Dan Kennedy, Celebrity Portrait Photographer

0:02Welcome to the Business of Modelling, the podcast where we explore the fascinating world of the modelling industry. I'm Tessa Dewing, the Managing Director of Sandra Reynolds, a commercial model agency celebrating its 50th year in business. Today, I'm joined by Dan Kennedy, a celebrity portrait photographer working across advertising and editorial with a portfolio that includes some of the most recognisable names in the world. From Angelina Jolie and David Beckham through to Keira Knightley and Gordon Ramsay. And today we're talking about how he built his career, working with high profile talent and how the role of the photographer is evolving as the industry continues to move faster.

0:53Dan Kennedy welcome to the Business and Modelling podcast it's great to have you here thanks for having me because we sort of met each other back in the day didn't we you're from Norfolk

1:04Dan Kennedy: I'm from Norfolk yeah I was actually born in Cornwall but lived in Norfolk since I was three got really into bands and live music when I was like 18 and I managed to blag myself the past the Norwich music venue, the waterfront. And I managed to get in to take some pictures of bands. So I used to kind of struggle my way to the front and taking photos of bands is quite complicated because the light's moving all the time and things are changing. And then at the same time, I got a job as a runner at the local newspaper. And back in the day, the local newspaper was like this juggernaut of a of a newspaper the eastern daily press so i got a job as a runner there aged 18 and um i was kind of running post internal post around the newsroom and stuff like that and kind of i was quite amazed at all the energy um you know that was uh that was in there and um and then i did a bit of a deal with the with the the woman in the dark room i said oh look i'll give you pictures of my live band photography if you give me film in return for free and they were like okay and then I was like oh just to complete the deal can you put my name on the pictures please and they were like all right then so by the age of 19 I had a mini portfolio of pictures of live bands with my name credit on so I was already getting the taste of seeing sort of seeing um seeing what it felt like to have your work published so did you train as I mean did you do photography at school was that even a thing back then or No, I hadn't done any training at all by then.

2:36Dan Kennedy: I got my first Saturday job was at Norwich Camera Centre. That's what made me interested, that, and then taking pictures of bands at the same time. And the great thing about my Saturday job at Norwich Camera Centre, there was this epic deal where when someone came in to sell a load of secondhand camera equipment, the deal was the staff, if you were staffed there, you were able to buy it at the price that they bought it for when they bought it in. So every Saturday was tantalizing. I was like, wow, who's going to come in today? And, you know, someone would come in with a dusty old bag of cameras.

3:11Dan Kennedy: And I was able to handpick the bits I wanted. And I built this big photography sort of kit bag, if you like. And it was so great, you know, being so excited and so interested in it. So I was able to use that kit to take the pictures of live bands, which I then got published in the paper. So by then, when it was time to actually learn about photography, I I got onto a course at London College of Printing, which is now London College of Communication. And it was called Professional Photography Practice. I got that place because I was like, hey, this is what I've been doing. Here's some published work.

3:46Dan Kennedy: My name's on it, as you can see. So that got my place on the course. And it was tricky, you know, there was no grant for it or anything. I remember, you know, trying to appeal to Norfolk County Council, you know, because like, you know, my parents didn't really have any money to pay or whatever. And I got a Saturday job at a pasta restaurant as soon as I arrived in London to help kind of just sort of... I was going to say, so you're actually having to, you know, pay for yourself to be down there. Exactly, which is expensive, right? You know, great fun, but expensive. And then the Eastern Daily Press called sort of two thirds of the way through the course and said, look, someone's left.

4:17Dan Kennedy: There's a staff job available. I sort of did the last quarter of my course by correspondence. And I came back to Norwich and took the staff job at the newspaper, which was like epic because it was like a salary. and they gave me a bag full of cameras and I got a company car. It was like unbelievable. Because you used to shoot the fashion for them, didn't you? I did, yeah. It was like, yeah, it was super exciting. You do everything at local newspaper level. You know, man stubs his toe on a pavement. You go round, you photograph the pavement, you photograph the man. Little old Susie can't get into ballet school.

4:49Dan Kennedy: You know, you photograph her like this, holding her ballet. She's up looking for lawn. You did about five jobs a day at the local paper. and so that was my training ground and that's where I learned to make mistakes I mean they moved me from Norwich to Great Yarmouth um which was my world came crashing down no disrespect to Great Yarmouth but I didn't exactly love it and there was some uh there was some hardcore news stories you know uh to to be covered in Great Yarmouth and uh the rule was you had to live on patch which meant you had to live in Great Yarmouth I mean I lived with a load of other kind of young journalists and you know we sort of drunk our way through it it was kind of good fun but it was grim as well so after a year I quietly moved to Norwich and then pretended to my bosses that I still lived in Great Yarn so I said when can I move back to the head office to the Norwich office and they were like oh that's dead man shoes and I was like what does that mean and they were like well when someone dies or leaves and I was like I'm not having this so I left Norwich and went to Nottingham and then I stayed in Nottingham for a bit and moved from Nottingham to London.

