Kate Noakes commissioned me as a portrait photographer just before Christmas. Kate works as Director of Innovation & Change for a well-known restaurant and is also about to launch her own consultancy in the same vain. She therefore required some professional portraits and headshots to accompany her new online presence.
The brief was to shoot a variety of portraits within her home-office environment, against a backdrop and outside. After a further chat about locations and poses we got started on some formal yet relaxed portraits of her at her desk. I decided on a 2-light setup for these, with the key light above and close to Kate at 45 degrees just off to camera-left and a second light illuminating the background office space. The close-up of Kate was taken from slightly above to give her a warm appeal.
The next shots we did were against my portable white backdrop to give her the alternative of some standard corporate headshots. These were lit with a similar key light as well as a rim light to make her red hair pop.
The last ones were taken against the backdrop of her beautiful garden with one key light at 30 degrees to camera-left and using the 70-200mm to give more of a blur to the background.
It was a fun and interesting morning. Kate loves to push herself with new challenges both personally and professionally so it was great to get to hear her stories while photographing her. She is a true professional and it was a pleasure to get to know and photograph her.
