I thought that you guys want to know what goes into doing a shoot for the blog. Kinda like seeing how the sausage is made, to borrow a phrase. We normally shoot in either Atlanta, GA or Birmingham, AL. Birmingham may seem an odd choice but we have found some of our best models there. They include Chandler, Nate, Nathan, Mike, Josh, and the list goes on and on. And our current photographer, Taylor Campbell lives there as well. So it makes it just easy to drive the 2 hours to Bham!
The Shoot starts about two months out. I send the first emails to brands to see who is interested in participating. I take reservations and as we gain brands this will gauge how many models we have had. I think the most models we had for any shoot was 5. In the early days of the site, we would book 5 in the hopes of 2-3 actually showing up. Now, we try to work with regular guys for shoots. I also try to rotate guys so we don’t have the same guys in every shoot. That’s why you see some guys a few times. Plus, these are guys I really love working with at shoots.
After the models are booked, I get back with brands and send in sizes for pairs for the shoot. Those usually come in about 2-3 weeks before the shoot. After we have everything I create a master shoot list. It used to have pics and price and be really detailed. Now it’s an Excel spreadsheet that has the brand, pair, color, link and price. When I work with models I don’t want there to be any surprises. They know exactly what we are shooting.
This current shoot we did on a Sunday. Some shoots I drive over early in the morning, do the shoot, get lunch and head home. Since this was a Sunday, I got a great deal on a hotel and drove over the night before. I used this time to cut all the tags off the swimwear and group them by brand. this is so we can get started.
Call time was 9 AM, but we rarely start on time for various reasons. It could be traffic, late people or sometimes it was me not being prepared. The models usually do some simple workout to get pumped and we start. This shoot we started closer to 10 AM. Having 16 pairs to shoot, it was about an hour. Gone are the days where we have over 40 pairs to shoot. We try to keep it under 20-25 at the most.
The location was one that should look familiar. We shot there in our 2014 and it’s the home of Martin & Andrew. Our two video reviewers. In some of the video, you can see Andrew in the background. They have a great pool that we love to shoot our swimwear shoot. We luckily missed the rain. About one hour after I ran into rain on the way home!
The three brands in the shoot are JOR, Cocksox, and L’Homme Invisible. We have worked many times with the first brand but L’Homme invisible was new. The models are Jacob (you have seen in the Christmas shoot) and Casey (who is brand new but so much fun to work with). There was lots of diving, I found out Casey was a diver in college and it showed. Lastly, there is even a Unicorn in the shoot!
After we are done the models get to keep whatever they modeled. Unless it’s a sample to send back to a brand. Those are pretty rare lately. This was the first shoot I didn’t have to take any extra suits home! The guide will be out very soon but this is a behind the scenes here at UNB!