5:51What did you do in Nottingham?

5:52Dan Kennedy: So Nottingham, I worked for a news agency. So anything that happened in the Midlands, we would cover. So it could be a portrait of a GP for The Guardian, or it could be like a light aircraft crash over Newark. The difference between working at the local paper and working there was that there was just no scope to muck up at the agency level. It was a lot more pressure, a lot fast moving. So I had to kind of sharpen up again there. and I did that for 18 months and I realized that there was like a um quite a hardcore boss we were kind of uh yeah we were put under quite a lot of pressure and um we weren't paid amazingly well and I just thought again I thought there's more than this and so I took a deep breath I took a loan out for 15 grand to buy the first digital cameras that came out Nikon's first digital camera and I also I bought a car for 15 grand on credit and I did the two things at the same time on the same day, pressed the go button and I took a deep breath and I went down to London with no guarantee of work.

6:51Because that was a lot of money probably back then.

6:53Dan Kennedy: It was a lot of money back then and I was just kind of winging it. I had to service that loan and it was a lot of money to spend on cameras. Did you need your car in London? Yeah. I'm sitting here as a parent. Did you really need that car? Yeah, because I needed to be, you know, the way that doing freelance news shifts as a stringer, which is what I was doing. They would ring you and just be like, get yourself to Hounslow or get yourself to Brighton and you'd need to have the means to do that. So, yeah, so I was phoning into picture desks on newspapers at sort of 7am every morning saying, is Kennedy here for work?

7:29Dan Kennedy: Anyone? No one. Next morning, Kennedy here for a shift? Anyone? went eventually i got some shifts with the times newspaper um which was quite enjoyable and that's where i envisaged myself working you know and then the sun rang and they said oh you know we've heard about you um can you do a job for us and i thought oh the sun i don't know i think i really want to work for the sun i'm more of a broadsheet kind of guy so i did a job for the sun the sun paid 50 pounds per shift more than the times the times paid 100 pounds and the sun paid 150 and the the boss of the sun rung me and said, Daniel, I like your work.

8:06Dan Kennedy: I don't want you working for the times. I want you working for me, son. So next time they ring you, tell them you're not available. I'll pay£150 a day. So£50 extra a day, five days a week was£250 a week,£1 ,000 a month. That was my loan for my camera gear. So I ended up saying goodbye to the times and then I ended up doing shifts for the sun. And I initially that didn't really sit well with me. I was not sure how it was going to work out. But the sun was impeccably organised around the edges, around the back. It was unbelievable. It would literally be, Daniel, get yourself to Hounslow, you're doing a dawn raid.

8:42Dan Kennedy: Or Daniel, get yourself to Heathrow, you're going to the Maldives. Both of those things happened. It's quite exciting. I would travel with a passport and an overnight bag and you never knew where you were going to go. And the sun ended up sending me all over the world. I did the first series of I'm a Celebrity in Australia. I did British and American troops training in the Mojave Desert in California. I did lots of different things and actually it was The Sun who said to me, we've got a job at Holborn Studios. It's a studio shoot with, I think it was with Hearsay. Do you remember Hearsay? I do.

9:14Dan Kennedy: Back in the day of the sort of Simon Carroll era of bands. In the 90s. I had no idea what I was doing. I hired my friend Matt, who was from Norwich as well, who was an assistant working in London, and he helped me set up the lights and I was visibly shaking. so that was my first foray into working in a studio and so I did that job with hearsay and then the sun put me in a studio again a week later and then on and on and on and then I started doing fashion for the sun and then ended up traveling quite a lot doing fashion for the sun and then I realized that I didn't want to do any news at all and I didn't want to be sort of fat and 50 on my stepladders outside Downing Street so I rung the boss of the sun and just said oh you know I'm with all i've loved it but i'm kind of out of here

10:08Dan Kennedy: it had gone from being you know sort of with step ladders traveling as a roving newshound to quite quickly moving into the studio and realizing that i like that i was really nervous about lights but you know lights in a photo studio i didn't really know about lighting and unlike most other photographers i've learned candidly through assistants about how to light so i never was an assistant um and i think things would have been quite different if i had have been because it'd taken me quite a long time to kind of learn i would look at an amazing picture that i'd see in l and i'd reverse engineer how to do that well how have they done that well why does it look like that i think they've used something called a grid set well what's the hell what the hell's a grid set google a grid set oh right okay right let's hire a grid set for a shoot next week You can have a play around and see, oh, OK, you can get this kind of effect with a grid set.

