When people grow up, finding time to hang out with their siblings becomes a nearly impossible task. Life inevitably gets in the way, but not for Greenville, South Carolina based photographer Cameron Reynolds and her sister Caitlin Colcolough who’ve set up a creative partnership to rival that of the Coen Brothers.
While Cameron focuses on the photography for clients, Caitlin specializes in motion. Whenever a project requires a combo of both photos and video, the sister duo gets together to collaborate. Their latest project was to capture the work undertaken by Amanda Claire Renfrow for her new graphic design business. Amanda Claire needed photography to showcase her work and a video to highlight the process surrounding her graphic design, providing her brand with a multi-faceted appeal to clients of all kinds.
Having worked with Cameron a couple years earlier at a publication in Charleston, Amanda Claire knew the Greenville photographer was the right person for the job. So when Cameron informed her that the motion aspect could be handled by Caitlin, Amanda Claire was more than certain she found the right match.
The project itself was small in scope, with just Cameron and Caitlin working in tandem with Amanda Claire. The designer did most of the styling work herself while the requisite photo and video handling fell to the sisters. Despite the limited hands on deck for the shoot, the project required a painstaking amount of attention to detail when it came to the styling and lighting. In order to achieve the visual goals that Amanda Claire desired, the planning had to be meticulous.
She wanted a natural, light-filled look that captured her designs without the styling taking away from them. She put together Pinterest boards for inspiration which we used to stay on track during the shoot. We also pulled different textured fabrics and papers to use for backgrounds.
The shoot took place over one day, utilizing several assignments that Amanda Claire had completed, ranging from simple books and brochures to custom-made t-shirts and yes, even knives. Each assignment required a different layout and background to make the design work stand out, and that was a challenge with varying lighting scenarios.
We were using partial window lighting along with some off-camera lighting. Once the sun started to set the studio got pretty dark so we had to tweak the off-camera lighting to mimic the natural light before moving along. The colorization in editing was also a challenge since I didn’t have the printed pieces with me when I went to edit, so we did a little bit of back and forth with the digital files to get the colors to be exactly what they are in real life.
Thankfully, all those adjustments and edits paid off. Amanda Claire is thrilled with the outcome of the project and is using the photos on her website, social media accounts, and in her general marketing materials. With the partnership off to a solid start, Cameron hopes she can capture some of the designer’s upcoming projects in the near future.
I love working with creatives who have a vision and it’s super rewarding to help them execute that vision and give them the final product. I’m also really excited about the film because I think motion really adds to the branding experience and it got me excited for more future photo and video collaborative projects.
Additional Credits:
Designer: Amanda Claire Renfrow
Videographer: Caitlin Colcolough