A COVID Photoshoot with Runners Health Hub
A COVID photoshoot this time. If you’re delaying or updating the photography of you on your website because, like my clients Aileen and Karen, you are working remotely and distanced, then this is the episode for you.
If you’re just like them and the idea of travelling quite a long distance just for a nutritionist photoshoot just doesn’t seem like a safe enough reason to get out there. You’re probably going to find exactly how we did this to be interesting.
Let’s get you all inspired and thinking well outside of the box. Let’s go.
About This COVID Photoshoot Case Study
Meet Aileen & Karen
Let me tell you first a little bit about Aileen and Karen.
They met several years ago when they were both doing the same nutrition course. And after hitting it off, they agreed that going for a partnership was probably going to be a great idea for them. They had similar interests. As a result of that, their podcast was born. Their podcast is called, She Runs, Eats, Performs.
Podcast
As a result of creating that podcast together, their membership, the Runner’s Health Hub was created.
How COVID Impacted Their Business
Now, pre-pandemic, the ladies made a point of trying to catch up regularly, in person, so that they could share ideas and work together, but more often than not, they worked remotely together on these joint ventures of theirs. So when the lockdown happened, it’s fair to say that they didn’t have to make a lot of adjustments to the style of the way that they were used to working in.
A COVID Photoshoot Problem
However, when it came to getting a new set of matching photographs, they hit a bit of a barrier. Neither of them felt, back at the time when these sessions were created, that it was safe enough, and that they could honestly justify travelling 300 miles to one another, just for the sake of a photoshoot.
Aileen Smith
And that’s when Aileen Smith contacted me. Aileen and I go back quite a few years as well. We first met at a breakfast networking event, I think it was about 2014, or 2015-ish. And then we got to know each other a lot more when we were in a group coaching programme together. And that lasted for about six months, I think.
Meet Karen Campbell
KAREN: Hi, I’m Karen, co-founder of the Runners Health Hub and cohost of the She Runs, Eats, Performs Podcast. I’m based in London in the UK, and my photo shoot was with Charlotte Krag in London.
Meet Aileen Smith
AILEEN: Hi, I’m Aileen, I’m a co-founder of Runners Health Hub, and I’m also a cohost of She Runs, Eats, Performs Podcast. I’m based in Newcastle in the UK, and I have my Nutritionist Photoshoot with Laura at the Mayfield Studios in Newcastle.
The COVID Photoshoot Collaboration Crew
So to make sure that the images we created looked like they had been shot in the same place, on the same date, and with the same lighting, I had the pleasure of working alongside this fabulous photographer.
Meet Charlotte Krag
CHARLOTTE: Hi, I’m Charlotte, I run Charlotte Krag Photography, here in London, in the UK. I work as a commercial photographer, shooting both lifestyle and fitness photography.
Meet Claire Jenks
CLAIRE: I’m Claire Jenks from Jenks Creative, and I’m based up in Northumberland, I’ve joined this project to bring the photography created into the Runners Health Hub brand.
A COVID Photoshoot Day
So now you have to skinny on who’s who, let’s go straight into the shoot day show, shall we?
LAURA: Just got here, the first time I’ve been here in a long old time and the little park that I used to have, it’s just knocked down. So this used to be here where you see all this white, that used to be a bus station, and everyone would know to park there cause it’s cheaper than the NCP down the road, and now they’ve knocked it down. How times have changed hey. I realised now having said that, that this is the kind of thing your Mam or Dad would say to you when you were little and you’d be like, oh, why are you talking about the old days? I’m officially old.
Instagram Stories Excerpt from a Nutritionist Photoshoot
Let’s talk about today’s shoot. So today I’m shooting with the amazing Aileen Smith, and if you’ve checked out my post on my feed today, you’ll know a little bit of a backstory about her, but I love it when this kind of thing eventually comes around, something that I never realised when I was starting in business, but you make friends with all these cool people, and then something will eventually crop up where you end up working together or helping each other out, even if it’s years and years later. Yeah. I love that. It’s cool. So today we’re doing a green screen session for a COVID photoshoot, and I’ve got all my equipment waiting for us at Mayfield Studio, so I’m only packing one bag.
How cool is that?
Hey, that’s a wrap, we are done.
More Inspiration
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Retouching Collaboration
CHARLOTTE: We were just discussing how to get our Nutritionist Photoshoot results to look like Aileen and Karen were shot in the same place at the same time. How can we summarise all of this technical chat, Laura?
LAURA: Yeah, I think it would be a bit boring wouldn’t it if we went into all the nitty-gritty of the technical stuff. We’ve been talking about finessing layers, flattening layers, blending layers, getting colourways right, but really, I would probably say that anybody, if I was telling them how we do this from the outside, should do it with lighting diagrams.
Unfortunately for us, it didn’t happen that way, we just didn’t have time in our schedules to communicate exactly how we were doing our setup with lighting diagrams. So we weren’t extra prepared.
Cut-Out & Matching Scale
CHARLOTTE: Yes this time has been by collaborating on the retouch, we’ve discussed how we’re cutting out the ladies and how the retouch can fit the match on the final COVID photoshoot images.
LAURA: Yeah.
So they can look the same.