10:58Dan Kennedy: Great. Then I learned how to use grid sets. Then I learned how to use a beauty dish. And on and on and on. So you're constantly at this point as well, you know, investing in your own development and your own learning. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'd started to meet a few interesting people. I met an amazing woman called Claire Powell who took a real chance on me. She said, I've got a job in Miami and I want you to do it for me. And I can't tell you what it is. And on the flight over there, she said, look, basically Rachel Hunter has taken over from Penny Lancaster as the face of this brand Ultimo, you know, lingerie brand.

11:31Dan Kennedy: And so we're shooting Rachel for the campaign for Ultimo. Again, I was like visibly shaking. I was shooting on film. And you didn't know that until you got there. Didn't know that until I got there. So luckily, Matt, my right hand man from Norwich, my photo assistant, who'd showed me in Holborn Studios all those months earlier, was right there with me helping me load film in the camera. and again I was like whoa out of my depth but here we had Rachel Hunter one of the early supermodels standing at the at the top end of an amazing pool at the National Hotel in Miami it was kind of all there for the taking she looked awesome in this swimwear I balanced the light you know and we shot on transparency film and that was it we kind of got the campaign pictures and those pictures went everywhere because we were in the days of the heady days of the tabloids being powerful and they really latched onto the fact that um that Rachel had taken over from Penny and so I then ended up shooting the campaign the Ultimo campaign for for a few years after that and that opened a lot more doors as well so then I was kind of already shooting campaigns so I got quite a bit more fashion work and I worked in Cape Town a bit and ended up doing quite a lot of location fashion um in the UK and abroad and stuff and so that was a yeah that was a really good kind of a really good period and a good pivot looking back.

12:48Dan Kennedy: I remember walking down, it was like Gower Street or South Hampton Road, just after I'd rung John Edwards, the photo editor of The Sun, to say, I want to come off the rotor. People begged for five days a week, security on the rotor. And there was me saying, I don't want it. And he was like, you doing all right, son? Everything all right? And I was like, I'm okay, John. Thanks again for the opportunity. And I just thought something in me thought you've got this you need to push ahead the same feeling I had in Nottingham where I was like I'm done here which was the same feeling I had when I was in Goulston and they said dead man's shoes I thought I'm not having that let's move on for a lot of people makes your 20s into your 30s possibly quite a friction-free kind of time it certainly was for me and for lots of other people I talk to.

13:35Dan Kennedy: And there's a sort of a notion that as you get nearer to middle age, everything kind of quietens down a little bit. And the next chapter of your life is one for you to sort of potentially design what that road ahead looks like, as opposed to looking back at this period of 20s and 30s, where things just sort of happen for you. So I feel I really tried hard. I was very nice to people on that journey and tried to be as sort of upstanding as possible. And I think I got, luck was on my side of it as well. And those mixture of ingredients took me on a wiggly line from where I was to sort of a modicum of success, really.

14:15I mean, you know, lots of people try to get into photography, but very few get to the level you're working at now. What do you think separated you?

14:24Dan Kennedy: That's a good question. I had a really old, I don't know if you remember, there was a Nokia phone that used to be able to have a screensaver on. And on mine, I saved it as try hard and smile. And that was some advice given to me by this sort of slightly scary kind of newshound of a agency photographer who was working in Norfolk just before I left the Eastern Daily Press to go and work at an agency. And he said to me, just be a yes man. If someone's asking you out on a date and you're going to have to cancel a date to go and do a job, just be like, yes, I'd love to do the job. Thank you. Damn it, I'm missing a date with a really hot girl or whatever it might be.

14:59Dan Kennedy: And that was such good advice. So I changed my screensaver to try hard and smile. And my kind of MO really was like, hello, here to please. Yes, I'd love to help. Certainly the news photographer vibe was grumpy. They were all moaners, you know, bloody hell, the rates are shit. Oh no, God, it was all a bit grumpy. Well, I guess as well, you know, you're taking pictures of a lot of the time people that don't want to be photographed. There's all of that, of course, as well. So the whole thing's a bit neggy. So I made a concerted effort to be really friendly, which I think is in my character a bit anyway.

15:32Dan Kennedy: And it's still how we roll now. You know, I have most of my work is celebrity based. And whether it's a really famous face coming up the stairs through the door or whether it's someone who's been in the studio for the first time, everyone gets treated the same. Can we help you with your bags? Can we get you a tea or coffee? And then we're straight down to business. It's just like, you know, whether it's, you know, a world famous person, we treat them the same as we do anyone else. They want to see that, you know, we're not like phased by their appearance. I think that that's partly what's helped me have quite an enjoyable career up until now.

