Peak Pursuit Fashion Shoot

I was given a brief to photograph a few jackets for an outdoor clothing fashion brand. We had a small budget so it was just me and the model with the jackets and the outdoors. On the day the weather was terrible but the model was booked and so we decided to go ahead anyway. We went to Dovestones Reservoir in Oldham as it was close to Manchester City Centre. We packed the jackets into some Big plastic bags and off we went.

When we arrived the rain was coming down in sheets so I parked the car in the car park, took a deep breath and then got stuck in. Luckily Josh the model is used to the outdoors as an avid climber and explorer so wasn’t bothered by the Manchester weather. He helped me carry the samples in a big bag while I tried my best to keep my Nikon D850 protected from the elements.

The first place we shot was by the reservoir and this wasn’t the kind of photo shoot that we could spend time perfecting the right picture. It was more like, get the jacket on, make sure it looked good on the model and set up the shot very quickly before we got completely drenched. I don’t think I have ever taken photographs so quickly haha. Once we had nailed the first jacket we moved locations. I wanted to make sure we had enough different locations without ruining my equipment or any of the garments. Luckily the clothes were built for the outdoors so the model managed to keep relatively dry.

Once we finished shooting all the jackets (I think the whole shoot took less than an hour) it was the first time I had used Photoshop AI. On the day the sky was misty and completely flat with no definition at all in the clouds. I wanted to add definition to add some interest to the sky so used AI to add some stormy, moody skies to the final images. Shooting outside is part and parcel of a photographer’s life but usually we try to avoid photographing in pouring rain. Although the results were what I wanted it is always a bit worrying putting your equipment at risk in extreme weather conditions Not something I would necessarily recommend.