WW1 Nurses photoshoot for book covers
I’ve meant to be sharing what I’m shooting more, but it’s all via my instagram and I forget to blog about it since my turn around time is SO quick. But I’m working on that I promise.
So I went on a scout for a certain type of old-worldy location that would be good for ww1 and ww2 type images. Cobbled streets, old buildings, not to much modernisation. Lot’s of people suggested London and the bigger cities but they are always so busy, full of people and are a pain to get too whilst you’ve got models in historical garb etc. So I finally found a location which fit the bill and wasn’t too far from home either which was fab.
I chose Megan and Niamh as they both have very timeless looking faces, if anything they both look like they could be born in another era. Also it may sound strange but they both have very strong smiles and it’s something I wanted in the photoshoot.
Went to Masquerade Costumes and picked up some WW1 dresses with matching headdresses too. The only thing I failed on miserably was shoes, I couldn’t find anything appropriate in the time scale I had so I asked them both to wear simple flat shoes. Not perfect but next time I know I need to give myself some more time.
Photographing images for potential book covers can be a bit of a minefield, it took me a long time to be able to step back and objectively look at my work and realise some of it, despite me loving it, was never going to sell for simple things such as no definitive theme, story or even something as simple as copy space. I go through all these things and everything else in my course pretty extensively.
So whilst I’m photographing, I always keep book covers in mind. You can’t predict of course what a publisher or designer is thinking and sometimes they’ll choose images that boggle your mind but we have to remind ourselves, “We are the photographers, NOT the designers, in this case.” and put pride aside for a second.
This shoot was funny, we got a lot of stares as I’m sure you can imagine and the weatherman lied to us, it rained on and off the entire photoshoot! I’m really pleased with the results so far, I’ve got a ton more to go through but for now I’m happy.
