day with Steve Smart, British Hairdressing Association (“BHA”) winner 2018, Revlon Professional and KASHO ambassador. This was to be the third time I had worked with Benjamin Shipman of The Hair Movement in Sidcup. I had previously shot an interiors shoot for their very swanky salon, designed by local designer Annika at LoveIGinteriors, and at a second shoot in November I had documented the stylists in action. This shoot, however, was to be quite different. The brief was to document behind the scenes of the day, which would showcase KASHO‘s amazing range of professional hair dressing scissors, being demonstrated by the amazing award winning hairdresser himself, Steve Smart. 

Pre-shoot information was duly sent over and it was an exciting brief; three models were being booked and were going to have their hair cut by Steve into the most amazing styles (more to follow in pictures). A videographer (who was also a fashion photographer) was shooting all day too and I was there predominantly to capture the atmosphere of the day.

Everyone began arriving for a 9am start. Also present was a make up artist, a social media expert (who would be tweeting and instagraming all day,) a runner looking after everyone, (bringing coffee, breakfast etc) and a whole host of other people making sure the day ran smoothly. Steve and his wife Debbie arrived and I immediately felt relaxed in their company. This makes my job so much easier, being able to strike up a rapport with people straight away. We set up a white back drop ready for the fashion shots, got all our equipment ready to go and then proceeded to shoot.

The shoot itself was lots of fun and very full on. We literally took 10 minutes at lunch time to grab a quick sandwich, before carrying on. Three models had their hair cut and styled in three very contrasting styles and all looked absolutely amazing. To say I was embarrassed about my own hair is an understatement, especially when I had to sit in the chair to help Jasmin set up her video camera and Steve started looking at my hair!!

The shoot went on into the evening and by the time we finished, I had loads and loads of lovely images to deliver to the client. This shoot was tricky to work out how to cull and deliver. I decided to use Adobe Lightroom’s colour flagging system to arrange my images into groups – I wrote my topics on a post-it note: “behind the scenes”, “scissor shots in hand”, “product shots” “model shots” and “shots of Steve working”. This made my life a lot easier and whilst the culling part of my process took over 2 days, it meant it was very easy to deliver an amount of images to my client that wouldn’t overwhelm him – well, not too much anyway, there were over 300 being delivered! Using Pixiesets “sets” function, I was able to deliver an on-line gallery to my client that kept the images in these sets and again, made their life easier.

If you’re interested in finding out more about my commercial work, then please do get in touch at Nina@3boysandmephotography.co.uk for more information. My documentary style is proving very popular with companies, allowing them to showcase how their business runs in a more informal style compared to what’s often used. Commercial shoots to date have included interior shoots, children’s and adults’ clothing model shoots, restaurants, events companies and personal branding shoots for local business people.