gulsah, Author at Star İstanbul

LEE COOPER DARLIK DAM

gulsah — Tue, 21 May 2024 08:43:55 +0000

We get on the road in the dark. We are going to a dam on Şile to shoot Lee Cooper’s FW’23 campaign. Set time is 5:00 a.m., so we sleep most of the way. We realize that we have arrived when the car rattles on the road. A sweet twilight smiles at us from behind the forest, we are on the way to Darlık Dam, but we can not reach the exact location because there are no phone signals, no GPS to follow. We go to find places where the phone picks up and check our way.

We are the second car to arrive at the set area, but still no signal here. We find a corner on a small hill with a signal and start calling our team. Everyone says they’re lost, GPS is leading them to dead ends. We watch the sunrise on that tiny hill until the whole team is here.

We started shooting late due to this setback. Caravans and other vehicles are quickly settling in the field, equipment is already out and about. Hair and make-up are starting to unfold on their tables in the caravan, styling has receded into its corner. Models are having a fast breakfast. Photographers and directors look at the location and lighting.

Our models Joanne and Alex go to hair and makeup. We want very light, naturally radiant make-up, and hair that is very natural. Our shooting story is a denim story revolving around the caravan. A young couple living in a caravan, near a beautiful stream, sometimes accompanied by grazing animals.

Just before photo shoot begins, a cow and her calves come close to us, we feed them with apples and oranges that we brought with us as props. As the calves move forward and start playing with the small puddles, they unknowingly move away from their mothers. When one of the calves, who cannot find their mother, turns around and calls out to her, the cow next to us takes one last look at the apples and follows her children, and starts wandering around near our shooting range.

We start shooting with Alex. Until Joanne’s hair and make-up are finished, we may take photograph of three outfits around the trailer with Alex, all of them with different pops, in different ways that capture the different inspirations of jeans in our daily life. When Joanne joins us, we start shooting our couple poses, we move around the dam, and each outfit finds its own location.

The weather is 30 degrees… The team is pouring water over their heads from the heat… The models are putting on an incredible performance in their winter clothes. At noon, we take a break both to avoid the heat and to get over the raw light. The models immediately put on their own clothes and everyone throws themselves in the shade and eats. When we decide to wait for the raw light to pass again after lunch, we take a long break from the set. Joanne wanders around the dam, catching frogs the size of a fingernail on the ground, and some of us run away when they bring them towards us… Everyone throws herself somewhere: either the trailer seats, the rugs laid on the floor, or our camp chairs… We take a look with our director and everyone is asleep… From styling to models, from models to hair, from hair to assistants and even the photographer slept… We go around with our director and take pictures of everyone while they are sleeping to show everyone at the end of the shoot.

We continue shooting when the sun starts to get a little bit lighter. Clothes, hairstyles, pops, and shooting angles are changing. We continue by taking small breaks from time to time until we successfully finish the narrative of the story we started. And we often borrow our stylist’s phone, which strangely helps us stay connected to the modern world as her phone is the only one with a signal among twenty other people’s.

Then one way or another, we completed the shooting… When everyone starts to collect their own equipment, we immediately took our laptops to a safe area and start to take a backup. When the backups were taken and all the equipment was packed, we got into the cars. We wished good evening to the Darlık dam, the calves, and the tiny frogs, and set off.

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A Plateau Morning

gulsah — Tue, 21 May 2024 08:28:56 +0000

We are on the road before the sun rises, it is another outdoor production day.

We are on our way to Istanbul’s and perhaps Turkey’s largest film and TV series set plateau, Beykoz Kundura to shoot a theme for the Tiburon’s SS22 collection. At the entrance of the plateau, caravans of different series are lined up waiting to enter. And right behind them are our vehicles.

Our theme for the Tiburon SS’22 Motto line is the road story of a biker couple. We combine biker fashion with our collection prepared with modern touches. Bandanas, rings, hats, bracelets… Styling has chosen complementary accessories for every combination and placed them in the styling room reserved for us, even before breakfast. The team is here, everyone is having breakfast, except from Serhat Hayri and his team as usual… Well, being “fashionably late” becomes a trend when you are a fashion photographer of celebrities.

An unknown model sat at our breakfast table and even started chatting as if she was working with us. As such, everyone thought that there was a model change at the last moment. She was called Jane. When some of the team asked Jane questions, it turned out that she was not one of us, and it turned out that the team that Jane was working with was looking for her everywhere. After the Jane crisis, we took our briefs from our production manager Burcu Selanik for the last time and got back to work.

Hair and make-up started first, Suat Ürün and Şeyma Erikçi worked wonders as usual. Then we handed our models – Lola and Tony – to our stylist Tuba Çolak.

