Karen Strunks Professional Birmingham-based Freelance Photographer

How do you plan your photo shoot?

After a photo shoot yesterday, I got to wondering how other photographers plan their shoots, and I thought I’d tell you about one of the ways I plan mine.

I don’t use a studio. There are a few reasons behind my choice. Financially, I don’t want the overheads. If needs must, I can hire a studio, but I haven’t had call to do that. Creatively, I much prefer location shoots and the variety they bring. 

Take yesterday’s photo shoot. The brief was for some portrait photographs of  Adrian Shooter, chairman of Chiltern Railways.  I had to take photographs of Adrian in different environments; in an office, at Snow Hill Station (we were meeting at Moor Street Station), on the train and on the platform and I had an hour to do this. No problem!

As is usual with my photography shoots, I was walking into pretty much an unknown environment. What would the office be like? How about the lighting? Would the station and the train be busy? How about Adrian, is he happy to be photographed (no worries there, he was lovely)?

I started drafting out some plans with plain old pen and paper, which you can see below. Don’t laugh! Admittedly they are very rudimentary, but they make sense to me! I try and think about possible lighting situations and what settings I will use on my camera, although often that changes when I turn up at the location. I make a plan of my ideas. When I’m in the middle of shooting, it can be easy to get carried away and it helps to pull out my piece of paper and have a glance.

Although my drawings are very basic, upon closer inspection there is quite a lot of detail. The arrows coming out of the stick figures head? The direction of eye line. How to position arms? Check. Angles? Check.

As you can see, there are quite a few sketches and notes ( if you can read my scribbles) in relation to the train journey. But, ah, the best laid plans!!

I had about 30 minutes with Adrian, who had to dash to catch his train. Chiltern trains stop every half an hour at Moor Street. Travelling to Snow hill would be no good (as Adrian pointed out) as the train would be packed with commuters at that hour, plus it was under a tunnel so in relation to capturing a scene of Adrian sitting at a table – it would just be black in the background. Ideally we would have travelled to Solihull and back.

Okay, 30 minutes it was then! Let’s get cracking. Here are a selection of photos. Oh, and for all but the first photo of Adrian, I was standing on a chair!

Adrian dashed for his train and so I had another 30 minutes or so left. A lovely lady from Chiltern asked if I would be able to take some shots of Moor Street itself, so I happily obliged.

How do you plan your shoots? I would love to hear! (I’m sure your drawings are MUCH better than mine )

Don’t forget to put the 4th April in your diary & tell your friends. Not long to go until the 4am Project’s 1st Birthday!

Let’s connect! Twitter, Youtube,Facebook

Three Degrees at the NIA

Yesterday I blogged about my evening shooting the Four Tops at the NIA. But I have a little confession, I was holding back on you. I didn’t mention that I also shot the Three Degrees that night too! There was a good reason for that….. I hadn’t edited the photos yet

So, without further ado, here they are in all their red sequined fabulousness ! 

They looked and sounded stunning. What I wouldn’t do for one of their red dresses – divine!

I thought I’d throw in a bit of info about the camera settings I used on these photographs: ISO 800, 1/80 second, f3.5 or f4 & used my 18-135mm & 70-300mm lenses.

My gallery has got a new look! Check it out and have a browse! I need to update it with some more pictures now, but hope you like it. A big THANK YOU for that goes to my talented photographer friend Matt Murtagh. Thank you Matt!

Come and say Hello

Facebook, Twitter, hello@karenstrunks.com

4am Project event at Bodies Revealed

As part of the 4am Project I organised a photo event on 6th December which was held at the Bodies Revealed exhibition in Birmingham. The 4am Project my global photography which asks people to capture their view of the world at 4am.

Thank you to everyone who took part! I’ve had lots of great feedback and I’m glad you enjoyed the event.

Lots of amazing photographs have been submitted to flickr!

I took the opportunity to ask some of the photographers how they heard about the 4am Project and if they enjoyed the event! Thank you everyone who took part in the video.

 And there is more! Being a world wide project, lots of other photographers from around the world set their alarms and headed out in the wee small hours with their cameras to capture their world at 4am. Take a look!

If you would like to take part in the next 4am Project event, put the 4thApril in your diary! Maybe get some friends together too! You can keep up to date with all the 4am Project news on the website, and you can follow the project on twitter too @4amproject

A big thank you to the sponsors of the Birmingham event. Hello Digital, Big Cat PR and of course the Bodies Revealed exhibition.