Montana-based clothing company Everest Designs recently approached me to create a series of lifestyle images featuring a variety of their products. Everest Designs makes hand knitted wool outerwear products like sweaters, hats, gloves, and skirts that are made in Nepal and imported to the United States where they distribute to major retailers, including REI. The needs of the shoot were to create a series of lifestyle images highlighting their latest styles of men's clothing for social media, web usage, and collateral. Located in Missoula, the opportunity to set the shoot in the beautiful Montana landscape was ideal. With a large amount of creative liberty allowed to me by the client and a beautiful backdrop available for the shoot, I knew immediately we'd make some fantastic images.
One of my favorite images from the shoot with the beautiful Missoula valley as a backdrop.
Behind the scenes of a lighting setup for one of the key images of the day. There was just a slight breeze, but even with sandbagged stands it was scary at times hoping that nothing would blow over.
The client had a modest budget, so I was asked to cover various aspects of the production myself, including sourcing a model. I used a local contact to find a model in the area who has a very natural look that lends itself to lifestyle. He ended up being exactly what we needed for the shoot.
For the location I did some scouting in the area and found a few potential shoot locations. I settled on an area that had a variety of backdrops within a few minutes drive and provided easy vehicle access to the locations. Carrying gear very far can dramatically slow down a shoot.
In the end, with only a half-day of shooting and a relatively lightweight production we managed to pull off the shoot and provided some quality lifestyle imagery that the wonderful people at Everest Designs are very happy with. The weather held up, and the beautiful views of Missoula valley didn't disappoint.
