Stevieroy is a successful Fashion and advertising photographer; his clients include Addidas, All American Vintage, BBC Leeds, Dunlop Heywood and many more. His studios in Leeds and London, offer the very best in digital capture and lighting, for both studio shoots and location shoots nationally and internationally, working with a team of professional stylists, makeup artists, and hairstylists to cover all the photographic requirements.
We had the opportunity to speak with him and discover how this story started, and who he is as a photographer.
I always remember having a camera in my teens, but never really sure how to work it, it had always been of interest to me as I spent a lot of years in men’s fashion and looking at great imagery in FHM, GQ, and Esquire but it wasn’t until a long time after this that it became my profession, strangely it started with furniture! I used to have customers contact me to ask how I captured accurate color and detail? This led to shooting products for other companies and moved into fashion and beauty photography around 2002, this was the moment I realized it was all worth getting out of bed for, if you’re really passionate about what you do, it doesn’t feel like work!
I’m a totally self-taught photographer.
Do I shoot with two different cameras, primarily for my fashion work I use a Phase One medium format digital camera with different digital backs depending on what the client needs? The detail captured by a large sensor allows images to be printed in huge sizes for billboards and banners on buildings, incredible stuff! My other camera is a Canon 1Ds Mark 3 which is a super-fast full-frame 35mm, a little easier to handle than Phase One and would shoot PR and fashion events on the Canon! My answer would be Phase One
I don’t think I’ll ever stop shooting fashion, every shoot is different, always more to learn, I’m my own worst critic, I want to be better and better all the time! I do however like to shoot Cityscapes, I’ve spent a lot of time in New York and have a lot of images of the City, some have been bought by bars and restaurants in large format for their walls and entrance receptions, I’d definitely like to do more of this in my spare time!
I like a lot of my work, there are so many reasons why and the image comes out the way it does, connection with the subject, timing, direction, they all mean a lot of different ways.
I’ve really enjoyed the journey to get where I am now and think time is what makes it a reality, I’ve taught many photographers in the past and within a couple of years they’ve given up, I always stress to people looking to go into the industry that it’s hard and super competitive, be prepared to get a lot of rejection, It’s not an overnight industry, patience and time to develop your own style is paramount!
If I have downtime in my schedule, I’ll call the agencies and ask them to send me models that I can test shoot with, this is an excellent way to try new techniques and be creative with lighting in the studio and on location, my advice would be test, test and test some more, keep shooting!
I think the beauty of a shoot is that it’s never typical! There’s the usual organization, of your team, assistants, transport, hair, make-up, and styling should you provide this to the client, this would be the typical part of any shoot, the rest, well, this is where the fun begins!
I don’t do much retouching on my images; I spend more time on the lighting to create the result! Apart from removing spots, blemishes, the usual issues, but most of my work is straight out of the camera.
I have a lot of accessories, but one of my favorites is a small reflector panel called a Sun-mover by California Sunbounce in Germany, it’s a great product that I use in the studio and on location.
I’d like to work with a few models, for fashion I’d like to shoot Natasha Poly and Cara Delavigne, and for swimwear and lingerie Miranda Kerr and Michaela Kocianova.
I don’t have a favorite book, is it bad that I don’t read much; I do like my books on Albert Watson and Guy Bourdin though!
If you want to know more about Stevieroy, please visit his Website
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