Hunter Creative
Update: some people got upset with this post but maybe they didn’t read it properly. If you read this right you’ll see that I talk about what I didn’t like and what I did like. Also please note this happened in mid 2016. I don’t advise people to work with HC but I expect everyone coming here can make their own minds.
I am not going to link HC here as I’m not sure you should work with them at all so I don’t want to promote them.
If you would like to support me while I take the time to write this story and other types of blog posts, please consider purchasing my LR Presets, C1 Styles or PS Actions, following the links below:
Hunter creative is a Facebook community group full of amateur models, photographers, makeup artists, stylists, nail stylists… you name it.
Basically what they do is to find images online and get teams together to create something inspired by those images.
They post the images in other Facebook groups (they have been banned from quite a few groups for posting too much) calling for different artists in a certain city of Australia (usually the big cities) to put their hands up for that project. Then once they have the whole team picked, the members start planning the shoot.
Breath Me
The first project I was assigned to was called Breath Me. The original image was a B&W photo of a girl laying in nature wearing a gas mask.
The team I got was a model called Heidi Sun and a makeup artist who’s name I’ll not mention.
The day before our shoot was due, the makeup artist cancelled on us, but Heidi and I decided to go ahead with the shoot anyway.
This is what we came up with (Teddy bear provided by my dog, Helga), shot in Kangaroo Point:
Shot with the A7R II and Sony 85mm f/1.4 GM.
Lady in Red
For my second assignment, the team was even bigger.
This time though, everyone showed up.
The inspiration photo was a lady wearing a red dress.
My team was myself, Bianca Sylk (model), Corrine Tye-Lim (Stylist), Jenny Hankey (Hair & Makeup), Kristen Daniels (Nail Stylist) and I invited my friend Eric Oliver to assist us.
So yes this was a lot of fun and we got a great team together. It was my first time shooting at night and I mixed flash with LED lights.
Here are some of the photos we created, shot at New Farm Park / Brisbane Powerhouse:
Shot with the A7R II and Sony 85mm f/1.4 GM.
Main light: Rotolight NEO.
Back light (for backlit images): Godox TT685S (off camera).
Blue light: available light at Brisbane Powerhouse the night we shot.
Should you do it?
There’s a reason I only did this once (well, two projects but it happened at the same time) and I never did it again.
The first project had an obvious issue: hair & makeup artist bailed on us with short notice. Second project was awesome, we had a lot of fun and create some really cool images.
Thing is, for the same reason I don’t submit my photos to online magazines, I feel people (in this case Hunter Creative) are promoting their own thing using other people’s work. Also, everyone participating in these projects get their work featured in their pages and there’s no criteria for deciding if something is good or not to be there; EVERYTHING goes. That means your work will be featured next to very low quality work and although some people might thing this is good because you’ll stand out, I decided I don’t want my work featured or “reposted” of any of the kind when there’s no bar.
The good side is the people you meet. In our “Lady in Red” project, Corrine brought us a design by Niki Teljega, who I’ll mention in a future post and you’ll understand why this is important.
Things not in this post
Some things that happened during this time are not in this post. The next few posts will be about them, one by one, because I believe they are worth talking about a bit more, so I can try to explain what I learned from them.
A few of them are:
- Shoots with a big team (getting together with more than just the model – working with HMUAs, designers, etc);
- Magazine submissions;
- Networking events.
If you would like to support me while I take the time to write this story and other types of blog posts, please consider purchasing my LR Presets, C1 Styles or PS Actions, following the links below: