HAND IN HAND - From The Smiths
In August last year, we had the pleasure of meeting and working with the extremely talented photography couple - Simon and Sarah Jane, or as they're more commonly known, From the Smiths. We've been aware of their photography style for a while, and love the natural images that they capture. Their main focus is weddings, and when myself and Adam got engaged last year, we had no doubt that they would be the ones to photograph our wedding day. We knew their style would transfer perfectly to what we wanted to capture, both personally and professionally.
Obviously, with the pandemic hitting independent businesses hard, especially the wedding industry - we wanted to do anything that we could to support those affected as much as we were able to. Our vision and aim was to get more professional photo’s of our workspace as well as headshots & work in progress photo’s and so who better to ask than “The Smiths”. As mentioned, and even though their main focus is weddings, we knew their style would transfer really easily and fit well with what we wanted to capture. Our studio space was fairly new at the time. Having only moved in at the start of June, it was only Adam who was working full-time under Thirteen - but the plan was always for me to join at some point in the near future so we decided to both be involved in the shoot.
We got a date in the diary and before we knew it we finally met Simon and SJ after months of chatting via Instagram. Adam and I both felt comfortable and at ease straight away and it was so easy to talk to them both - as if we had known and been friends for years. They both took such an interest in the process of how we did things as a business, everything from creating designs to hand screen printing and packing orders. They were so efficient in their approach to getting the shots we had discussed and brought their own perspective to the shoot.
Even though our studio space was a work in progress at the time, they never got in our way or disrupted the work we were carrying out. We were able to complete our whole process naturally and once they had familiarised with our studio set up they could put their own spin on capturing the best images. We were really happy with how they captured the process from start to finish. Starting with the prep of acetates, exposing the screens, checking the fine details. Then onto the screen printing itself and the methods/equipment we use to dry the clothing once printed. They captured some really natural shots around the office including glimpses of us organising stock, packing orders and quality checking - we feel this approach looks a lot better than staging/setting up situations. Adam and I also had some headshot style images taken for our social media and website. With us being a small company we feel it really makes a difference having that personal feel by being able to see exactly who you're taking too when contacting us was something we felt was important.
We definitely want to aim to work together with both Simon and Sarah-Jane in the future. We would love to have them come on a product shoot with us and have them capture their perspective on location. We can’t recommend them enough, you can find more of their work here - fromthesmithsphotography.co.uk and on their individual Instagram accounts:
Sarah-Jane: sj.fromthesmithsphotography & Simon: simon.fromthesmithsphotography
