Category Archives: Portraits

Musicals, Musicians, Opera, Portraits, Posters, Publicity stills, Theatre

Ello Princess

06/03/2015 Scott Rylander

For a while, now, I’ve been searching for a chance to do some theatre advertising shots using a really, really classic look that doesn’t get seen much beyond magazine editorials these days because it’s a bit retro.

So when I was asked to shoot the publicity for Gilbert and Sullivan’s seldom-seen Princess Ida at the Finborough, and was told that all I had to work with was a headless and limbless torso and a big room, I jumped at the chance.

Simon Butteriss and Bridget Costello were my wonderfully in-character victims.

The show begins previews on 24 March.

Musicians, Portraits, Publicity stills

Pianista

27/01/2015 Scott Rylander

Publicity stills of classical pianist Matthieu Esnult and associates.

Shot at Christopher Wren’s Royal Naval College in Greenwich, we worked to some crazily tight time windows (think five minutes to light, shoot and get out) to accommodate the fact that the buildings, old as they are, are very much in use.

Musicals, Portraits, Publicity stills, Theatre

Rubble and rain

02/12/2014 Scott Rylander

A railway arch, a pile of rubble, a lot of mud, an obstacle course to get to the location, an electrocution risk only avoided by a fortuitous last-minute equipment switch, a very wet producer, costume designer, actor and photographer, all to get some apt publicity shots of star Alastair Brookshaw for The Grand Tour. The escape-the-Nazis musical caper will open at the Finborough on 1 January.

Portraits, Publicity stills

Portrait of the Artist

14/11/2014 Scott Rylander

Portraits of painter John Ward, photographed in his southeast London studio.

Fashion, Musicians, Portraits, Publicity stills

Trumpet!

31/10/2014 Scott Rylander

Some publicity stills of the wonderfully talented trumpeter, Harrison Cole, shot round and about various less-known corners of London.

Personal work, Portraits, Projects

The Road to Serfdom

26/09/2014 Scott Rylander

So, frequent collaborator, makeup artist and all-round creative whirlwind, Siwan Hill, called me up.

“I need to do some effects,” she said. “What can we do with effects?”

“Effects?”

“You know, blood, gore, carnage, that sort of thing.”

“I dunno,” I said, “but I’d quite like to do the evolution of man… You know, hunchback becomes homo erectus without the full-frontal nudity.”

“Okaaaaay…”

And thus, many emails later, we decided to revisit the recession and make a gentle dig at Hayek’s Road to Serfdom by watching what happens when capitalism reaches its logical conclusion and switches into reverse.

And we did this by covering our models in mustard.

Fun fact: the most difficult prop to procure was the right kind of paper bag.

Concept: Siwan Hill and Scott Rylander

Makeup and styling: Siwan Hill

Models: Katerina Jugati and Paul Hughes

Personal work, Portraits, Series

Too much life: out-takes from the raw series

29/08/2014 Scott Rylander

My last post was all about how I asked my models to look stoned and brain dead.

That, as it turned out, is a surprisingly difficult thing to pull off.

So herewith a few outtakes from the raw series in which people failed to look like zombies.

Personal work, Portraits, Series

Zombies wear Gap

26/08/2014 Scott Rylander

A series over a year in the making, a while back I realised I’d fallen into the trap many photographers end up in in the early years after they turn pro.

I’d become so het up about things like correct framing, exposure, focus, lighting and all the other technical titbits that I was starting to lose sight of the madness that got me into this in the first place; of shooting things at random just to see what happened.

So I recruited some improbably willing models (improbable given that my pitch was: “I want to make you look ill”) who gamely stepped in front of the lens for what I like to call my raw series.

Which was all about making people look slightly brain dead and/or stoned.

Big thank yous go to Andrew, Angela, Antonio, Emma, Luke and Martin for being bonkers on cue.

Fashion, Portraits, Publicity stills

Even Lindsay Lohan got fired, you know.

29/04/2014 Scott Rylander

What do you do when you’ve got a photoshoot that’s taken a month to organise and the model is so unprofessional she neither turns up nor tells you she’s not turning up?

Avail yourself of the kindness of your makeup artist and use her instead.

What do you do when you’ve got a photoshoot that’s taken a month to organise and the assistant (who’s never actually assisted on a photoshoot before and begged to do it, just so you know…) turns round the day before and demands more money than the rest of you combined are getting because “that’s what my friend got when he did a Gucci shoot”?

Avail yourself of the kindness of a friend who makes himself available at an evening’s notice.

What do you do when the model rings up six hours later and tells you she’s ready for you now?

Press “end call”.

So, the people who stopped all this falling apart:

Stylist: Claire Wacey

Makeup artist: Siwan Hill

Model-on-the-day: Siwan Hill

Assistant-on-the-day: Jaap Jong