Photography News issue 27

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Photography News Issue 27 absolutephoto.com

Profoto B1 The Industry Lifestyle photographer Jack Terry is a busy man, but enjoys setting himself projects to work on. His latest one involved shooting on location with his Profoto B1 portable lighting outfit

What was your motivation for your project? I wanted to do a decent personal project because I shoot loads of commissionedwork and generally hardly have time to do that many projects. I wanted to do a project that would take a decent amount of time. Originally, my idea was to do something called ‘The Creatives’, portraits of different creative people like artisans. But the more I looked at it, the more I realised that it was a topic many people have done in the past, and also done pretty well too. From that I tightened my brief a little bit and then realised that I already knew lots of interesting people in my own industry that I could photograph. My thinking was to do a portrait of every person, from the start to the end of the production of an image for an advertisement campaign. It was going to be a location portrait of each person. In the end I photographed 23 people, covering every single role – with the exception of the photographer. So you have got in there everyone from the chief creative officer of the advertising agency to the on-set caterer to the printers, so it was a look at the whole photographic industry.

So you had worked with all the people in your project? There were a couple of people I hadn’t workedwith before but I had met them and had been introduced to them by other people in the series. So even if I hadn’t worked directly with them, I knew of them and their work. What was the reaction of the people when you first asked them? Were they okay with it or camera shy? Itwas verypositive andpeoplewere up for it. If anyone was hesitant I just asked someone else doing the same role. I wanted people happy to be a part of the project. I think a lot of people were really keen. They might appear in the odd behind the scenes picture but they are rarely in front of the camera and rarely get that moment of glory. My lifestyle work is bright and positive and I tried to bring this across in the project as much as possible, so it looked like my normal work. I didn’t want the project to look too stern. Did you pick the locations for the shoots, or was it a collaborative decision between you? A lot of it just fell into place. So, for

Generally when I am lighting one person I use a three- or five-foot Profoto Octa. I think 90% of the project pictures were shot with the five-foot Octa.

example, the digital operator, the assistant and the make-up artist – they were on my shoots so I just shot them while we were shooting the job. The only one I had to set up was the caterer because in the time I was shooting the project we didn’t have a job to get him in on so we shot that in the studio. But everyone else was in their natural work environment. How long did the project take? Three months. The maximum I shot in one day was three people. Obviously when I was shooting in my own set it was easy to do because I had the people there already. Some were harder to track down. The chief creative officer of an ad agency is a lot harder to track down than someone working regularly for me. It all took a bit of thinking about but I really enjoyed it. Were you under time pressure to get the pictures because they were very busy or was it quite relaxed? The longest I had anyone sitting for was an hour. The shortest was probably ten minutes. It was a

bit of a mix and some took more setting up. Some just naturally worked; some took thinking about. My favourite was the last shot in the series. A lady called Cathy Robert who made my portfolio. The way I went about it was to choose a frame, light the frame and then get the person in only once they were happy with the frame they were stepping into. Once I lit the frame, Cathy stepped in and I did the portrait in five frames, the fewest frames I have ever shot a portrait in and it is one of my favourite portraits I have ever captured. It is really nice. She absolutely loved it. She said it was one of the very few photos of her where she could see her own personality in the picture. Did you show the subjects all the pictures you took, or just show them the finished one? When I shoot normally I show a selection because I always shoot tethered so I go through and pick my selection, then from that I get the subject behind the computer and pick an image we both like.

Above Chris Finn with Dolly, owner @Civilisedcars production vehicle and car hire. “In a job where you could be based in a forest, on a beach or in the centre of a busy city, having the correct vehicle with all the right facilities on set is essential. Civilised provide vehicles with everything you could need, from make-up rooms to luxury client vehicles they have you covered and all with 240V power and Wi-Fi.”