And then of course the plan is to composite both of those PNG files together so that it’s going to be easier for the ladies to use.
CHARLOTTE: And we agree that this is going to make it easier for the ladies to work with their images and easier for the suppliers that use them.
Discovering Our Newcastle College Connection
LAURA: Yeah, exactly a hundred per cent.
And I also think that we should take a little second here Charlotte, to just share that we’ve both learned in this technical geek and out chat that we’ve just had that we studied photography at the same place.
CHARLOTTE: I know it’s crazy, having never met each other. Before that, this COVID photoshoot collaboration has turned out to be, a Newcastle College reunion.
LAURA: Yes exactly, It’s such a small world isn’t it? We’ve just been talking about the lecturers we remember. We did it at different times, our courses. It’s not like we, we studied together and now we’re having a reunion where we didn’t know where each other had ended up. So we’ve been comparing, what cameras were there, what facilities were there, which lecturers we remember.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, It’s been really good fun actually to go down that route and reminisce.
Memories
LAURA: Yeah exactly and would you, I always tell anybody when they’re thinking about getting serious about professional photography, or commercial photography in particular, that they should spend the time to go and study properly. Do you have the same opinion?
CHARLOTTE: I think so because there are so many new things all the time. Particularly digital Photoshop and how you learn workflow. I think that’s much easier to get taught that than to work on that on your own. I think that’s quite a difficult task.
And the retouching because for example, like Photoshop, there are so many ways of retouching. As we know, you know,
LAURA: That’s what we’ve just been talking about.
CHARLOTTE: There’s cutting out a person from a green screen and a white background, you know, there’s maybe five or 10 different ways to do it. And everybody’s different. So it’s very good when you go out and industry to make sure that you have those skills. So, yeah.
How Collaboration Was Fostered At College
LAURA: Yeah. And it’s, it’s like, it’s about the lingo. Also, I think I found what was pleasantly surprising for me when I studied there was this idea of collaboration.
I don’t know if this happened when you were studying, but I remember class-crits were a magical time for me.
So you turned in your piece of work for the week or the last 12 weeks, and Graham Stouph would stand on the table, and all the work would be around him. Then we’d, we’d go around with him as a circle, and we look at each piece of work and everyone was expected to give some sort of feedback or idea about the work.
And I loved that. Did you do the same?
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, we did something similar. Yeah, definitely. It was so interesting to see how the same project was interpreted in so many different ways. It was usually depending on what people had access to, or what their interests were.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah, I love that.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I know it was really fun. I miss that a little bit.
Creatives Supporting Creatives
LAURA: Oh God, I miss that all the time, the camaraderie. Like if we were all trying to hit a deadline people would be like, come on, we can do this.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
LAURA: And everyone would be like, oh, shouting and running around in the studio. Like, when you’re working on your own, you just don’t have that.
CHARLOTTE: No, no, no.
LAURA: This is an official notice then to Newcastle College. We want you to do some sort of a Professionals Reunion, where we all get given a little assignment, and we all get to push each other.
I would pay good money to do that.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. We need, we need to have some alumni meeting or something like that.
LAURA: Just like a little retreat or something, yeah.
CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Yeah.
Aileen & Karen React To Their Final Nutritionist Photoshoot Results
AILEEN: So what do you think Karen?
KAREN: Well Aileen I have to say I’m really loving the way the new photos have come out. I feel that the website looks so much more professional! By that, I mean that you can now see the real us beautifully and consistently. I wasn’t sure if we could pull this off with a COVID photoshoot.
AILEEN: Yeah me neither but I’m thrilled that Laura and Charlotte have been able to do this for us. You know, it’s been fantastic. I just wished that we’d been together to do it. It’s a shame that we haven’t been in the same place. Maybe next time, perhaps the next session we can be there in person together.
KAREN: Yeah, absolutely Aileen, let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Adding Depth With Graphics
CLAIRE: Hi Claire here. I’m now at the stage working in collaboration with Laura. The goal is to make sure that the photography asset shot by Charlotte and Laura fits in well with the Runners Health Hub branding.
We’ve been chatting together about the right way to do this. It needs to be exactly what Aileen and Karen need. At the same time, making the space enough for this brand to evolve going forward.
Bringing This Nutritionist Photoshoot Together
So as you can see, I brought things together and we took the photograph that Laura and Charlotte created in their COVID photoshoots. And we’ve started to bring that together with the brand colours that have been evolved and designed for that brand in the past. We’ve also laid this on top of recognisable shapes, images, and textures, from the running world.
So we’ve got textures of road. We’ve also got a trainer tread as well. So these are shapes and textures that are going to resonate with their audience.
This makes things come together and the way that we’ve created it reflects Aileen and Karen’s goal of making the graphic design part of running that business as easy as possible. They can now take all of these different assets and recreate them in a tool such as Canva and start to create the graphic design in-house.
Timestamps for the Episode about a COVID Photoshoot
00:00 – Episode Begins
02:36 – Meet the collaboration crew
03:39 – Nutritionist Photoshoot Day Insta Stories
05:10 – Retouching & Reminiscing
10:31 – Aileen Smith & Karen Campbell React to the final shots
11:26 – Claire walks us through the graphics
12:29 – A Re-Cap
