At The Norfolk Studio in Mannheim, Germany, Ben van Skyhawk talked about making pictures, what could go wrong on a photo shoot and how to choose the best photo out of thousands.
Brands like Under Amour, Adidas or Macron have become household names thanks to marketing campaigns that rely on stunning athleisure imagery. Looking at pictures of toned professional athletes seems to magically evoke emotional connections and dreams of self-improvement in viewers.
That visual inspiration to engage in physical activities is created by specialized professionals like Ben van Skyhawk, a German-American photographer and filmmaker, who excels at depicting the dedication and perseverance required in sports.
Skyhawk has already achieved considerable success in this space, but his goal is to take it up a notch.
What it takes
“For the last few years, I’ve been coasting on my past success,” he said. “I’d reached a plateau where I didn’t have to get out of my comfort zone. I had a lot of corporate clients. I was travelling a lot for fashion shoots, and basically, I was just doing things I already knew how to do very well.”
A few months ago, Skyhawk felt an urge for change. “It was time to shed my old skin”, he said, referring to the fact that it’s the Year of the Snake. “Now, it’s time to go back to the core, and I want to do that with inspirational advertising for athletic brands.”
According to Skyhawk, this kind of photography requires a special approach that highlights the individual, the product and the brand through action. Athletic wear campaigns focus on a specific segment of the population. The viewer needs to be pulled into the story of athletic success as the result of the right gear and the right activities.
Right now, Skyhawk is in the process of building up the fashion sportswear side of his business. “It’s the next big thing,” he explained. “The fashion industry is masterfully blending style with function, beauty with technology. My portfolio needs to reflect that.”
How it started
At the age of 14, Skyhawk came upon some black and white photos his mother had taken on a road trip in the States that he found fascinating. He also found her old camera, and began experimenting on his own.
“Soon, my friends Nick, Timo and Manuel had all found cameras, and we ran around taking pictures,” he said, laughing at how they were all under the influence of the lens. He spent his high school years hanging around in the school’s photography lab, and it soon became clear that his path would be in pictures. After high school, he signed on as an assistant to various local photo artists to learn the craft and got on the road with a couple of rock bands as their lensman.
“What I learned from professionals like Claus Geiss is that it is possible to make a living from this art form,” said Skyhawk. “I learned how to creatively express ideas, emotions, and perspectives through the use of a camera.”
How it’s done
Like Ansel Adams, the great landscape photographer, Skyhawk firmly believes that you don’t ‘take a good picture, you make it.’ “It only takes a few seconds to press the button, but it takes days and weeks of preparation to reach that moment,” he said.
When a job comes in, for example, a fashion shoot, a whole process is set in motion, with the clock ticking away. A lot depends on the customer and the purpose of the job. Skyhawk showed me an example of a detailed shooting board for a set of 5 campaign visuals to be shot in 4 days. Each set plan contains detailed descriptions of the location, the product, the model, video work, the key visuals and the individual shots such as close ups or wide angles.
Sometimes, before the shoot, he works with a location scout whose primary role is to find and secure locations that best suit the various scenes of the production and are logistically feasible.
On the shoot itself, it gets pretty crowded. Skyhawk’s team includes one or two assistants, or digital operators, responsible for lighting, hardware and digital workflow, the model, hair and make-up artists, a fashion stylist, the art director, the creative director, and usually two or three people representing the customer. Some of these people are contracted by Skyhawk; others are provided through an agency.
After all these precise preparations, I ask what could possibly go wrong.
“The model could call at 6 am to tell us she has a stomach bug,” he replied. “Then it’s up to the agency to find someone else within the next 2 hours. Such a change will throw everything off, and it won’t be the model we agreed upon with the client, but the shoot will go on.”
Picking the best
A typical fashion or people shoot will result in about 1,800 photographs. Culling, the process of reviewing all of the photos and selecting the best ones for editing, begins with a pre-selection step based on motifs, or variations, within the series such as frontal view, back view, different backgrounds, colors, or other elements.
During this phase, photos are marked by one or two stars to create a pool that reduces the collection to about 180 photos, or about 10% of the original shoot. These photos are then discussed amongst team members to create a final selection for editing. At the end, there will 10 pictures that have been minutely scrutinized before they are selected for the campaign.
Skyhawk makes it all seem simple – aim the camera, focus, zoom, press the button, hear the click – but it’s not.
“People might invite me somewhere like a wedding and say, can you take a few pictures?” he said. “I tell them I can, but they won’t be any better than the snapshots everyone else is taking. If you want good pictures, I need to come prepared with the right cameras, lights, and everything else that goes into making a good picture.”
He ends with a chuckle. “That’s why a lot of people don’t like having their picture taken until they’ve seen a really good picture of themselves. Then they’re hooked. A good photo is not just an act of observation. It’s a creative process that makes an impression.”
Go behind the scenes with Ben van Skyhawk