Koko Collective
It was certainly a chaotic beginning to this shoot. We had only 4 hours to complete it and the truck bringing Koko Collective furniture was delayed by an hour. So now we had 3 hours!
When shoots begin, I need to see what we have readily available and what pieces of furniture we need to photograph. No matter the shoot, we also assess what pieces of existing furniture in the venue we will use to enhance the shoot and which ones we need to remove. This process actually takes quite a lot of time. Imagine having to move out and then move in, then move back again and then move in again. That’s basically what shoots are like! And this time we were already under time pressure!
We also needed to unpack the furniture and our props. Sometimes we may need up to 6 people to move a super heavy piece of furniture. So the manpower and effort just to do one shoot is quite intense! I usually arrive home completely exhausted!
When the truck finally arrived we had 10 people, and a child (perhaps it was bring-your-child-to-work day for someone!) in a very small home. We brought in more and more furniture until there was no more place to put anything else. I fact, I had to tell everyone to leave the house and wait outside as I couldn’t see what I had to shoot! At most shoots, the supplier brings extra things, or mistakes, or doubles that the client does not want me to shoot. There may be other reasons we can not shoot certain products (such as we need a single bed and we don’t have one, or we won’t have time to shoot it due to time restrictions).
By the time we sorted out all the furniture and we moved things around to set it all up to shoot, another hour had passed. Now we had 2 hours left! In this instance, I needed to allow one hour just to remove all of Koko’s furniture, put all the existing furniture back in its place, and collect and pack up all of our props!
That left me with just one hour of actual shooting. I had to move fast! I could see that we needed to shoot a lot of bed heads so setting the bedrooms needed to be our primary goal. I decided to use the living area and set it up as a large bedroom as it had plenty of light and beautiful features. Not everything is as it seems – living rooms can be bedrooms, and vice versa!! In the other bedroom, we changed the bed’s positioning to be closer to the door because it’s original spot had a mosquito net we could not removed. To make the bedrooms looks beautiful, we used Kate and James linen mixing and matching different colours.
Some of my favourite products from Koko Collective were the pet beds! How cute are they? Wish I had one of my cats with me so we could add a little feline model to them. And I also love the console and cupboard. It could be because that’s precisely what I’m looking for in my new house!
Luckily, with the superstar help of Wendy with styling, and Putu with all the muscle, we were able to shoot this gorgeous collection for Koko Collective! Hope you enjoyed learning a little more about what a shoot involves!
Creative Direction: Sheila Man
Photography and Words: Sheila Man
Styling: The Interior Tailor
Special thanks to Kate and James for lending us the beautiful linen
Location: Villa Putih Berawa
