Plan and Shoot for a Photography Commission

If you’re working to a professional creative brief or looking to complete a personal photography project, there are five important steps to deliver stunning imagery in an efficient and cost-effective way. While a photography project can be daunting and stressful, with many variable factors out of your control, planning ahead can help make things as fun and creatively fulfilling as possible. From the financials and equipment to the visual style and locations, planning can be challenging and rewarding. But follow this guide and you should end up with those all-important awe-inspiring images. 

Zūnya, a regenerative living system in Costa Rica, commissioned MPB resident photographer Ian Howorth @ihoworth to shoot a series of photographs. In this guide, Ian shares his advice for getting the most from any professional photography project. Over to you, Ian.

I was fortunate enough to have been invited by Zūnya to be an artist-in-residence at their base near Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. What I liked about Zūnya is that they didn’t seem to fit the traditional archetype of an eco-village. They are devoted to sustainability and regeneration in a country that already does so much. What first piqued my interest was Zūnya’s devotion to the land and the people. They integrate themselves locally, as opposed to being a separate entity.

I was given quite an open brief to interpret the project during my residency. While this was great in practice, it does put pressure on you to come up with a concept that has to resonate with the commissioning team.

In this guide, I’ll talk you through five steps I tend to follow when I respond to a creative brief. The process and order of things might be a little different for everyone. But, especially if you’re doing a project for the first time, hopefully, these five points are a good jumping-off point.

1. Conduct your preliminary research

Research can cover everything from locations, weather and climate to safety and transportation. As one thread of research can inform the other, the order of things doesn’t matter too much at the earliest stages. You can choose to begin with the idea of the project first. But for me, as a photographer, I get excited about the potential for the visual story—how it might look and what are the challenges behind that. 

It’s important to get a good idea of the appearance of different parts of the area. Then, later, when you begin to solidify your idea, it will begin to make sense in your head. But all photographers work differently. For some, it's all about the story, and then the images follow. For others, it's the other way around.

2. Work on your idea and concept

Getting an idea will usually come from an inspiration, something you’ve heard, seen or read that interests you enough to pursue as a photographic project. But usually, if there’s a brief involved, half the work is already done. While this isn’t necessarily easier, it just means you have a ready-made launchpad. For most photographers, the idea—and how to tell it—will be key. Is the project a narrative piece, or is it more conceptual? While the idea will involve technical elements, this is your time to think about what you are trying to say. Are there any historical or contemporary themes worth exploring?

For the Zūnya project, the brief was to focus on the people that support Zūnya, their endeavours and the land around them. At the same time, I knew I didn't want to make the work entirely literal. For me, it was important to try to be a little more conceptual and abstract—a nod to the mystery of the area. So again, think of concepts rather than methodology.

3. Think about the technicals

For this project, before I gave the execution any serious thought, I knew that I wanted to do it in black and white. First, I wanted a challenge as I primarily shoot in colour. Second, I wanted to concentrate on shape and form, rather than have warmth and colour influence the images or the project.

I’ve always felt there are associations to mood with colour temperature, and this can sometimes work against the project’s intended effect. So, I wanted to see if I could eliminate that by stripping everything back. I also knew I wanted to use flash for certain images and to see if I could light the landscape to give it a certain air of mystery and allure. 

I’d started to love digital black-and-white conversions, and the power of using the colour channels on Lightroom to affect the density, texture and luminosity of black and white. After all, I was still capturing a colour image from the sensor. My thought was that I could add to the unusualness of the images with this, and the use of coloured flash as well.

4. Pick out your equipment

Which camera should you take? The camera and lenses are some of the most crucial elements of any project. Some projects require discreet filming, for example, so a large noisy camera might not be the best choice. Equally, if you want something more stylised then lens choice will affect the look of your images. You might want to shoot really wide, for example, to give your images a certain look. 

There are few cameras out there that will do absolutely everything. Some, like digital medium format cameras, are focused purely on image quality. Others focus on speed and ‘getting the shot’, like the Sony A9 or Canon EOS 1DX series.

For this project, I wanted to shoot black-and-white film. But I decided that digital was a better option, as I wanted to mess around with colour channels for the conversion. For me, the strength of black and white is the focus the lack of colour puts on tonality. So I decided that medium format was the way to go. 

I opted for a Hasselblad X1D II 50C and Hasselblad 35-75mm f/3.5-4.5 lens and a Hasselblad XV converter, mated to an old Carl Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 V-series lens for a mixture of compactness, simplicity and quality. I chose to use the 80mm for its vintage aesthetic. 

With modern digital, I always feel I need to tone the image down in post. As a prime shooter normally, I wanted to see if I could put it to good use for portraits. I also used a Diffuser / Bouncer Nikon SB900 flash, a few gels, a tripod and a torch for light painting. 

5. Stay on your toes when you shoot

For any project, there’s always an element of not everything quite going to plan. A certain amount will always have to be left up to chance or discovery. This might add up to around 20–30% of your time on the day. But it’s important to remain agile so you can respond to different scenarios as they come up—without losing sight of the original plan. Stick to the plan, but keep your eyes peeled for challenges and opportunities.  

With this project, I was fortunate that anything prepared in advance—such as shooting with beekeepers and fishers—went without a hitch and without the need to stress over schedules. These were two key points for the project. Much of the produce in Zūnya’s local area is not necessarily exported or sent away, it is used within the community, minimising the carbon footprint. The fish, for example, is bought the same day by local restaurants. The small fishing village serves almost the entire population of Santa Teresa.

One of the easier things to shoot at Zūnya, which also happened to be the place I was staying, was my proximity to their organic allotments. Though it required starting very early in the morning, it was easy and provided an incredible insight into the production methods of organic farms together with many of the challenges.

It was important to show that Zūnya was investing a lot in seeing if they could stock their entire plant-based restaurant, Nula, with vegetables from the allotment.

One of the trickiest parts of shooting was the non-literal images, to create mood and give a vibe of mystery and intrigue to the area. I decided to use flash and coloured gels, which would allow me to manipulate the image in post and play with colour channels to give different vibrance to the image wherever the flash hit. 

The debrief process actually begins while you’re still shooting. It's impossible not to self-critique and begin to think about how you can do things better as issues come up or plans change. Do as much research as you can before the trip. And, even if you feel you aren’t getting the shots, go easy on yourself. There’s no reason why you can’t enjoy the process. Learning how to deal with disappointment and frustration is a part of that. Not everything will go according to plan—weather, changing plans, adapting to new situations—so it’s important to be able to assess what is best for the project.

Make a note of all the images that are secured and ‘in the bag’. It’ll help you going forward and allow you to focus on what you need to tell the story the way you need to. 

When time is at a premium, sometimes it’ll start running out. It’s important to identify the essential elements that will allow you to at least tell the story with your images, rather than having an incomplete story due to spending too much time on something else. In an ideal world, you’d be able to truly finesse all your images. But that’s not always possible. 

Make sure that your hunt for perfection doesn’t get in the way of shooting the other images you need to complete the project. You’ll always feel like you could have done better. Complete satisfaction is difficult, especially if you’re working to a deadline in an unfamiliar location. The key is to do as much as possible beforehand.

While you can’t plan for everything—and being proactive means you’ll make the most of unexpected challenges and opportunities—the more you organise in advance, the more freedom and confidence you’ll have on the day. When you’ve got all your ducks in a row, shooting is far easier.

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