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Scotland-based photographer Jo Hanley recently shared with us her incredible collaboration with Scottish Rugby. Scottish Rugby had been hoping to work with Jo for some time and eventually contacted her at the end of 2016, asking her to shoot the upcoming Be The Best You campaign.
Be The Best You promotes women’s rugby, and seeing as the sport is massively popular in Scotland, Jo was excited to be a part of the campaign.
The goal of the campaign was to raise awareness of Women’s Rugby across all ages to offer the sport to girls and women who are looking for a great way to keep fit and who want to be part of a team sport.
Before the shoot, Jo was involved in three pre-production meetings where they eventually settled on two shot lists: a list of “must have” shots and a list of “if we have time” shots. They scheduled the shoot at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium and wanted to get a variety of images on the field, in the locker room, and individual portraits of each woman.
For the shoot, they invited players from the Women’s National Team as well as from various city teams. While the men’s teams in Scotland are classified as professional teams, the women’s are not and most of the women work full-time jobs in addition to their training and games. To accommodate everyone’s work/life schedules, they had to do the shoot on a Saturday.
As it happens, the only Saturday available was the day before the men’s rugby team was scheduled to play a match against Australia. This meant that Jo and her crew had very limited time in the stadium before it was on lockdown for the game.
The three pre-production meetings turned out to be invaluable, and thankfully, Jo was able to capture all the photos from both shot lists. Jo and her assistant worked hard to make sure they were well-prepared the day before the shoot, that they knew where they each needed to be and how to transition from one location to the next seamlessly.
We needed to be a movable beast. Because of the time limitations, it was important that we didn’t lose hours setting up our locations […] I don’t like to be too rigid when it comes to a plan but we had a good foundation to work from, which meant if alternative opportunities presented themselves, we were able to make the most of them.
Jo was thrilled that the shoot went off without a hitch! Since the players didn’t all know each other well, it was important to get a good atmosphere going. Jo had them start on the field, and through making them work as a group to capture the shots, the women started bonding, and Jo was able to capture their natural interaction.
This made them much more comfortable and confident when it came to their solo shots. The solo shots were the images that would be used most, for design purposes more than anything, throughout the campaign, so they needed to be on the money.
By the time we were shooting in the gym, the players were competing with weights, chin-ups, interval training, etc. The fitness level of these women is astonishing and my assistant (who spends a substantial amount of time at the gym) made the mistake of throwing down a chin-up challenge. They wiped the floor with him …
The results of the campaign couldn’t have been better. Scottish Rugby has used the images in print, social media, across billboards, and other promotional materials. The players were also thrilled with how they turned out, and the #bethebestyou hashtag is continuing to trend across social media.
Jo has since shot the ‘New Kit’ campaigns for Scotland’s National Team and worked on a second shoot for the Be The Best You campaign, which will be released in late 2017. The next campaign will recreate the women’s photos with images of the Under 15 girls, with the aim of promoting how strong and confident young girls feel when they play rugby. Hopefully, after the second campaign is released, Jo will continue to work with Scottish Rugby and add to the women’s campaign in early 2018.
The girls’ shoot really showed the effect that rugby can have on the emotional well-being of young girls. They constantly spoke about how they felt strong and equal to boys because they knew what they were capable of. They all spoke openly about how rugby has made them more comfortable in themselves, more confident, and how their team feels like an extension of their family. I found this level of awareness very impressive.
See more of Jo at johanley.com!