16:07Dan Kennedy: And also trying hard as well. As I said, you know, I mentor a few photographers now. One of the things I was bang on to them about is having a reference folder. And a reference folder is just a dumping ground for inspirational images that lives on your desktop. And so every time someone calls me and says, hey, there's a, you know, we've got a magazine cover shoot with Keanu Reeves on a rooftop in London. You know, I go straight to that reference folder and I start digging around in it and finding ideas about what I'm going to do on that photo shoot. So that's where my seeds of inspiration start from.

16:39Dan Kennedy: And then I pull together a mood board from that. That's how I kind of come up with my ideas. So I think that's important too, you know.

16:53has there been a point at all where you've where you're thinking oh my god this just isn't working like i can't i can't do this have you been through any any times like that there's certainly times

17:03Dan Kennedy: as you know running your own business as a freelancer about seven years ago i did a business accelerator course with an amazing aussie guy called dan priestly yeah and um the reason i did that was because um i was just answering the phone and that's all i'd done for kind of 15 years someone rung me and said are you free on Wednesday to do a job and I was like yeah sure no worries did the job and then they you know someone else rung on while I was busy doing the shoot on the Wednesday and said god you're not free on Thursday are you and I was like yeah I am actually welcome to the last 15 years of my life this was no game plan no business plan you know this is people are it's really interesting in what we do you know people are fascinated that we're managing to make a living from something that's creative but actually if they scratched the surface and looked it from a from a business point of view it's kind of all over the place you know we don't have lead generation engines um we we do have repeat business but um you know it's a fickle world out there you're in once and you're out the next you must know that absolutely yeah from and sometimes it's you know it's nothing you've done it's just people people will come into a new job and they'll feel like they need to change things around and really you never know where your next job's coming from exactly so i think most photographers go through a period where the peaks and troughs are quite volatile you know you're down to the last two for a little ad campaign and you get it it's maybe you're you know one of your first few ad campaigns and you're like yo i've got an ad campaign amazing great let's go down the pub drinks on me amazing the ad campaign comes out you look at the shots you're like yeah you tell everyone about it oh i did this ad campaign it's great great it's been a few weeks now since you did the ad campaign you're like maybe it was okay no one's really ringing me another two weeks go by maybe it wasn't that good month goes by god do you know actually i don't know maybe i shouldn't do photography oh hang on the phone's ringing oh hello what free next tuesday woohoo it's a bit like a roller coaster isn't it yeah yeah and and learning to deal with that and to cope with that is that's what every working photographer ultimately needs to do yeah every creative every creative you know you you're constantly getting that rejection or people say, oh, don't take it personally.

19:15But it kind of is. Someone's saying, well, no, I don't want your work. I want to use someone else's.

19:20Dan Kennedy: Yeah. You know, we've all, you know, I did a Sainsbury's campaign a little while ago, you know, for the clothing. I'm like, I took that job from someone else, you know, and then someone else took it from me. Well, that's what you have to think, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Someone probably saw that in some billboards and went, what the hell? I thought they were pleased with it last time. They definitely called me about that. Yeah. In fact, I remember they called me, but then they never followed up. You know, we've gone in another direction. The client's gone in another direction. So you've got to let that be water off a duck's back.

19:50Dan Kennedy: Absolutely. But with the photographers that I mentor, that's something that we work on. I work on, you know, smoothing out those peaks and troughs and helping to have a bit of a sales and marketing engine. And understanding that that's normal. Of course, yeah. Exactly, yeah.

20:08working with some of the most recognizable people in the world what does that look like on set i guess you don't have them there for four hours and you need to be ready and you need to know what your brief is and how you're going to get it and you don't i guess know what they're going

20:22Dan Kennedy: to be like when they turn up totally it's a real mixed bag the experience varies dramatically in that someone might have just come off a 12-hour flight and they might be in a stinking mood and you're going to be on the receiving end of that. And then that same person might be on your call sheet one year later when you're turning up to do a magazine shoot for a fitness magazine and you're like, oh God, no, it was that person who was vile to me. And then the door opens and they're like, hi, they don't remember they've met you. And you're like, hi, you play Dan, nice to meet you. and then they're amazing and you have a brilliant day that's happened to me countless times so you you know i think you learn to to to realize that you never know what they're going through another thing that happens is that um the pr agents are often quite obstructive so they'll say things like oh my god she cannot go on the roof if she catches a cold you know it'll damage her vocal cords well hang on a minute 20 minutes ago before you arrived late mr pr person and she said she'd love to go on the roof and the amazing red dress and with the wind machines so then the the shot on the roof gets kiboshed and you're like oh god i've just lost a brilliant shot there so often it's working as well being a because you have to think on your feet sometimes yeah it's like you're being a sometimes of being a un peacekeeper just to kind of keep people keep people really sweet but a lot of the time everything's in alignment and by that i mean that the publicist has said to the talent in the car on the way to the shoot, right, so you're clear that we're doing this magazine cover shoot.

21:54Dan Kennedy: And the idea is this amazing dress made of, you know, newspaper, and you've got three wind machines on your hair. And that's the vibe they want to go for for the cover. Are you clear on that? And the talent says, yeah, that sounds great. You know, I've also had it where I go to take a shot through the lens and I look, and this happened to me, you know a couple of years ago and i looked through and the um the person i was photographing i thought was going to cry and i went over to her and said are you okay and she said i i mean i am but this is just not at all i imagined and it was a very it was quite like an annie libevitz style shoot with you know lots of kind of quite epic clothes and big kind of quite quite a big set and stuff and i'm i just thought well what what didn't they tell you what what didn't your people tell you how has this been kind of how have your expectations not been managed so that disconnect can make things really tricky sometimes and also actors actors are a funny one and i shoot a lot of actors but and you'd think they'd be amazing in front of the camera but often because they haven't got a role in that moment yeah they don't quite know what to do and you you know i'm like well they're not used to being themselves though are they well they're not whereas if you put them in a role one of the roles they played and say this you are james bond in this then you'd be away wouldn't you absolutely so that can be a really tricky one as well and work with some method actors that have just come out of solitary periods of being you know doing method acting and stuff they find it really hard to kind of bring anything to the shoot you know so yeah that can be kind of tricky and how much time do you typically have with someone like that yeah it really varies we shot colleen rooney a couple of weeks ago for a sunday times cover and she um we had her for about two hours so that was kind of enough time to be able to do three or four different shots which was cool sometimes we have less than that i shot kate winslet just after christmas and we were the pr who was lovely said to me can we can you do this in 45 minutes because she's going straight to graham norton so we'd got there three hours early and i had my backdrop set up one after the other after the other and we'd tested all of the lights with my assistant so we were really ready to go and then she arrived and then that was it we went from shot one to shot two to shot three and just managed to squeeze that shot three at the end and get a few extra little movements and turn the wind machine up to full and then they were like right that's it and we're out of there so so preparation is key preparation really is key yeah yeah absolutely i've heard you speak about that about preparation and confidence on set as well um what what does that sort of look like yeah totally and i think you can only nurture that to a certain extent if you're a real introvert I think it's quite hard to do what I do.

24:35Dan Kennedy: You need to be pretty kind of bubbly and client facing a lot of the time, I think, because sometimes 80 to 90 % of this job is logistics with either 10 or 20 % of it being photography. You're like, hi, you okay, guys? Oh, you hate the blue dress. I'm reading people. Yeah. You hate the blue dress. You hate the green sofa and you detest the brick wall. No problem. Well, just give us a couple of minutes and we'll come up with some other great ideas. oh my god so then i'm up on the roof or i'm in the basement you know i was in the lanesborough hotel doing a shoot two weeks ago and i walked into the suite and i looked at the walls and i just thought this looks like where my nan would stay this doesn't at all fit in with what i'm shooting so i left the suite and i went down to the basement in the lift and i just started rooting around and i found near where the wine room was was some gorgeous sandstone walls and i run the pr of the hotel and she didn't pick up and so i just made the executive decision to pull out of the suite go down to the basement i was like right come on we're on the move okay they said we all got in the lift down we went me hairstylist makeup artist publicist talent and we just got out and then we stood by these gorgeous sandstone walls and that's what ended up making the picture so some i'm always thinking on my feet like that and sometimes we're in hotels often like luxury hotels i'm always rooting around the edges for more.

26:01Dan Kennedy: I say things like, God, this suite's amazing. It's great. Have you guys got a library here? And they say, well, yeah, we have, can I have a look? And well, yeah, okay. Go down and see the library. I'm like, oh my God, it's got a chandelier and it's 12 ,000 square feet. Great. Can we do a picture in here? Oh yeah, we can. Oh my God, guys. What rather than in this sort of, you know, two foot square little cubby hole, you know, or have you got, what other rooms have you got is there a ballroom and I get myself into all these little places and that ends up making for better pictures you know and that makes you lovely to work with as well because you're positive and you bring a great energy and you bring a great energy the minute you walk into a room so you know that I would imagine is a big decision you know when people are making decisions and to who to book I think so yeah I know I know I get booked for two reasons how I am with the talent and how quickly I can work so I think when a magazine editor is looking to get a cover shoot done with whoever might be flying in Lady Gaga or whoever it might be, Matthew McConaughey or whatever.

26:59Dan Kennedy: If there's any inkling that there might be some problems with timing, then they'll probably put me on the shoot. If there's no inklings of problem with timing, they'll probably put some other amazing duo photographer on the shoot who, you know, who they end up kind of getting out the smoke bombs and, you know, getting a dress made of parachute silk and shooting it on a closed street or whatever great no worries but like if there's any inkling of it being a bit tricksy they probably would put me on it um so and they know that i'm going to smooth over any problems as much as possible and also i will get you a cover shoot even if my assistant's walking down the corridor holding some black velvet behind we'll get you that cover i will get it for you has that happened yeah i think with keira knightley we were we were literally like this holding a bit of black velvet last couple of frames okay thank you bye you know so sometimes it really is like that you just got to kind of get what you can get not so much most of the time people are you know we get a decent amount of time with someone who understands you know we're all on the same page

28:08from your perspective what makes someone easy to shoot someone who um comes who's kind of like

28:14Dan Kennedy: happy to be there is really good um i need to get my i need to get my answers in a in a in a row here for for these kind of questions i did i'm a chocoholic right and a sugar addict are you i only do sugar saturdays by the way now sugar saturdays means strictly no processed sugar during the week and then i go crazy on a saturday okay anyway i did like a for a women's magazine it was either woman and home or good housekeeping i shot some presenters um for a cover shoot we We shot them over two days. And on the first day, we shot an amazing woman called Margarita Taylor, who is a presenter for Classic FM.

28:51Dan Kennedy: And the next day, someone from the studio came upstairs and we all got a thank you card and a little package of a few little bars of chocolate done up with a ribbon. I mean, literally, that's the most prominent shoot in my mind. So someone that gives you a present, basically. A sugar-related present. Way to my heart. What are the things that immediately make a shoot better? And on the flip side, what makes it harder? A plan makes it better. Sometimes I'm kind of like kind of directed by a remote control. So if I'm on a magazine shoot, the person that's making the decision isn't on set. Then sometimes they want pictures sent through and then they say things like, well, not like that, but I don't know how I do want it, but I don't like that.

29:35Dan Kennedy: okay great well we'll change it no problem so that can be difficult and then the good things are when there's been a bit of art direction has been thought about before the shoot so we're all kind of on the same page we've got a clear idea of what we're doing again it's a bit boring to say but it's kind of like organization as well if we can get in there early and get set up early and then and everyone's expectations are managed so kind of they're the they're they're the best things. Tell us about some of the best and most memorable shoots that you've done. Oh my God. Well, yeah, I've done a lot of varied things.

30:10Dan Kennedy: I've worked in America quite a few times and it's always amazing working in America, particularly in LA where they've got every bit of photographic equipment you might need. I remember we did an epic shoot with Mel B in LA in some gorgeous kind of amazing villa overlooking the whole of LA, which was great. um yeah so and and traveling i love doing so yeah working in marrakesh last year and then um i broke to miami a few times as well on one job clients shall remain nameless but we basically went to miami to shoot some fashion but we really went so that she could get a a a tan in time for her in time for her up and coming wedding so we shot we did two shoots a day we were up at five and we shot in the golden hour in the morning between six and eight and then we had some kind of downtime and then we shot again and they get kind of golden hour and then the late afternoon and miami is geared up for fashion shoots as you know and the light is great as you know as well so we cast models out there and most of the time and um just brilliant you know we had i found some pictures the other day of me and jack my old assistant and we're like in a pool with a glass of champagne at like 11am because we'd just done shoot one of the day and we were just knocking out two shoots a day you know the light's so great you can use the available light that's there and just use a bit of bounce and and uh and then the background and the locations in miami are great and there's good models there as well so and that's where you just think wow yeah yeah you're like this is the best career yeah yeah exactly they don't happen that much but you know i still get some really really nice commissions i went to paris last month to photograph the ceo of the mandarin oriental hotel and i shot him on the roof as the sun came up and it was just like quite a nice job to do and i walked for an hour back through paris and to garden or on the way back and it was cool it was challenging because he wasn't the easiest to photograph and the light was a bit tricksy and i got an assistant in paris who i'd never met before um so and and she sub hired some equipment for me and i wasn't sure if that was going to work turn up i was pretty sure it was and so just yeah there's still challenges i'm still i'm on you know i'm on my toes and my eyes are everywhere checking everything's okay and and then working with models as well like it's so varied you know we can work for you know someone that really doesn't necessarily understand what the shoot is or or doesn't want to be there one of my worst fashion shoots was i can't remember who it was for but it was like picture like camper van it's a couple there's a real narrative.

