Our latest photo shoot for the portfolio page was more of a challenge than previous ones. An interesting shopping list & some early starts ensued.

Deciding how best to portray the range of work we have produced for upmarket travel agents ITC didn’t take very long – let’s create a beach scene & position the newspaper/magazine adverts, brochures & mailers around as if they’re holiday reading. It did, however, take quite a while to set it up & shoot it.

Sand shopping
Despite our office being within striking distance of the coast we didn’t think a north Wales beach would carry the exclusive holiday feel we needed to convey so we opted to bring the beach to our office. After a few visits to hardware stores and children’s outdoor play goods vendors we found that Tesco sell a good light yellow sand – a bit more Antigua than Cayman Islands but we soldiered on.

Lights, camera, lights off – Action!
With our canalside beach taking shape we ran a few test shots but they were looking a bit flat. We switched off the studio lights and had a go with natural light – much better. The sun streams through our largest window about 7.30am these days so the shoot, fuelled by much coffee, took place on the next bright sunny morning.

As well as involving plenty of beach holiday props Andrew had the inspired idea to sacrifice an office plant, stick it to the window & cast a very palm tree like shadow across the beach.

The end result

It took a lot of effort but the outcome is much more rewarding than slinging an istock sand background behind digital artwork in photoshop. Have a look through the shots on our online portfolio.