Personal brand photoshoot for Maxine Stead – Alexandra House Spa, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Maxine Stead, personal brand shoot
Maxine from the wonderful Alexandra House Spa in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire asked me to come by and do a little personal brand photoshoot for her. I’ve photographed Maxine a few times so there was no need for introductions so we just got straight into it.
Outside in natural light
For this shoot, we had typical Yorkshire weather (a little moody) and it was looking like it could have rained at any second. I love working with natural light as it just allows you to get a move on with the shoot and keep it moving. The weather was slightly overcast so pretty easy for me to deal with.
Alexandra House Spa
Maxine is the owner of the amazing Alexandra House Spa and the grounds are stunning. There’s so many different areas of the garden so I was spoiled for choice. I started in one area and just worked my way around the garden, every time I lifted my head I saw another place where I knew we could make fabulous photos. I did a lot of talking nonsense and we had a great laugh whilst trying to get a variety of different looks at each photo stop.
Indoors
After we had taken lots of pictures outside it was time to head inside. There’s something very special about the calmness of spa’s and it was important that I captured this. It’s funny as spa’s are really calm but every time I seem to photograph in them it’s full of stress for me as I’m always under pressure to get the shots I need before the client’s come in and this was no different. I had about 5 minutes in each room to capture what I needed
Subtle lighting
When I’m photographing in such an environment which is pretty dark, I sometimes have to use a bit of lighting or flash. As I was against a pretty tight deadline, I set up a quick flash just to give me a little bit more light. It was important that I didn’t over use my light as I wanted to keep the natural calm, ambience of the room and just light Maxine. There’s nothing like a bit of pressure to help with a photo shoot.
One hour and done
How long did this shoot take? I’m pretty sure the shoot took at most an hour, probably thirty minutes of it was talking but in the end we got some fabulous pictures and Maxine loves them. When Maxine added them to her social media profile she got hundreds of positive comments about them so I know I must have done a good job.
If you’re looking for an expert personal branding photographer then please get in touch john@johnsteelphotography.com
