25.04.2011 Portrait shoot | Cameron & Keir | Alexandra Palace

When your dad really wants you to do a photo shoot and you are a boy in your late teens you might agree, only just, and even then, under duress.  Especially when the shoot starts at 10am on a Saturday morning and the photographer is already a bit bouncy on strong black coffee!! Under those circumstances, these two brothers did brilliantly!

Cameron and Keir both now study outside London but grew up in North London.  They chose to do their shoot at Alexandra Palace (if you’ve never been you should – amazing building with beautiful views over London).  We spent a little bit of time getting to know each other over (another) coffee and discussing where the boys would like to go within ‘Ally Pally‘.  Keir wanted to go to the skateboard area where there was some really cool graffiti so we headed off in that direction.  On the way there we found some boarded off scaffolding, the light was pouring through and it was absolutely beautiful.  The uneven boarding was also creating some pretty fab areas of shadow and light, perfect for black and white shots.

When I’m shooting portraits I give some direction but it’s really important that the people I photograph feel comfortable and ‘real’  in front of my camera.  I worked very closely with the boys showing them the how the shots were looking on camera and explaining the look I was trying to achieve.  They quickly got into the shoot once they could see that I wasn’t going to make them look silly (always my worry in photos too!)  They both did fantastically well, we had lots of fun and I think they quite like their final photos as they’re letting me post them on here!

P.S. we found a funfair en route and you’ll notice some shots on a waltzer about half way down this post. You’ll also notice the following shot where Cameron has just got off the waltzer and has his head in his hands.  I can’t tell you how green we all were. Waltzers have got so much faster since I was sixteen!!