32:43Dan Kennedy: There's a couple, they're wildly in love. The sun's going down. They're somewhere in Dorset. They've got some beaten up old cooking stuff and they're cooking on a fire and she's gorgeous and he's gorgeous. And the whole story is like they walk hand in hand to the camper van and she nuzzles into him as he cooks the food. Oh my God. So you've got all of this ready. She hated him. He hated her. It was literally like you could cut the air with a knife and I was there saying okay guys just gather around again so do you understand what i'm saying so it's you're in love right you're eight and i did say this i said you're 80 actors today so you're 80 as we're telling a real story so off we go again and in that scenario i'm almost like a director so stand by and you're going to walk to the camper van and you're freaking in love guys stand by and three two one let's go you know you get it so difficult and we i did just about but to have but that's not your job to do that it's not it's not but also the client is on my mind you know and then of course likewise we we shot something for trini london last year and um we had an amazing model and we were shooting i suggested shooting super slow-mo on a tram pair and she was just super cool and she chucked her hair from left to right and was just happy to do it you know time and time again and you know and was just such lovely energy on all that campaign actually all the models were great they did some great casting and it was so lovely to meet people they were all from different corners of Europe and that's a really lovely thing as well to meet to meet other humans and yeah when there's often between me and the model there's like just some synergy they understand what I need I understand what you know what what they're doing and how they move and that's a that's a lovely unspoken thing you know hopefully they know they did a good job and I'm so grateful that they brought it for me and they understand what what what I need So modelling is such a nuanced, tricky job, isn't it?

34:43Dan Kennedy: It's like, I guess the best models are kind of in tune with what's required of them and happy to sort of play that part sometimes. And I guess also briefing is another thing, isn't it, as well? Are they clear on exactly what is needed from them? Absolutely. I think, yeah, people think modelling is just easy and about looking nice and standing in front of the camera and waiting to be directed. and it's not at all, you know, a good model has got to have so much about them. It's a professional career. It must make a massive difference to you if you've got a model that is good at their job. Literally night and day.

35:18Dan Kennedy: Yeah. I think also it'd be great if like models are ever able to sort of have a peek behind the curtain of what the industry is like before they necessarily embark on modelling as a career, you know, it'd be amazing for them to, you know, be in a studio for a few weeks and just see, see what it's like and see what, you know, see what's, see what's required for the job and whether it's something that they would want to do or not you know it must be quite nerve-wracking as a young model if you're you know if you're being put into situations a stylist friend of mine a few weeks ago who's really experienced was in Holborn Studios in London on a four-day shoot with a purely German crew and they just spoke they could speak English but they just spoke German the whole time so she was fine but she just felt a little bit ostracized and she's been doing it 15 years she's no problem to her but it didn't really make for very nice days.

36:04Dan Kennedy: So let's just make sure, is everyone okay? Have you got a cup of tea? Is there any problems? Hey, listen, you know, we're shooting in an ice bar, it's going to be freezing, but we've got you three dressing gowns and a dry robe. So we're just going to go three times, okay. And you are going to be a bit cold, but we're going to get some great shots, you know. So I think being upfront about everything is also super important.

36:33the speed of the industry has i think changed hasn't it everything just feels it's a lot faster you know there's more content people want quicker turnarounds um how's that affected the way that

36:46Dan Kennedy: you work yeah so we're often expected to be doing edits super quickly and turning things around quickly and our retouch team kind of having to kind of move quicker and we're you know sending low-res shots you know straight off to the end of the shoot and stuff where we used to have a lot more lead time so that's changed massively and i think obviously everything is now on social media and i think from for models as well it's quite important that they you know they almost become their own kind of little key person of influence they work on how they want to kind of show up to the world and do that consistently and then they become on the radar for a lot of people so i think that that's kind of important i need to do that myself as well you know post my work show people a peek behind the scenes behind the scenes it's become a massive thing for us so you know and also kind of annoyingly in some ways instagram stories is a massive deal for us as well so um you know an instagram story and a reel that pulls back the curtain on what really happened on a kate winslet shoot is equally as important as the magazine cover that shows Kate Winslet.

37:48Dan Kennedy: So I get eyeballs on the Instagram content, which then puts me front and center to potentially get booked for maybe a commercial campaign. In my slightly cat-handed business model, it's now we have someone either on a phone or with a little kind of stick thing, making some behind the scenes content that we can then use, not on every shoot, but on shoots that I think will be of interest, just so that I'm then presenting myself as someone who is showing myself to the world and showing you guys and everyone that's looking like not only what the end result looks like, but what's happening on the days as well.

38:23Dan Kennedy: Like what's happening? What does it really look like? You know, we shot Nikki Hilton, Paris Hilton's sister last week. And, you know, we're just about to do the roof shot and it rained and we ran inside and then we came out and then it started raining again and we ran inside. And that's on our little behind the scenes clip. So it's just moments, moments like that. What we now see are some like, you know, accidental brilliant content creators who are making reels that really resonate with people that are chopping together their footage on CapCut and putting some killer tunes behind it. You know, they're actually, you know, a model and a content creator or, you know, a photographer and a content creator or a gardener and a content creator.

