Greg Johnson

Posted byalexlcartPosted inUncategorized

Greg Johnson is a local 2rd year Commercial Music student, and singer/song writer. putting a post of Facebook on Nov 12 asking for photographers to do a shoot with him for his upcoming EP LOST. i saw this post and contacted him directly to enquire about the position.

he contacted me back stating

Hi Alex, thanks for getting in touch.

So, I’m a 2nd Year student at Bath Spa. I’m messaging regarding organising a photoshoot for one of my modules. I’m currently working on my Brand, Identity and Promotion module, whereby we have to put a face to the music we make. As I’m sure you’re aware, photography is key to this.

Part of the draft plan I’ve put together is to get photos of both studio shots, as well as with the instruments I play, of guitar and piano.I’ve attached a document to this message of example photos for reference.

I therefore wondered if you’d be interested. as I’d love to work with fellow Spa students, as it may be an opportunity for related coursework to be completed.
I’m flexible to work with your schedule. I’d most likely be looking to work towards the middle of December and the New Year.

If this is something you’d be interested, be sure to let me know and we can go from there.

this sounded good and i was interested to work with another student collaboratively, i let him know that i was a 1st year student and that it would be useful for my online blog, i then sent him my portfolio so that he could get an idea for my work and the skills i can provide.

following this he said that i was what he was looking for, a studio shoot with high contrast photos, some in colour, some in black and white. He shared with me some inspiration photos of what he was after, this really helped as i could get an understanding of the visual aspects he was hoping for, giving me a kick board to start ideas

We also discussed dates and both of us said that we were going home for the holidays around the 16th of Dec and that ideally it would be done before then.

Greg was pleasant to work with, as he stayed motivated. he also said that he could work around my time table which was really convenient. But he didn’t always message back to me within the same day but I understand that people are busy and that it can be like that sometimes

we discussed the locations like the studio, outside or on set. maybe the use of backdrops, studio lights, possible weather conditions , and the different types of format i would bring to our shoots .

we scheduled to meet in person on the 20th of November and get some practice shots to form an idea of where to go from. however this didn’t take place as Greg had to cancel, because he felt that without a car he couldn’t transport his instruments safely, and that if we needed to go to a different location that we might need to get buses. i thought this would ok as we still had time before the 16th.

He said he would be going home at the end of November and returning on the 9th of December, I told him this gave us a smaller window that i would have liked but maybe still workable.

Over the next few days Greg became busy with work and other deadlines which meant he wasn’t able to meet up until around the 9th

I was busy the next few days unable to meet but stayed in contact explaining my situation. we exchanged some dates that would work saying that i would be free from the 11th, he said he would send me a list of location ideas he wanted and that we could use his car to get to them.

however he messaged me on the 7th at 1:30am asking i had access to the lighting studio over the next few days, i explained to him the next day that i would have a look come Monday at the schedule as it uni is closed during the weekend and that i would book us in when i could, that it would be tight because many of the other 2nd/3rd student like to book the studio

sadly come Monday i checked the schedule and my fears were true, the lighting studio was fully booked until after Christmas, i told him i was sorry i couldn’t be before the holidays however that i was happy to do some location work, but he didn’t seem to want to do off site shoots. that he’d rather spend time in the studio instead.

i said ok, and looked to book us in after the holidays , i let him know that anywhere from the 13th of January was possible as the studio was booked until then. he said that he would be able to make the 13th and we agreed to meet at 10:30am, and told him that we had the studio up until 1pm to shoot.

the holidays came and past, come the 12th i messaged him asking if we were still good to meet tomorrow at 10:30am and gave him my phone number encase he needed to contact me.

this was the same time i was coming from my holiday back home, my bus was to arrive in bath at 6am because weird bus times, this was probably poor planning on my part as it left me tired for our shoot on the 13th (now today) knowing i needed some rest before then i took a small nap to prepare myself for the day with alarms set to wake me up on time.

however this didn’t go according to plan leading Greg to phone me at 10:30am to no avail, i woke at 11am panicked, grabbed my stuff and told Greg i would be there as soon as i could. i apologised for my poor business practice when i arrived and we got on with the shoot, with coffee close to hand.

The Shoot

from 11:30am until 12:30pm it went well, i enjoyed the experience of getting to work with another creative mind and to use the studio equipment. i spoke to the technions on hand that that sorting trigger flashes, and soft box lights.

to the shoot i brought a medium format camera and my Nikon D3500, i also hired out a Nikon D810.

i couldn’t get my camera to sync up with the studio lights and trigger flash,knowing we were short on time for the session, i oped for the D810 for the rest of the session, this seemed to work better and also had a high MP at 36.2 compared to my 24.2.

the studio lights were set to a 4:3 ratio giving soft shadows

we also used some props, from the cafe i brought in a stall in as many of the photo examples Greg showed me were sat down. directing him felt a lot comfortable than in the past when its been with strangers, i felt i could take my time and compose the shots i wanted being able to take close portraits of him .

Greg also brought a guitar with him this was nice to use as a prop. I could place him around it, often i would ask him to pose in different manners, asking him to direct his gaze to different places.

when asked to review my work Greg had this to say

” they’re great! They really capture what the aim of the shoot was, in terms of promotion for my music. You were able to capture me, the brand and what I do with my music. I felt comfortable and it was easy to work with you, which is great and shows in the photos “

i would say a similar thing back to him, it was nice working with him he was very cooperative adn we worked well together to achieve a collaborative vision for is new EP coming out

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