For this shoot with Freya, we headed into Hamilton CBD and used the city as our backdrop, creating a mix of fashion-inspired portraits, model portfolio images and photographs that could just as easily work for personal branding.

Rather than staying in one location, we wandered. We used building facades, steps, alleyways, rooftops, cafés, textured walls and whatever else looked interesting along the way.

The result is a pretty big mix of images without needing to travel particularly far.

Creating different looks around Hamilton CBD

One of the things I love about photographing in the city is how quickly the look of a shoot can change.

A set of white columns gives us something clean and architectural. Walk around the corner and we’re suddenly working with brick walls and narrow alleyways. Then there are rooftops, industrial textures, cafés and modern buildings all within the same general area.

For Freya’s shoot, we paired those different locations with several outfit changes. That meant we could move between more polished fashion-inspired portraits and casual lifestyle images throughout the session.

Some are very clean and direct. Others have more movement, unusual crops or a slightly editorial feel.

Somewhere between fashion and personal branding

Not every portrait session needs to fit neatly into one box.

While a lot of this shoot has the feel of a model portfolio, some of the images could easily work as personal branding photographs too.

The café photographs in particular have that more relaxed, lifestyle feel, while other outfits and locations lean much further into fashion.

That’s part of the fun of planning a shoot with plenty of variety. We don’t have to create 100 photographs that all say exactly the same thing.

Using the city as the backdrop

You also don’t necessarily need an elaborate location to create a varied gallery.

Sometimes it’s a stairwell. Sometimes it’s an alley. Sometimes it’s a random wall that most people would walk straight past without giving it a second thought 😂

Changing the outfit, light, angle and composition can completely change how that same part of the city photographs.

For this shoot we created everything from closer portraits and full-length fashion images through to seated photographs, movement and wider environmental shots.

A model portfolio with plenty of variety

By the end of the session, Freya had a gallery covering several different looks while still feeling like one body of work.

And that’s exactly what I want from a model portfolio shoot. Plenty of variation in expression, styling, location and composition rather than simply changing outfits and repeating the same photograph.

Whether we’re creating images for a model portfolio, personal brand or simply because you want something a little more fashion-inspired, we can build the shoot around the kind of photographs you actually want to walk away with.