How I Directed & Shot My First Photoshoot - "The Mary-Jane Project"
Backstory
In early May 2025, I saw a new follower on TikTok. I saw "model" in her bio and a lower follower count since she didn't post much to begin with so I thought she couldn't be that difficult to reach.
One of my interests were to shoot people because I never have willing subjects so I made a comment under one of her videos asking if I could contact her through Instagram
I proposed 'The Mary-Jane Project". A street photoshoot throughout NYC. The goal was to shoot her and capture whatever I thought looked cool. She had one look, we had three locations and plenty of enthusiasm going into this.
I was a beginner during this time period earlier in the year(although I still consider myself a beginner) and MJ didn't have that much modeling experience so a lot of this came down to her studies on poses and comfortability in front of the cam along with my experience & openness to experiment with angles I never use + settings I don't use often.
We briefly spoke on looks and the direction of the creative for the day of. I then made a basic mood board to organize ideas such as shot angles. social media ideas, whatever came to mind. Here's the link to the mood board I put together days prior to the shoot.
"The Mary-Jane Project" Mood board
After the ideas were finalized, we chose different areas in and around Central Park to bring the best out of the shoot. All the environments were suppose to add on to the look MJ chose.
She had the word "whimsical' in her Instagram bio so I thought to use that almost like a base and capture her whenever I thought she embodies that.
It's funny because I tend to make mistakes at times underexposing or overexposing images so you can see my mess-ups in certain shots but that adds on to the authenticity of them as well. I probably could touch them up in post production but I chose to leave all images RAW.
Before meeting up, I told MJ I don't edit my images. She loved that about my work! I think when it comes to some of the things I do, I let the audience know that I only use the most basic resources to make my visions come true.
So, when it came to this photoshoot, viewers can see for themselves that this photoshoot was basically just a camera, a bit of experience with said camera(about two years on and off) and somebody who is both confident and photogenic.
No extreme editing or light set-ups or expensive props. I've adapted that mindset recently of using what you have at your disposal to the best of your ability. Whatever happens, happens. At least you can say you tried and put in the effort to make something happen!
Future Plans
After posting all of my chosen images to Instagram, I received really positive words from my audience. It was great knowing that MJ liked how everything came out too.
Me and MJ have plans to meet up again for future shoots so for now, I'm focused on even more community growth. As we continue meeting up, I may find props, really unique locations in the city, organize some sort of group shoot with other models, the list of creative directions is endless.
If you would like to follow up on our future projects and see all the images that's been released on our pages, our socials will be linked below.
