If you think that photo shoots are fabulous and exciting…well I hate to break it to you, they are not. It’s not standing around drinking fruity drinks and having a relaxing time with hot models. IF ONLY! There is a lot of planning and work that goes into a shoot. Every time before a shoot I have all my friends go “OMG I’m so jealous you get to look at hot models.” Granted you do get to see great looking guys in swimwear but I rarely have time to sit back and relax! This day has come with a month of planning and getting sponsors. I’m going to walk you though how we do things here.
Usually in Feb/March we start reaching out to prob over 25-30 companies to get them in the shoot. That number ends up to being anywhere from 5-8 companies in the final product. Its always a game of “will the swim be out in time.” This is one of the main reasons we don’t get companies some of your favorites photographed. We try to shoot it in April and get it out two weeks before Memorial Day here in the state. That way you guys can order them with plenty of time to get them before you head out for the holiday weekend.
After we receive the swimwear. We set a shoot list of what we are going to shoot and what order. This year we shot Clever, Vuthy, Bwet, 2EROS, N2N Bodywear and Manus Swim. In that order. The location we had was in Birmingham, Alabama. I live in Atlanta so I was up at 6 AM for the 2 hour drive over. After triple checking I had everything I hit the road. I always have that feeling I will make the journey and leave the swimwear at home. Don’t laugh I have done this for a shoot before and ever since I get OCD about having the swimwear.
I arrive 30 minutes before shoot time to have everything set up. This was one of the first shoots where I didn’t stress models. It’s in inevitable in past UNB shoots that one or more of the models fall out on shoot day. Having worked with Matt, who I call the model wrangler, Martin and Derek before I knew that we wouldn’t have this issue. Everyone showed up on time and we were off to the shoot.
The morning went pretty well. We got through a lot of the pairs with out issue. The only issue we had was the SD card for my camera wouldn’t record video and I had to run out middle of the shoot to get a new one. Who knew certain cards couldn’t do hi def video? But it was a great time for a break. I ran out and got the card and we were back at it.
We always get creative on each individual scene we do for the shoot. It’s always boring just to see the same shot over and over again. Guys standing doesn’t make a great shoot. So we try to get creative and put the guys in fun situations. This being a pool shoot we got all the non we shots out of the way first. Then had fun in the pool after. So the water guns, back flips off the diving board and fun times happened at the end.
Photo shoots are tiring. It may not seem that way but everyone is worn out after it. You want to eat and take a nap! One thing you should know is I don’t think any model eats the day of a shoot. They want to look the best, so after I always take the guys to lunch/dinner. This time we did Mexican, which was in no way healthy.
After we ate we hung out a few and then I headed the 2 hours home. I left my house at 7 AM and returned at 7 PM so it was a long day and 240 miles round trip!
