Facetime Portraits

Hello! Corinne here – Just want to tell you about a project that I’ve been working on recently and have absolutely been loving – FaceTime Photoshoots! Social distancing portraits taken from my house and yours.

If theres one good thing to come out of the current lock down (Other than 24/7 time with the cats) is the different ways we’ve been trying to stay creative (Like our Couple Shoot).

When Covid 19 / The Coronavirus began to take over we watched our 2020 weddings being cancelled or postponed one by one – It has been brutal for us and many of our friends in the industry, as well the potential financial issues there was also the shock that we wouldn’t be creating or connecting with people any more – which is one of the biggest reasons we do photography.

How could we stick to the social distancing rules but still connect to people and keep creative? Well, much like we were staying in touch with friends and family anyway – Through FaceTime, Zoom and any other video conferencing apps and look to find ways to take photos too. So we trialled a few things – Screen shots on the laptop, taking actual photos of the screen, screen recording etc. But nothing was giving us what we needed, the quality was shocking with these methods, we knew there had to be another way.

We attended a conference with Photography Farm hosted with the amazing Tim Dunk, (in our opinion the leader in FaceTime Photoshoots) who gave us the answer to our problems! Seriously, check out Tims work, theres a real beautiful high end fashion style to his work which we absolutely love, he is killing it. (Like Tim, we believe in community over competition so for any nerds out there wanting to use the same technique we’ve attached the boring techy bit at the bottom of this post.)

I had now found a way to stay connected and creative in the comfort of everyones own homes.

So how does it work?

Check out the boring techy bit at the bottom to make sure your phone is set up correctly – You then have to get super technical, making sure the back camera is facing out the way and sellotape the phone to a tin of beans or jar of coffee…. No, seriously! That way I can be transported about and give you orders from the phone, its quite surreal but also very, very funny!

Like any shoot we do – We find the light! Windows are an obvious start and we love it if theres blinds or something, though we also love cool electrical lights too – its your turn to be creative and find these things for us. Team Work! Be warned, there may be some running about the house and you might even go outside but that just adds to the energy of your shoot – Be as wild and creative as you can, and most importantly, have fun! A welcome distraction for everyone in this current climate.

I take the photos using my laptop – because its the back camera you cant see what I’m photographing, which I think adds to it too – They’re downloaded to my laptop where I edit them in Lightroom or Photoshop and then export and email back over to you ASAP.

We’re getting enquiries every single day so if you fancy a facetime photoshoot then drop us an email Hello@goodluckwolf.co.uk or head on over to our Contact Page – Put todays date as your wedding/due date.

We donate 20% of the cost to SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health) a charity that is not only really important right now but is really personal to us too. So get involved! Have a laugh with yourself or your loved ones and document this absolutely crazy time!

So far we’ve had people curious and bored during lockdown, pregnant mums to be celebrating what would’ve been their baby shower, a wee girls 3rd birthday and some promo shots for someone on the other end of the country! Lets stay connected and stay safe – See you soon!

Boring but important technical part

I shoot through FaceTime from my Macbook. You should ideally be using an iPhone – an iPad can work but the camera isn’t as good as the iPhone. We can use Androids but there’s a bit more to do.
You need to be using ios 11 or later.
Make sure you have FaceTime live photos enabled (Settings —> FaceTime —> Live Photos —> On)
Make sure your photos are set to upload onto iCloud
If you have to change any of these settings then you need to restart your device – Make sure you do this before the shoot so we don’t lose any time.

Hopefully we can get back out and start photographing Weddings, Couples and Babies again ASAP.

Want to work with us?

We’d love to hear from you about your wedding or baby’s birth!
Use our contact form to send us a message