Where IS your office today? Ocean branding shots Cornwall, for stunning jaw dropping visuals.
Forgive me! It's the end of summer and I really wanted just to gaze out from Pentire headland, over the ocean that crashes white onto Fistral beach and the shoreline of Newquay.
I am currently standing (in my mind) looking out over the ocean towards the Headland hotel. I know that the Lewinnick lodge is just behind me, back down a pathway leading from my right hand side. The sun is beating down on my back and it’s a rare day of 28 degrees.
Here IS the view from Lewinnick and Pentire.
And here IS the Atlantic Ocean.
And quietly working away on a laptop is Sophie, with the most amazing ocean view in front of her.
In this shot Sophie doesn't SEE the ocean. She is concentrated on her 'work'.I like how she doesn't look up (it's intentional).
It’s the beginning of a client branding photoshoot in North Cornwall and it is going well!
Sophie is preoccupied with the contents of her screen and the work in progress and not the stunning blue ocean in front of her. This suggests that she is NOT a tourist here otherwise she would be enraptured by the view.
She is not.
This is home.
It literally chilled my spine to be commissioned for this shoot. Time stopped and a million visual squares flooded back past my minds eye…
This landscape has been a second home for me since the age of 9. The very first time I came to Cornwall. We stayed at West Pentire, surf cafe, my parents and I. And I wanted to learn to surf. I had met and fell l in love with a surfer who (aged 12) and I watched him surf daily from ‘Polly Oak’ beach.
Serendipity placing me again in this magnificent landscape with my new client, Sophie Hutchings.I could not believe I would shoot here in such a special place for work!
So taking a look at this ocean shot, what can we determine from it? What is it about?
Firstly the location connects us to Sophies location. This is the area where she currently lives and works. (A headland she goes running on). There is a suggestion of fluidity in this shot. It suggests someone who travels internationally (suggested by the large wide-open ocean visually illustrated) and potentially she can work from anywhere. ‘Laptop working shots’ make this suggestion when we stage them in random places: that the business entrepreneur is fluid in their ‘office’ .
The space around her ironically makes this brand photo, staged in Cornwall, feel more private.
She feels remote, alone, grounded by the headland and a vast view of the ocean.
She is distanced from us and yet we FEEL the space around her (as opposed to an up-close image where we can easily see her expressions and immediately connect.
It’s kind of cool that’s she is so dismissive of the view.
This can only be the case in a way that people are when it's a common surrounding to them.
It's just home, a local landscape.
Photographs made like these, in big open spaces, make us consider 'the bigger picture'. The focus is removed from my client and placed in to the space of this landscape.
This is a 'TOP OF THE WORLD' post or a (big thoughts) shot.
Sophie might write (examples) :-
'This morning I make a plan about my future'
'What's on your horizon right now (using the literal)?'
'What's important to you in ‘life'?
'Where do your dreams take you'? etc.
BIG SPACE = BIG MESSAGE
So for a bigger space image, we use a bigger world question. Because of the use of laptop, Sophie, if she writes about 'dreams', they must reference 'business', denoted by the symbol of the laptop.
(FYI, locations and outfits for this 6 hour full day shoot were :-
18 different outfits
&
17 different backdrops
Expressions within each location, all can be achieved with significant pre-shoot discussion, planning and a lively approach!
'Imagine the amount of online usage provided over a year?
'Imagine how they would elevate your visual brand!
Imagine how these branding photos would emotionally connect you then learning how to use them and speak your own visual language?
