Recently, Phoenix-based commercial and editorial photographer Melissa Valladares was contacted by FIJI Water to shoot their Las Vegas guide—a task that involved 20 shoots in just one week. A Las Vegas native, Melissa was very excited about this opportunity (and even better, they found her through Wonderful Machine!). Here, I chat with Melissa about the challenges and rewards of juggling so many destinations around the city.
Where did the shoots take place?
The shoots took place all over the city! One week before shooting I contacted all the locations and planned my week out according to the area I was shooting in. When photographing the larger hotels I was with a representative of the agency, and without them, my week would have been a lot harder! Most of the other places let me photograph and they were all were so helpful in ensuring that I had what I needed.
What was involved in processing?
A week before the shoot I was given the list of places I’d be photographing, along with the people to contact. Trying to fit 20 locations in one week is pretty challenging so I sat down and mapped it out by the areas of town I would be in. Las Vegas is a very spread-out city and can sometimes be like Los Angeles with traffic so one bad calculation in scheduling would set me very behind.
Scheduling the locations seems like an easy task, except that with some of the larger hotels I only had certain time frames of shooting certain locations, which I expected. It’s not like you can walk into the MGM and shoot. Once I had the large hotels booked I was able to fit in some of the other locations around them. The access I was able to get within the larger hotels was incredible. Being inside the suites and having access to photographs around the hotel was quite an experience, something as a born and raised Las Vegan I had yet to see!
This job took place a few weeks before Christmas so the turnaround was very quick. Every night I had to edit my work and send it to the creative director. Some days I photographed two locations and one day I photographed five so just imagine all the files I had to look through! My days were long but absolutely worth it! The amount of new work I got in this one week is mind-boggling.
Any challenges involved with this shoot?
The biggest challenge was scheduling everybody in one week. Twenty locations is a lot of places to shoot and in some I only had a 30-minute window so there’s no time to over-think or analyze the space. I’ve had a lot of training like that here in LA where certain places or people only give me 30 minutes so I’m accustomed to working under pressure. It’s also training yourself to photograph digitally like you would film. You know you can shoot crazy amounts of frames because it’s digital but when you only have 30 minutes to shoot you make sure that every frame counts. There’s no time to waste on the unimportant details or the maybes, you only shoot the strong hero images …and then you get the small details!
What did you enjoy most about this shoot?
There were so many things that I enjoyed about this shoot. But one of the things that really stood out to me was the job in general–photographing Las Vegas. Being able to photograph the city and represent it as I did was very fulfilling. The places that I got to photograph and see were very exciting. I think the places FIJI chose to highlight were great choices and most weren’t on the strip! There’s so much more to Las Vegas than the obvious and I felt that FIJI chose some outstanding places that represent Las Vegas well.
What has the reaction been so far?
The reaction so far has been very positive. The creative director and marketing managers loved everything and said I did an amazing job! Before I went on the shoot they told me which other cities were ranked highest from their client as far as photography goes and they said Las Vegas’ guide is on that list, so that made me very happy to hear!
Did you learn anything through this project?
I think there is always something to learn on any given project, no matter how big or small. On this job I learned how much I can push myself. I’ve had multiple shoots in a day before, but not like this week. It really is knowing and believing in yourself and your team’s support to get the job done.