The growth in sales of male grooming products continues to defying the credit crunch and at last it’s cool for a man to be vain. It’s too late for me ;-) but not for my future clients.

A beach, the sun, sea, and a blue sky provides the setting whilst a smoke grenade and a Broncolor mobile flash system do the rest.

Rock bands, boy bands, body builders, boxers, rugby teams, models, jazz musicians, actors and dancers are all potential portrait and portfolio clients in a growth market.

I want to develop products for these men and I need to start with pictures, not just any pictures, images that are as different from the abilities of an amateur photographer that I can get. They need to be striking, desirable, repeatable, fun to take and be of high value.

Every now and then I recharge my creative juices with a mad shoot to push the boundaries of my knowledge and expertise. It is best for me to do this frequently and here is the result of a recent mad cap shoot I had with fellow creatives.

Top stylist Stuart Holmes from Cheltenham works his magic in the sun outside the Lovegrove studio.

We tried to keep the budget for this test shoot to a minimum, so we sourced male models from an online community on a ‘time for pictures’ strategy. We used both Modelmayhem.com and Modeljobspro.com to generate interest in this project.

The aim of the exercise was to go on a creative journey with my trusty Broncolor Mobil kit and a touch of Hollywood visual effects in the form of smoke grenades. I sourced the smoke grenades online too. My principal aims for the shoot were to have fun, rekindle the pleasure of collaboration with Stuart Holmes (a previous wedding client from the days of film) and to create pictures of men that will help me develop my new product lines.

Anna from the Stuart Holmes salon adjusts the hair colour of one of our models in the studio

The chain of events…

I put out a model request online and received over twenty replies from hopefuls who were prepared to travel from London, Birmingham and Wales to be part of the shoot. I decided to pay them for their time and to reimburse expenses in order to avoid no shows, but alas of the four booked models one decided not to attend. I phoned around and found someone local to fill in at the last minute. Had the fee been higher say £300 or so then that problem would have been avoided.

We started at 09.00 at our studio where Stuart and Anna had already set up a mobile salon. Stuart decided the sun was worth enjoying and moved outside to make the most of it. I took a few ‘before’ shots of each guy and then was entrusted with the task of making a seemingly endless supply of cappuccinos.

Marko, our digital guru was teaching four photographers how to max out the abilities of Adobe Lightroom in our shooting room so we occupied the viewing room instead. The music was pumping, the coffee was flowing, the sun was shining and the place was buzzing.

Taken using natural light as the 'key' and a flash 'kick' from a 580EX2 Speedlight rigged on a stand. I triggered the flash using Pocket Wizards. It's often easier to set the flash to a manual setting of lets say half power and move it closer or further from the subject to adjust the brightness level.

This shot utilises a Broncolor with a silver brolly as a key light, the sun as a back light and a Speedlight to put the spot of light on the quarry wall to the right of shot. A bit of lingering smoke added to the design.

The first location was a local quarry that has become overgrown. I set up the Broncolor flash with a fresnel head and triggered it with a pocket wizard system. I also had a Canon Speedlight to hand and triggered that with an STE2 infrared transmitter when required. Once basic exposures had been established it was time to add a bit of smoke. The grenades had a strike system and once triggered they billowed out clouds of thick white smoke. There is no on off switch on a smoke grenade so a bit of planning with regard wind direction and other people is a must. At one point we managed to fill the playground of a nearby school with smoke as it rose out of the quarry and was taken east by the wind. After pacifying a few of the teachers we were fine. We had about an hour shooting in the quarry before we went back to the studio for lunch. I think I could repeat all the quarry shots that worked in about 20 minutes with my real clients.

Just a spot of flash from the Speedlight this time. Zoomed in to illuminate the models top half. The rays were a combination of the sun through the trees and smoke.

Another dramatic shot lit with a Speedlight on a stand.

More smoke and the full power of the Broncolor Mobil kit with the silver brolly used as a 'key' light. This time I used the sun as a 'kick' light.

After lunch we went to the beach en masse. Clevedon  is just 15 minutes drive from my studio and we can be in Weston Super Mare in just 25 minutes. We opted for Clevedon for this shoot and set about rigging the Broncolor Mobil kit on the beach. Anna, one of Stuart’s stylists went around the sunbathers to let them know they might see a bit of smoke and that there was nothing to worry about and within minutes of setting off the first grenade we had managed to clear the whole beach of sunbathers. So my advice is to shoot early in the morning, or at sunset and definitely out of school holidays to minimise the disturbance to others.

I wanted to create a set of pictures that showed a range of styles that could be used with individuals and groups alike. The boy band look was a personal quest to see if I could combine sun, sea, rocks, smoke, and blue sky with flash.

Shot into the sun with the Broncolor Mobil light used bare faced as a key.

This system works well for close ups too.

1. I always shoot into the sun if it’s out. This ensures the models or clients can keep their eyes open. The sun then becomes a back light.
2. I use the camera to take a light reading for the background. For this I put the camera in manual mode with a shutter speed of 1/200th and adjust the aperture until I get an exposure reading of typically one to three stops under. This depends upon the look I’m after. Under exposing the background will have the effect of increasing saturation in highlight areas like skies, sunsets etc. I can tweak the background exposure later if required.
3. I then rig the flash to give me the direction and quality of light I want. Setting it high on a stand and weighting it down with the battery pack attached to the base of the stand.
4. I set the flash to full power, (1200ws) in sunlight and half power in open shade. I take a test frame and adjust the position or flash power to taste. Moving the flash just a small distance makes a big difference to exposure. Using the flash at half power increases the recycle time and the number of flashes available. The model or client then takes their place in the frame and I shoot a test frame. There is no rapport building, moment creating direction at this stage.
5. I get the technical bit spot on using a test and measure procedure. Subtle lighting and exposure tweaks are often needed at this point to get the foreground / background balance the way I like it.
6. With the technical stuff sorted out I can now go to town on creating a moment to capture. A key benefit of working manually with professional kit is that each exposure is going to be identical irrespective of small framing adjustments made during the shoot. I give my client or model 100% concentration adjusting the pose and creating moments to capture.
7. Post production is the crucial final step in obtaining the look required. All the pictures here have had a degree of picture enhancement to bring them to life. I aim to get the image as good as I can in the camera and Marko my picture editor finishes the job on the computer.

Here I pull all the elements together. It's the kind of shot that I'd use for a CD artwork commission.

We had such good fun creating these shots we’ve already set the date for the next smokin’ shoot, this time with girls. All in the name of product research. If you want a 1:1 shoot day or advanced lighting training with me Damien Lovegrove take a look at the Lovegrove Consulting website here. I suggest my lighting DVDs should be your first investment ;-)