2nd October 2025
I visited Sage Studio and met the owner Trista. Had a chat about what I wanna do at the studio.
23rd October 2025
After sorting out with DPS i have my first day being an intern at Sage Studio, where i would be a studio assistant. Trista gave me a tour of the studio and we set up an invisible mannequin shoot together.
She then got me to do admin on her computer for the rest of the day.
24th October 2025
Fashion e-commerce shoot with NIIHAI all day. I helped set up lighting, take BTS and put clothes away. This was my first professional fashion shoot which was very exciting. During most of the shoot i was talking BTS so i was able to just watch everyone work. Both the owner and creative director of NIIHAI was on the shoot so watching them communicate their vision with the photographer, stylist and model was very interesting. I didn’t think e-commerce would be as long and tiring as the creative shoots i’m used to at uni because i underestimated how many pieces of clothing they have to try and get through in a day. As commercial fashion shoot often have drastic changes in lighting and set I assumed it would take longer however the styling and makeup only changes a couple times. The e-commerce shoots similarity is kinda relentless in it’s discipline of capturing an image with the same background and just different clothes and angles.
27th October 2025
I helped with e-commerce shoot in the morning – invisible mannequins and flat lays
did admin in the afternoon
5th November 2025
fashion e-commerce shoot. Trista taught me how to lay out clothes for flat lay shoots. there is a certain way to steam specific clothes depending on the fabrics. with the big cotton hoodies like the ones from real artistic people you can really steam them without damage except from getting damp spots that drys very quickly anyway. you have to lay the trousers out carefully and make sure to smooth out any creases. i got better at this over time because at first i would miss areas i didn’t notice. with hoodies you have to underlay the arms to fit a shape that looks appealing in the front and back. its the same with the hood but a bit trickier because you want the 3d aspect of it to show whilst also laying it flat.
She also left me to take the pictures while she went on lunch. It was very simple and didnt take a lot because e-commerce only needs simple shots but it felt very exciting as technically my photography is on their website now.
REAL ARTISTIC PEOPLE – https://realartisticpeople.com
did an invisible mannequin shoot and admin for the afternoon.
7th November 2025
We did a portfolio day. When the studio doesn’t have much going on in a day Trista decided to do a portfolio day where she experiments with different creative commercial shoot ideas. this was really fun to watch and join in on. We brought in some fun and brightly coloured cans to be the subject of the shoots and after looking at some inspiration we built the set and lighting around it.
The first one we did was with a green bottle as the subject and we surrounded with limes to make it look like it was at the top of a mountain of them. we used blocks and cocktail sticks to keep them up, which took some time as it was hard to balance them on top of each other as well as balancing the amount we needed in the photo without it getting too crowded. as a final touch Trista sprayed a mix of glycerin and water to give it a splashy damp look.
The next one we did was with a bright yellow can. We were continuing to go for a monochrome look with the background being the same shade of yellow. The inspiration was a floating object shoot, which i was really interested in watching as I always wondered how they do that. Trista got a c strand and positioned the pole into the shot correctly and just glue gunned the can to it. i thought it would be something more complicated but she said that it stays on securely during the shoot and its really easy to take it apart from the metal pole after.
After that we did a similar shoot to the first one with a mountain of fruit with a can. I don’t think it worked as well as the first one because the colour theory wasn’t as good with the blue, pink, green and red being too much all together.
The last test shoot we did was with skincare and it was my favourite because i was allowed to really help with the positioning of everything. It took us a while to work out how far apart we would place the glass panes and then the skincare and matching fruit. The was a key element in the inspiration for this one with it being similar to the bright ones you see in high end shops. I love how all the elements (set design, colours, lighting) all look for the end result.
In the last 2 hours of the day a package from the client whatever sweats arrived. The package had been delayed and we hadn’t expected it to arrive till the next week but since it arrived the client called asking for the photos to be taken as soon as possible. This was extremely tiring for all of us as we had to go through many different hoodies and had to follow a complicated list of different set ups before closing the studio. After portfolio day being fun it reminded me of the real and less exciting work we have to do alongside the more creative stuff and how once i graduate this is going to be my reality.
WHATEVER SWEATS – https://whateversweats.com
12th & 13th November 2025
This week Trista took me to help on her stool for the White Label World Expo at the excel centre. The expo is for anybody looking to connect with the top white and private label manufacturers, where we were promoting the studio for e-commerce or any other types of shoots. The two days were long because I had to stay alert and ready to have a chat with anyone about the studio. I also had to quickly learn what questions may be asked and how to respond whether it was about the studio space or the pricing sage gives. I got the hang of it quickly and became very comfortable by day 2.
EXPO – https://www.whitelabelexpo.com/welcome-london
19th November
did an invisible mannequin shoot in the morning.
e-commerce shoot for junk jewels. this was a tricky one because with jewellery so dainty and small its harder to set up. we used blocks, masking tape and plain paper t create the set up and the lighting had to be well diffuses so the shine wasn’t too harsh. even after doing this in post the reflection of her taking the pictures had to be taken out. She then taught and let me try her method to get very crisp jewellery shots. she starts by figuring the perfect angel to take the photo then without moving the camera take the photo multiple times with different focuses until she thinks she’s got everyone she can. she moves the photos from capture one to a rendering app and puts all the images together so that everything is in focus. This was really fun to try and I understood why Trista would go quiet everytime she was taking the images as you had to stay super still as not to mess up the rendering in post.
JUNK JEWELS – https://www.junkjewels.co.uk/products/pink-and-green-floating-heart-hoop-earrings?_pos=4&_psq=heart+ea&_ss=e&_v=1.0
1st December
fashion e-commerce photo and video for DR LLAVELL. this was a very simply set up shoot where i had to switch between continuous and flash lighting as Trista took the shots. switching between the lighting made the photos and videos look consistent.
DR LLAVELL – https://drllavelle.com
fashion lifestyle shoot for a muslim fashion brand. this was an example of clients coming in for a test shoot at the beginning of their company where they let Trista take a lot of the artist direction to help themselves along. I remember steaming these garments were harder than usual because they were long and delicate so i had to make sure not to go to hard as to not make them too damp. I then took BTS for them.
3rd December
fashion e-commerce shoot. Very simple shoot and set up with only a couple hoodies to use.
i helped do the studios christmas decorations and then did admin in the afternoon.
12th December
I helped with e-commerce shoot in the morning – invisible mannequins and flat lays
cleaned up the lifestyle room for the next day and did admin in the afternoon
15th December
Inventoried the kit room all day. This was quite boring (and cold) but it was interesting to find and look up all the stuff used in the studio. some tools like the honeycomb grid thats used for soft boxes is something i’d only ever seen on smaller light dishes. There were also less work to do for photoshoots because christmas was getting closer so most clients had already released their stuff for christmas or were getting ready for the new year.
19th December
Inventoried the kit room till it was all done.
did admin in the afternoon.
15th & 16th January
Trista has just told me she has to let me go from my weekly 2 days a week because she can’t afford an intern anymore.
I’m a bit disappointed but I am gratful for my time at Sage. I have realised I don’t want to do commercial photographer as it isn’t very creatively interesting. I’m going to really get into doing my self initiated project as I think it may help me understand what I want to do.