This recent shoot for Property Week magazine was for a feature that expressed the views of various property professionals on the upcoming general election. The piece called for an informal group portrait of those gathered with Parliament as a backdrop.
Myself and the Art Director initially discussed shooting the group on the Albert Embankment as this offered a good view of Parliament across the river. It was also made clear to me that the gathered group would only have a maximum of 30 minutes to sit for the shoot.
I had a day in hand before the morning of the shoot so I thought it was best to do a recce of possible locations rather than arrive there cold the next day. I found three locations that would work well, each with Parliament as a backdrop (Albert Embankment, Westminster Bridge and College Green) and although it would be very tight to shoot all three in 30 mins I feel it is always best to have too many options rather than too few. Next I had to contact all the sitters to let them know the details for the shoot. Thanks to a quick screen grab and a few X's in photoshop I was able to easily let each sitter know the meeting point that morning (red X), aswell as the proposed locations for the three shoots (blue X's). I also sent this mail to the writer of the piece and the Art Director to keep them in the loop, see map below:
The meeting time for the next morning was 10.30 and (as I usually do) I arrived early just before 10.00. I always like to arrive early to a job as it gives me time to settle and focus on the task at hand - just as well that I did as the first sitter arrived at the meeting point at 10.05. Once everyone had gathered and introductions made and hands shaken (all sitters had arrived before 10.30) I was able to quickly and effectively get the shots at the three locations without fuss thanks largely to the previous days preparations. Images from the shoot can be seen below:
As the shoot had called for an informal gathering of the sitters my initial research had led me to have a look through one of my books 'Covering the 60s' showing the work of George Lois who designed the covers for Esquire magazine in the 1960's. One reference point was this cover seen below which concerns the issue of rising racial tensions in U.S inner cities in 1968. I think this cover is fantastic with a really simple yet very powerful concept behind the image - how could we show the rising heat in these areas? Shoot real life local disaffected youths in a Harlem Ice House - genius. The book includes George Lois' background story to each cover and it is reproduced below - well worth a read
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