39:01Dan Kennedy: That's sort of like an extra skill, right? Isn't it? So if you happen to sharpen your skills as a content creator, then all your content's a lot more watchable, right? Which is, that's just a whole nother thing for us, isn't it? I mean, AI is obviously a massive conversation, isn't it, at the moment? What are you seeing from your side? I think a massive advancement in the way that everything's happening. I think we use elements of AI in what I do. So our tethering software now will do things like remove blemishes and things like that. And sometimes we use that if we feel it's necessary in processing our images.

39:39Dan Kennedy: So sometimes we use bits of that. We use quite a bit of AI behind the scenes from an organizational point of view to help run the business, which has there's been some kind of pretty sizable changes recently on that front. And I think in what I do, there'll probably still for a long time yet be a requirement for me to be in a room with someone, making them feel at ease. I think you're on the brilliant side of photography for that. And showing them a beautiful image. And I think, I don't know, I'm not sure whether you've had the displeasure of sticking your headshot into some kind of AI LinkedIn headshot builder.

40:16Dan Kennedy: But when the pictures come back, even though the tech is there now, because it is pretty much, you just don't look quite right. There's just something about you that we think, oh, we're not 100 % sure. Now doubtless get better.

40:35For someone starting out in photography now, what would you tell them to focus on? Because obviously you had no formal training whatsoever. whatsoever um would you suggest people go down the sort of university route or would you suggest

40:49Dan Kennedy: they they learn on the job i think on the job training has been the best thing for me um and so i think um i think i get i think it's fine to do a kind of like a um uh you know an educational course on it but the rubber's going to really hit the road when you start seeing what's happening for real so i always say that you know photographers should kind of um budding photographers should get a job in a studio where they can kind of you know they're dropping lighting orders off into each of the different studios and they start to see what what's happening pull back the curtain on studio one and there's a strange quiet little crew in there and they've got 10 lights all around a table well what on earth are those lights doing around there and then you get to peep at the monitor and you're like wow that looks cool oh i see they've put some like colored gels over the lights wow that's kind of interesting and then you will drop something off at the next studio and there's ebony loud music and there's hundreds of lights and the guy's really boisterous.

41:45Dan Kennedy: And then you look at the monitor on there and you're like, well, I don't really like those pictures. Wow, isn't that interesting? Quiet Studio One is some magic happening and I really like what I saw in Studio Six and someone's really nice in Studio Eight and someone's an arsehole in Studio 10. And I think you quickly get to learn what people are doing, that you get to see a lot of what the smoke and mirrors is. and then you see someone quietly working away with just one beautifully placed light and you look on the screen, you're like, oh my God, she looks like an angel. That's amazing. So I think, and you also get to know about equipment as well.

42:19Dan Kennedy: Five heads, five packs to Studio 3, you're like, oh my God, what's a pack again? You start learning about it. Oh, I learned that last week. That's right. That's a, sorry. Yeah, no, I got that wrong. You won't make that mistake again. So then you quickly learn about all the kit and then you can kind of sometimes hang around the studio. Does anyone want any more teas and coffees in here? allows you to linger a bit longer six months of that it's like a massive cram of an education into what it's really like you see how people are see how people treat each other you work out who's the boss in each studio so while it's probably not very well paid it's a really good i think that's a really good um a really good kind of learning ground and then assisting a photographer and and then you're kind of getting to know clients and stuff as well so i think that's you know that's that's a great thing as well as doing your own testing, you know, trying to find times at the weekends to shoot your own.

43:12Do you still enjoy it in the same way you did?

43:16Dan Kennedy: I really do enjoy it. I have a diary entry in my calendar once a month that says new tech research. And on that afternoon, I spend an hour going through seeing what new bits of techie kit have come out. Am I up to speed with the latest cameras and gadgets and gizmos? If not, let's buy some and start using those. And I love directing people and, you know, finding some synergy with the person that is sitting in front of me and then making some great pictures that happen from that. So I still feel really fortunate to be able to do something that I love. Sometimes I have to light a fire under it. You know, I'm like, amazing, you look great in the red dress.

43:56Dan Kennedy: Said that a hundred times before, you know, not often, but sometimes I need to kind of, yeah, jolt myself into re-remembering how fortunate I am to do something that I really love and do something that is still really creative as well. when photography turned digital it handed you know a different level of creativity back to the photographer and now I can really finesse an image from a creative point of view by changing the color and the contrast to make it how I saw it in my head and I love the fact that I have the ability to do that and so I can do that on every shoot that I'm on and so I'm presenting to you what I saw not it's what the camera captured but I'm you know I might make your jacket a little bit of a deeper blue or I might make the edges of the picture a bit darker to really make you stand out.

44:45Dan Kennedy: And that's how I saw you when you were standing in front of me on set. And I want to show you that's how I'm presenting it to you. So yeah, I feel really fortunate to be doing that in various parts of Europe and the world and London and still enjoying it. And still learning by the sound of it. And 100 % still learning and always will be. Dan Kennedy, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Bye.