Working With Professional Brands

Today it’s time to answer questions from my readers again! For the Dutch readers, all these kind of topics can also be found in my book that will be available later this year.

The email in Dutch that I received:
“Ik heb je blog en foto’s laatst ontdekt en ik vind je werk echt supergaaf. Ook zag ik dat je hebt geschoten voor hele mooie merken en tijdschriften. Daarover heb ik een vraagje, namelijk: hoe gaat het eraan toe als zo’n merk of tijdschrift jou benadert voor een klus? Ik kan dit stukje van de fotografie business echt nergens vinden en ik ben er heel benieuwd naar omdat ik zelf ook wat meer commerciële klussen wil gaan doen, maar vrij weinig ervaring heb. wat ik dus bedoel is: stel, jij krijgt een mailtje van Monki of Elle, en ze willen jou als fotograaf voor een shoot. Ben jij dan degene die het model regelt, de MUAH, de stylist, etc, of doet de (creative) producer van het desbetreffende merk of tijdschrift dat (en moet jij dan gewoon op een bepaalde tijd op een bepaalde plek zijn, zoals bij een model het geval is zeg maar)? En de locatie, bepaal jij die zelf of doet iemand van het merk/tijdschrift dat? Ik hoop dat je mijn vragen kunt/wil beantwoorden, want ik ben echt super benieuwd.”

Short translation:
She is wondering how it is to work with professional brands and magazines. Do you have to arrange everything as a photographer (location, models, makeup artists etc.) or is this all arranged by the brand? How does this kind of collaboration work?

When I receive an email from a brand, most of the time they ask me to visit their office so we can talk in person about the idea for the shoot. Sometimes I already know a lot about the shoot, but most of the time we start sharing ideas during the meeting. When it’s the first time I’m working with that brand/client, I have to introduce myself shortly and they will also tell a little bit about themselves and about the brand of course. Then it’s time to share ideas about the particular shoot. The client tells me what they expect from the shoot and I will share my opinion and creative possibilities. It’s really different for each shoot or for each brand, but sometimes brands always work with the same team, so they already know a few makeup artists and stylists to work with, but sometimes they ask me what kind of makeup artists I prefer to work with.

Then we will decide if the shoot will be better in the studio or on location. Sometimes I do the location scouting together with the brand, sometimes one of us will do this and we keep each other updated by email and phone.

The models (in my case) are always arranged by the brand, because they have to sign the contract and pay the model agencies, so it’s better to let them talk about these details. When I have to arrange the team members, I’m the contact person and they will also send their invoice to me, so I can create one complete invoice for the brand.

I really like to be involved with the concept and to talk about the possibilities for the shoot. But I’m also OK when the brand tells me they already arranged everything and we just have a talk about a few small details.

For almost every commercial shoot I do, I prefer to work with a sheet where the client wrote down the type of shots they need. Then we know as a team where we have to work on during that day and what kind of shots we need to create. It’s also important to talk about the sizes of the photo, do they need ‘landscape’ or ‘portrait’ size images or both? Do you need to think about the space for some text in the photo? Or do they have to transform one image to a squared image and to a portrait image as well? Always ask for this before the shoot! Because you can’t fix this when you are already done.. So it’s really different each time, but this is how it works most of the time!

photography: Liselotte Fleur
styling: Dominique Mossink
makeup and hair: Elise Langenhuisen
model: Marjolein @ Ulla Models