As clients go hotel chains are pretty good, combine that with a trip to one of my favourite Cities and I was on to a winner.
 
Last month I was commissioned to shoot a set of lifestyle images for Park Plaza Hotels at their latest hipster hangout; Art O’tel in the fabulous Amsterdam. When we arrived the hotel actually hadn’t opened… even turning on the shower made the nylon seals creak on their introduction to water.
 

 
We met our models the affable Diane, Suzanne and Simon who very much had the look of a young Dolf Lungren circa Rocky III and slowly worked our way thorough the various locations on our shot list. We started in the bedroom… social graces tend to disappear pretty quickly on these shoots and reckon it took about two hours before Dolf was photographed being fed grapes in bed! (and I thought I had a good job). Once he was full/I had got my picture, Suzanne then obliged with some sexy silhouettes.
 

 
The team worked quickly to swap duvets for evening gowns as we relocated our equipment. As is normal in modern contemporary hotel design (apparently) the lights are very dim, so it was my challenge to light our talent and maintain that super cool and likely expensive ambience.
 

 
I’ve worked with Park Plaza for a while and have a great relationship with them which is a real asset when trying to be creative. Over drinks on the first night… we hatched a plan. Taking the shoot away from the hotel we explored some of Amsterdam, culminating in a boat ride through the canals, ducking lights down at the last minute to scrape under the low bridges.
 

 
Big thanks to Jillian Sanchez who ably assisted me with the light ducking; check her out here.