The internet is incredible, isn't it? As a photographer, having the ability to watch other people work behind the scenes is awe-inspiring and invaluable.

My last post about technical perfection and the Cheap Camera Challenge [post – here ; Cheap Camera Challenge – here] got me thinking about just how mind blowing it is that we have this constant resource at our fingertips.

There is something magical about watching other people shoot. For me, it's not just about what kit they use, or how they've set up their lights, but it's about seeing the awesome little tricks they employ; the creative little flairs that make their work their own.

For this weeks Weekend Inspiration, I thought I'd pull together some of the videos I love to look to for inspiration in the hopes of inspiring you too.

Here is the incredible Paolo Roversi shooting into mirrors for Vogue Unique


Sølve Sundsbø shooting with smoke for 'an up-to-date elegance' for Vogue Italia

Tim Walker shooting with paint splattered backdrops for Lady Dior

Lara Jade shooting through crystals on her CreativeLive workshop

and Emily Soto shooting a mix of digital and polariods for Composure Magazine

Do you watch behind the scenes videos for inspiration? What are some of your favourites? Please leave a link or suggestion in the comments, I'd love to watch them!

Have an incredible week.

With love,
Rachael♡

Hey you.

So recently I had the absolute pleasure of working with these two amazing ladies from Superior Model Management; Rebecca and Amy J.


Not only are they're both insanely talented young women, they're genuinely lovely too. ♡ In fact, the entire team on this project were incredible.

Hair- Kimberly Logie
Make up- Stephanie Milne
Fashion styling- Kayleigh Swan
Photography & retouching- Rachael Sammon

Now I know I've been away for a while but I loved this shoot so much I thought I would show you a little look behind the scenes- and the lighting details if you're into that sort of thing! If you are, grab yourself a cup of tea and let's get going! If you're not, I'll see you in the next one.x

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Alright, so, talking about it beforehand, we all decided that we wanted to shoot something quite slick and editorial. We pulled together our ideas and started building mood boards and each set about deciding what we would bring to the shoot.

I usually love to keep my light soft and natural looking so being the nerd that I am, I wanted to keep true to this but still have the light pop. Highlight-y, soft light, but with an editorial edge... Not that that's asking a lot of myself or anything!

Playing around with the lighting beforehand I decided on one of my favourite lighting set ups of the moment.


Does this make sense to you? I hope it does! This is how I find myself sketching out lighting diagrams, in a sort of aerial view, so hopefully you can see what I mean.

Shooting like this makes a nice big tunnel of light in front of the models, more than enough to illuminate the two perfectly, and it's feathered so you get that lovely glowing highlight. Of course I still wanted shadows and depth so that's where the black v flats come in. I genuinely don't know how I ever worked without them.

I also feel I should tell you that the white v flats were really, in this instance, two white walls. My living room, where I shot this, is teeny tiny so I just utilised the walls instead of cluttering up what little space there was.



Why those settings? Well, for aperture I never shoot more than 6.3 because I'm a sucker for softness, but since we wanted that crisp editorial look 6.3 is, for me, a good balance of soft and sharp.

In terms of studio light, 1/125 is a good starting point for flash and anything not requiring a specific shutter speed. And, if you didn't know (which I didn't, even after three years of formal photographic education) you can't, in general, go higher than 1/250 with flash. That's when you get the black stuttering bars on your images because you're shooting too quickly for the bulb and you're out of sync- or something.

For ISO, 100 is really low for me; I love noise and grain. Since we were talking slick and clean I didn't want to go all out, but I couldn't help adding a little back in in post.

Oh and yeah, this is the background I painted myself, if you recognised it! I still love it. If you haven't seen it, you can check out how I made it here.

I had so much fun on this shoot- I think we all did!

It was so great to work with Amy, Kimberly, and Steph again; it was amazing to work with Kayleigh and Rebecca for the first time. I cannot recommend these ladies enough. ♡

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Well, I think that's everything! It definitely was a long 'un, but I hope it was informative. If there's anything else you'd like to know, please don't hesitate to ask. 

I'll leave you with the final images; I hope you love them as much as I do.

I'm in the midst of a wee portfolio refresh so if you could let me know your favourite(s), that would be amazing; I'd really appreciate it.

With love,
Rachael♡

Hey guys!

So last week I did a little test shoot with two incredible ladies. ♡ Last time I shot with the beautiful and lovely Megan Smith we went for a super soft dream-like aesthetic but this time we decided to do something a little more editorial; combine this with the incredibly talented Stephanie Milne lending us her make up artistry skills for the evening, and we were all set for a great shoot!

I'd also tried my hand at painting my own backdrop on v flats at the weekend so this proved a great opportunity to try them out. ^.^

As you can see below, I set them up as a little corner to shoot in and I'm super pleased with the results! Why do I have a hair tie half way up my hand you ask? Who knows.



These ladies were a dream to work with (as always!) and it was such a fun shoot. ♡ To top it all off, I'm completely smitten with the results; I just love the images. I hope you do too.

Here is a little sneak peek, shh!

Lots of love,
Rachael.♡