TV Show Photography 'The Brighton Police'
TV Show Photography for ITV Series
Renegade Pictures is a TV film production company and has just produced a second documentary series about policing in Brighton. It's a docudrama, I suppose but with real crimes being committed and real police dealing with the cases. These include robbery, violent crime, drug dealing and more. In order to best promote them, Renegade Pictures and ITV advertise their upcoming TV shows. Naturally, to do this, they use TV show photography for publicity in various media and online programme schedules. For this series they commissioned me, Toby Smedley of Exposure Photography.
The brief
The brief would be to photograph the various 'starring' Sussex Police officers individually and in small groups outdoors. The style would be moody, gritty, no nonsense portrait photography of the detectives looking to camera. The locations would be seedy, graffiti covered backstreets, as well as the police station exteriors and typical Brighton scenes. Including a police car or two would be a bonus as would anything with the word 'police'. The timeframes would be tight and need to fit in around the detectives' working shifts. Two separate photoshoots would need to cover all the variables and the dates for them were then set in stone. Whatever the weather threw at us we would just have to work with or around.
On location
The weather for the first shoot, couldn't have been much worse. Rain, drizzle, grey skies and a blustery wind. The models took it all in their strides and were incredibly accommodating of me and my various bits of kit, too. We started in one of the Police Station car parks before moving on to the rear of a building where I used to work. I don't think it's actually as seedy as I've made it look. At least I hope not, as my mother in law turned up out of the blue in the middle of the shoot. She was looking after my daughter for the day and having them both there asking what I was doing was...well, slightly difficult to explain.
Boy, did it rain
The second shoot involved four detectives and the weather can only be described as diabolical. Furthermore, the shoot was scheduled for the wettest part of the day and it just kept hammering down. Consequently, it's possible to see the streaks of falling rain in quite a few of the shots from Brighton Seafront and Madeira Drive. Interestingly, I didn't have to ask any of my models not to smile, that day. Thankfully, I had a spare camera with me as the incessant rain had caused the first camera to abruptly stop working. Fortunately it later came back to life once it had a chance to dry out, seemingly none the worse.
Results
I'm actually really glad we had such miserable weather, as it's added an extra layer of natural moodiness to the shots. Both Renegade Pictures and ITV were really happy with the results. There's so much going on in the expressions and stern, knowing looks. The backgrounds have worked really well, (especially being wet) and the lighting is very effective, too.
What the client said
"Hi Toby
Loving your work ....Huge Thanks for these ...and for delivering them so quickly
Really like the treatment as well !
Best wishes"
Peter Gray
ITV Picture Publicity Manager : Factual Daytime and Sport
Click here for more examples of my portrait and headshot photography
