Creating a Lifestyle Image Library
Any reader of this blog will know that I have a wide variety of interests and that I photograph a diverse range of subject matter. One area where I feel that I particularly excel as a photographer is creating lifestyle image libraries. I'm not sure if it's my training as a photojournalist at the University of Idaho (Go Vandals!) or if it's my many years of photographing for higher education and independent schools, but I enjoy exploring angles and turning what might be one single image into a series of images that help to tell a story. Or, in the example below, giving my client multiple options for subject matter and layout when they are planning their marketing strategies.
When Navy Federal Credit Union contacted me about creating a lifestyle image library for them, I was excited because I knew that my style of photography would be a perfect fit. They are my ideal client. They know what they want and are specific about the details in pre production, but give me plenty of freedom on shoot days to do what I do best. The other major benefit I had with this shoot is that my rep and producer (Alex Ostebo from Creative Picnic) is in the military. She was able to both produce this shoot and serve as our military expert to make sure all uniforms, haircuts, etc. met military guidelines.
For this particular project, we needed to create 80 final selects over the course of 3 days. That's a big ask, but we managed to accommodate. Truth be told, it should have been a 5 day shoot, but we hustled and made it happen in three. We're scrappy. Because of the shoot requirements and number of crew members we would need, we decided to produce this shoot in San Diego, CA. San Diego has great crew resources, a good pool of talent, excellent locations, NFCU branches and amazing weather in March. Rates in San Diego are also reasonable making it a budget friendly location to shoot as well!
From the time we were awarded the job to the shoot date was only about 4 weeks. Not a lot of time to put together a shoot of this size. We busted our butts to get everything lined up. Our contacts at Navy Federal were awesome. They were fast with decisions and information which allowed us to meet our deadlines. Even still, it was a hustle and the team that Alex and I put together were instrumental in helping us get all the logistics worked out prior to our shoot dates.
I could prattle on about how the production days went, but I'll let you watch this killer behind the scenes video that @benweiland put together that shows a few of the scenarios we photographed. I think it will give you some insight into the approach we took. As always, leave any questions you have for me in the comments.