We were working as four separate teams on this campaign photography shooting. Burcu Selanik was the head of the photography with Serhat Hayri; Rahman Görede was on the campaign video shoot with Turgay Şafak; Can Uzun was working on backstage and product scans; and the juniors were everywhere, taking photos of props and tissue from the surrounding area.

Until Lola and Tony came from the styling room, each team was clarifying their angles, frames, and stories based on their own mood and plan board. Then the models arrived and the shooting began. Since the most beautiful light of the day in the production life is at sunrise and sunset, photography team took the models first. Then product scans were made. When they went to change their clothes, the teams would change places and prepare for the next plan.

Towards midday, the sunlight started to fall too steep and the photography team took a break, Lola and Tony were kidnapped by the campaign video team to take indoor shots. Commands were given, different takes were taken from different angles, and the shooting was completed.

After spending the few hours of the light with indoor shots and lunch, we continued on the road at full speed. We were wandering around the plateau, going from place to place. We even waited for each other to continue when we encountered another shooting for a while.

Coffees were drunk during the breaks, chocolates were eaten; we were sitting under the trees. We took care that our models, we made sure they rested frequently and that they are not dehydrated. As we saw that Tony and Lola’s harmony is amazing, when we finished the combinations we had, we dressed them with a few of our spare combinations.

Every team, especially the campaign video team, has a bit of a panic as the sun begins to slowly descend. It’s really stressful to be able to do video and photography on sets with only one production day, but our team handles this very well. However, when the sun had half an hour before it sets, Rahman took the models once again, as he well knows that he had two more plans. They started shooting the closing scenes, first on the rooftop and then with the sunset in the backlight. These minutes were literally golden seconds, the entire team was watching the recording with great attention, quickly entering the frame when something needed to be fixed. Then we took the sun down together and got amazing frames and videos.

The photo production crew met in the room to rest. Some were chatting while collecting their belongings, whereas the others were lying down. In the meantime, of course, backups were taken. As everyone was ready, they began to leave the set. We said goodbye to the team until the next time. We also brought the SSDs that we have double backed up to our production agency where the selection and retouching will be done safely.

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WESTMARK LONDON – A SEA TRIP

gulsah — Tue, 21 May 2024 06:21:53 +0000

Whenever a brand – either new or old – comes to our production agency with a new collection, we always welcome them with the same excitement. A new collection means a new story, a new dream, a different point of view. We are responsible for creating a shooting concept following the vibe and spirit of the collection, which is fascinating. That’s why when Westmark London came through our door with their Spring Summer 2022 Collection we were overly excited.

As the creative team, the more we studied the collection, the more we were coming up with different ideas. Should we follow a classic swimsuit campaign on the beach? No, that was too boring for the collection. Should we shoot it in a dazzling cove? Nope, that had no story. Eventually, we presented our creative photoshoot concept to the Westmark London team: two friends sailing to the open sea, having the time of their lives, and living a careless summer vacation.

As soon as our creative concept was approved by the client we started the pre-production phase, photographer, videographer, styling, hair, and make-up, assistants… Our mood boards were shaping, so was our destination and what kind of sailboat to rent, and so on…

It was finally the shooting day, the 25th of April, at 7:30 sharp. The team was slowly getting together, first came our assistants, stylist, fashion photographer, and production manager… We carried everything to the sailboat and got on board the open sea where we would meet our second boat. The sun was rising and the wind was breezing, we were watching the dolphins, the seagulls, and the reflection of the sun on the smooth sea.

Shooting outside has always been more of a challenge compared to shooting in the studio. Yet still, this was one of the hardest sets of our production history. Although we had two boats and a great captain who was taking us to all of the hidden gems of İstanbul, it took us a lot of time to go from one point to another one especially because there was a strong current. Furthermore, even if we have made it to the shooting place we still had some trouble holding the boats still when we were shooting from the other boat. The boat with the photographer was following the current so it was almost impossible to make the perfect shot. We have spent hours adjusting the boat according to the light, and as we all well know every second counts when you are racing with the sunset.

As we could not all stand on the ship on which the shooting was taking place, some of us had to go to the second boat. We called it the “vacation boat” as once stepped there, any crew member had nothing to do but enjoy the sun and the view. Whereas the other ship was called “bee boat”, and the crew on board the shooting boat was trying to dress two models, style them, touch to hair and make-up, and try to get out of the frame at the same time!

None of the hardships matter once you realize something you have visioned, you have created, and put your hours in as a team is created. There is something extremely fulfilling in fashion photography. Once you see the shots on the screen, you forget that you are tired, hungry, or cold. All that matters is to work as a team and nail the job better than you have ever done every single time.

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