Random other mini thread thing...

I do get a fair few DMs and tweets asking why I do portraits of the senior officers the way I do and why they never smile. So I'll explain a few of the key points

Firstly the senior officers tend to be very busy people, and when they take office their outer office team will book me for a little photo session. This is usually booked a few weeks in advance and it can take a while to find a gap in their diaries to fit it in

Because it is so far in advance we rarely know what the weather will be like and often have to "wing it". The photos are taken outside because on a secure site with secure buildings there are very few indoor options

The gap in the diary is often just 15mins, this includes the time it takes for them to walk from the office to where we do the photo and back again. This often means I have 2 or 3 mins for for photo.

There can often be a uniform change involved as well. There is basically no time for mucking about and it will often be 5 photos max.

The background is important as it can link them to a particular department/HQ if its in the background or link them to nothing if its just neutral and nothing to do with the building they are outside.

For example a Royal Marine general might need a photo of himself outside the building/HQ he works in to show he's one of the bosses of that building budget also need a photo for Royal Marine use that doesn't work with a building nothing to do with them in the background

The change of uniform can often ce into it, for example a senior RAF officer may need one photo of them in blues to show they're RAF, another in combats to show they are Operational, one in Nos 1s for formal stuff and one in a grow bag to show their a pilot ;-)

Then we come to the smile or lack of it. Its for good reason, they are senior officers and if something bad happens, for example deaths of people who work for them or redundancies etc then as the boss their photo will be used with any press release.

How inappropriate would it be to announce deaths with a photo of their boss with a huge beaming smile?

Many of you say "do one serious and one smile pic"

Nice idea but once they are put out into the world you have no control over which pic is used

The media love to use photos of politicians and celebs that embarrass them, make them look silly or fit an agenda. It's just not worth it.

We do often do the smile photos, but they just go the the officers for their families to have :-)