Behind the Scenes with Philippe

Gotta do a big catchup here. Last year we did so many photoshoots. Usually we try to do two big editorial style shoots and a two or three more product shot focused. Somehow in 2024 we ended up doing seven of the editorial style photoshoots....

... I will be sharing behind the scenes images and stories from those shoots but pay no attention to the order of my posts....

... last year we did two shoots during the spring, one in summer and we originally only planned for fall... Our shoot with Philippe was the first "bonus" one that ended up happening. Randomly looking at model agency websites I saw Philippe for the first time and immediately saw that "SMITH" quality that I look in each of our models...

... we originally had scouted this location a year before for another project and different model, but that one never came to fruition. But when I saw Philippe, I knew this was the right location for him...

...I assembled my friends, who also happen to be my crew for these shoots and we rented this magical house in the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles for the day (shout out to PEERSPACE for making it happen)

...Jake (our photographer) started styling all our photoshoot and I have to say there is an additional magic when the vision of the photographer is merged with the one who is styling the wardrobe for the shoot. This is something I did when I started building my own photography portfolio in the early 2000's but that was out of lack of funds, lol...

... Mr Leblond is magical. He is one of those models that really knows how to POSE. There are many beautiful models who look great in front of the camera but then there are those that know exactly the variety they can give you with their face and body, know where the light is, the camera position and above all never forget to showcase the product. Philippe is THAT model, so I loved working with him and knew I made the right call choosing him since the very first setup of the day....

... this was the first shoot that I started using my new Leica Q3 for the behind the scenes photos (so if you are a photographer looking for Q3 samples, well then... here ya go) the camera is a beauty and you will not be disappointed ...

...going to post more BTS shots of this location on a future post, but this was our most 'grand' location to date... and I can't stop thinking about it...

...always love having the iPad showing the previews of the images so we know right away we are getting the exact shots we need and that the jewelry looks absolutely perfect....

...the crazy thing about the three "bonus" shoots that we did at the end of the year was that I really didn't have that many new necklaces and bracelets to shoot, so that kinda forced me to create three new jewelry collections in a very short amount of time. While a lot of people would think that's too much pressure, I actually loved it and it flowed very well as I was able to create new styles that were inspired by the model and the locations we had selected. In my mind this made all this projects even better and a lot more cohesive theme-wise....

Hope you guys love getting these little behind the curtain look into our brand and how we bring our visuals to life.

more to come.x.