Hollie Fernando

0:13So as Owen is just lovely said my name is Holly Fernando and I am a portrait photographer born and bred in South London.

0:22And I'm gonna talk to you a bit about how I came to be photographer I wanted to start by showing you some images that I came across when I was looking for old college photos to include in this talk and I had no idea they'd been saved for all these years I was quite deep into the family computer and you'll spot me in a few of these I'm the one with the emo boy haircut so I was about 14 and the folder these one was called fashion shoot modelling Sony Ericsson w8 50 I so this was at a point where.

0:54I didn't actually have a proper camera yet but I used to curate these dodgy fashion shoots with my cousin cousins and take them on my phone but I thought to shush thought I should show you because it was interesting for me to find these 10 years down the line because a few of the themes that I can see in here I've gone to gone on to develop further down the line and my cousins are definitely gonna kill me for driving dragging them up but around this time my dad saw this budding interest or cry for help and pulled out his old practical camera from the 70s and gave it to me with a few rolls of film and from then on that was it I was spending all my pocket money going to the local boots getting them developed and you could used to be able to buy six bags a bag of six films from boots as well so pretty much doing the same thing. And we still loved the trees but I had a way better camera in my hands few years later. I was still very much into taking photos and asked him schools after my GCSEs to study at photography at a-level and I was accepted into Reigate College down in Surrey and this completely changed my life I went from an all-girls Science Academy school to this amazing mixed arty college that had his own art building and they taught us all on black-and-white film how to hand roll and process in the dark rooms and I would spend every spare second in printing photos I'd taken of my new friends at lunchtime.

2:24And we played around with liquid light and pinhole cameras so looking back this point was definitely the turning point for me where I realized that I wanted to do this forever. And it's also definitely why I still shoot on film it's how I fell in love with my craft it gets expensive but I just loved the physical process of it. And I know it said a lot.

2:46But there's a lot that digital can't emulate so fast forward seven years I'm 25 now and like I said I still shoot on film I'm represented by the amazing blink art and have been for the last year and have had some great shoots with them. And this is the most recent I was commissioned by The Telegraph magazine to shoot actress Jenna Coleman and this came out a few weekends ago. And it's my first cover actually.

3:15So yeah all these are taken on 35 millimeter film so to bridge the gap between college and now I've been freelance for nearly three years after a-levels I'd have short stint at uni but realised I wasn't really learning enough to justify the debt and I dropped out after a few months of giving a go and managed to get a job at a local studio where I spent the next three and a half years and learn everything I could up into that point about studio lighting and how to the back end of how to create a shoot and for a 19 year old at that point it was so good for my confidence it was actually a family portrait studio so I'd meet the families and then within 2 minutes we were in the studio doing a shoot so that was really really great for me and on my days off I was building up my portfolio until I had enough to be able to support me and for me to go freelance so a few bits of work from my years being freelance I'm gonna start with my little sister my first music s so when I first started getting serious about photography after the tree days I became obsessed with taking photos of Jess and I'm so so lucky that she's been up for pretty much doing anything I've asked her including sitting in a thunderstorm butt-naked she was my first nude model as well and our most recent project together was based out in Costa Rica in April she studied zoology at University and accepted a placement to go and study the vampire bats in the jungle and what she'd accepted I just knew I somehow to get there and could already see this opportunities of photos and projects which is always dangerous so after she done the placement I met her in San Jose and we went on a two-week road trip I wanted it to be a travel story with an element of a fashion editorial so I asked a few brands before I went to send us samples to take out on the road but I was select with who I asked I wanted them to match the eco friendliness of the environment vironment we'd be in so for example pan Zico and the far left your left they're based in California and they hand make all their underwear with organic Cotton's and dies without toxins so yeah it just really tied in nicely and I'm still working on this project it's taken a bit longer than planned because I've been juggling it with Commission's but nearly done and it's going to be a 50-page theme soon so keep your eyes peeled so a few other slides of some work I shoot a lot of musicians mainly portraits so press shoots artwork campaign imagery and I've also included a few of my personal projects here which are mainly from when I've been travelling and my new shoots I do a lot of new cheese as well.

6:36And this here is the lovely Laura Marling so Laura's team got in touch about shooting the campaign imagery for the latest album semper Femina which came out in March and it's a concept album exploring femininity and Laura's own relationship with her own and I was over the moon to get this she's been one of my favorite musicians since I was about 16 I didn't actually ever tell her how much of a fan Kelly was so we shot in her boyfriend's flat in Margate I didn't actually get to see the location before but was sent these photos as you can see it's just a lovely bright tall ceiling white shell of a room once we'd taken everything out and when I planned my press shoot I always asked for reference boards with who everyone working with just so I could see their favorite pieces of art.

7:31So they're painting sketches other images and anything that catches their eye and makes them tick because when you have it all together you can find the links between them all and pull out new ideas this way.

7:42So this is a few few examples from Laura's Borgias and every which was huge and great so essentially I knew we needed to make this imagined ethereal world where Laura could exist that also indicated the concept of the acceleration of femininity so it couldn't be more up my street really I draw a lot of inspiration from painters especially the pre-raphaelites and these tied in perfectly with the direction of this shoot so I'm just going to show you a few references these are all unedited of Laura by the way they're just outtakes so we have flora by Evelyn de Morgan we've got some John William Waterhouse and Frederic Sonny's and George's son.

8:29So I just love the colors used by these painters and used the references use the tones closely as references for the shoot and on the day went for really soft continuous lighting with gels to emulate sunlight that these painters used to use and we had lots of foliage and textures and flowing materials in the styling I'm going to show you a few more Polaroids and unretouched outtakes to show you some of the setups from the day we had a set designer he's called Nathan Reed and he created this overgrowing garden in the living room and as we shot during the day we just moved it around different parts of the room and this here he had chicken wire under the all the foliage there to like bulk out she's really cool she's like a real-life fairy she's nice to him and the next these are the final chosen pictures that they have for the campaign and the tattoo on her leg actually says sympho Femina I think she bought it done when she was a teenager so she's had this idea for the concept for quite a while but yeah it really was just a dream shoot for me it tied in what I do for my personal work and my music work.

10:06And I'm so glad I could talk to you about it today so thank you very much for listening [Applause]