Well, who would have thought that lockdown would technically still be with us at this point in the year since the great lockdown of March 24? So, valiantly we carry on and try and not get bored out of our skulls by shooting anything that moves in the garden. The cats now see the camera as a game with us chasing them around the garden just for their exercise it would seem. Ho hum.....
Along came the great day where we could actually get out for more than an hour or to stand in a queue at #Tesco for "essential" shopping. After perusing the photography pages of #facebook I came across a young model called Holly (@habitsofholly) who had asked for a shoot to start her portfolio off. A local model to #Birmingham I enquired as to whether she was available for a #sociallydistant shoot with the location being the #custardfactory in #brum.
We discussed shoot idea's and I sent pictures of shots that we could do with the fabulous #graffiti as a background. As this was Holly's first shoot, it was essential she was happy with the theme.
We met up on a Sunday Morning with the ever faithful Everard as assistant and managing to hold the reflector to get the limited amount of sunlight in the right place as the morning was not promising to be gorgeous weather. In fact, it was persisting down but with plenty of places to shelter, we cracked on with the shoot.
After moving several rather large bins to get to the first location and finding some rather wonderfully placed beer kegs, the shoot began.
The first location was an alcove and using the kegs, this proved to be a good starting point to settle a nervous Holly with the first few shots.
We then moved directly opposite this corner and began shooting despite having an audience of people parking their cars (yes we were seemingly shooting in the car park!) and a few families out having a walk or just trying to escape the boredom of being shut in.
We walked through to the #Floodgatestreet entrance of the Custard Factory to be met with a square that was full of colourful and fabulous artwork which could not in anyway be classed as graffiti. This was living and accessible art.
After getting our spot we noticed two young men balancing on a container painting a new mural which was a character from out of #Piratesofthecarribean. We got to having a chat when after a few shots, the guys offered us their ladder for Holly to climb into one of the ducts under the railway bridge. As this was Holly's idea and with my stomach in my throat, we got the ladder and Holly climbed in to the duct. In turn for this, I took photo's of the mural the guys were working on for the guys to work to as a scale. Quite a good bargain really.
The shoot came to an end and after bidding Holly farewell following a super shoot, we ventured back to the centre of birmingham to get a #coffee which was very much required and after trying to navigate my way around the #starbucks app which apparently doesn't recognise a simple black coffee (which was rectified by the helpful barista on the screened off entrance) we supped the nectar of the gods and off home we went to start editing the 300+ shots.
I hope you have enjoyed a sample of the shoot and thanks for reading!
Holly is on instagram @habitsofholly
Location: @Custardfactory (Twitter) #Custardfactory #Birmingham #digbeth
Graffiti: @we_do_graffiti (Twitter)
Here's the hashtags:
As ever, commissions are welcome!
TTFN