Brand Photography for Bluebird Boutique
Brand Photography North East England
Rebecca at Bluebird Boutique contacted me because she wanted to overhaul her website. The images she had were all stock photography, and she was looking for something that was unique to her and her business. Something that said “we are a small business who do American Western clothing and we are personal, attentive to our customers’ needs, and we’re fun.”
One of the things she was particularly keen to move away from was the clean and streamlined look that the website had at the time. With the rise of AI, it was important that Bluebird look as human as possible. Having spent the majority of my career looking to create “perfect” images, it was interesting to deliberately move away from a pristine appearance and embrace very specific flaws.
Knowing that many of Bluebird's customers ride horses, work outdoors and actually live in the clothes they buy, I wanted the photographs to reflect that reality. Rather than perfectly static poses, I encouraged movement. Motion blur became part of the storytelling, suggesting clothes that are walked in, ridden in, danced in, and enjoyed. I used star filters to make the rhinestones on Becky’s fringed jacket sparkle in the sunshine, and kept retouching to a minimum so that the images retained all of the personality and authenticity of the day.
To finish everything off, I indulged my inner nerd and used a selection of film emulations to reinforce the vintage Americana aesthetic. Kodak Ektar, Fuji 400H and Kodachrome 64 each brought something slightly different to the final collection, helping the photographs feel timeless while perfectly complementing Bluebird's Western-inspired brand.
I got very lucky and happened across an old quarry not far from the boutique, and that doubled as West Texas for a lot of the shots. The roads through the Pennines have no streetlights, and not much in the way of painted lines or striping, so they gave a really nice wilderness feel to a lot of the shots.
Rebecca told me that she offers a personal dressing service and has even dressed country music star Lainey Wilson. I thought that was particularly cool so I used a Lainey Wilson track for the Instagram video. Please do check out the link, there are so many lovely shots in there, slow motion coolness, and you get to enjoy some fabulous country music!
The shoot took a whole day. We started with some headshots of Rebecca and images of the shop itself before loading up the cars with clothes, props, and a whole damned armchair and heading out to the hills to take photos of everyone looking fabulous in their outfits.
My only regret of the day is that after 8 hours I was shattered, and I simply didn’t have the energy to go and buy some clothes. Luckily I’d bought some jeans when I’d gone over for a reccy, but I need to go back. There’s a cool as all hell hoodie with my name on it waiting for me.
