In January I took on my biggest commercial shoot to date - for McLaren’s 2011 merchandise range. They were looking for a more fashion feel to the images so it was a real meeting of two worlds… I know nothing about cars but did my best to pretend…

I was able to put together my own team, so I got lighting assistant Natasha Alipour-Faridani on board as a priority. The lighting needed to be spot on, and consistent for the two days, whilst altering it for groups, men, women and kids.

I was also asked to recommend a team to document the shoot behind the scenes, so I got videographer Jonathan Gales and photographer Tim Bowditch to take care of this. Finally, I booked in Harrison Ward, my assistant, who was pretty excited, being more of a Formula One fanatic than anyone else.

We arranged to do a pre-light, so the day before the shoot Natasha and I drove all around London picking up kit from Direct Lighting and a few friends who had lent stuff (I massively under estimated my lighting budget …) Then on the road to Woking to set up the shots. We set up two shots – one with a grey colourama, slightly backlit and very slick. The other was a small set that I had asked McLaren to build, a white “wall” with a white floor. This gave more flexibility for the models to move around, especially with the kids in mind.

This was great, as the next day we walked in and everything was ready to shoot.

We started with a few members of the McLaren pit team. A good warm up as they were friendly and used to being photographed! Next was Melissa, a fan who modeled the women’s clothes. Then the star of the day, Lewis Hamilton. He was extremely professional and friendly, and obviously very used to modeling. The brief was a range of shots that McLaren could use throughout the year, so we also had to try and get some more natural and unguarded moments out of him.

The second day we had a few more McLaren Team members, then Jenson Button. We started shooting with Jenson just before lunch. Ten minutes in  - one of our lights stopped going off. It was the key light on the grey set – high up on a boom and accurately positioned. Disaster… luckily I had bought 2 spare (eye wincingly expensive) flash tubes in preparation, so we changed the tube and it worked for 5 minutes. Then stopped working again. We had a break for lunch, and decided to discard the light altogether, and share the key light from the other set. Not ideal, as it meant we were constantly moving the lights, when we were trying to keep them consistent. Nightmare…

We continued shooting with Jenson, again he was very professional and pleasant, although maybe not as well versed in the art of posing as Lewis.  Then the kids arrived. Thankfully, Jenson was brilliant with them and they warmed to him quickly. Although I think he was a bit worried he was going to get smacked in the face as they jumped up and down very enthusiastically…

Finally we had Martin Whitmarsh, the CEO. We had to work quickly, but got some good shots. Even a smile.

The final shots are now up on Mclaren.com, below is a selection on my favourites, also some behind the scenes shots from Tim Bowditch and a video from Jonathan Gales.

For more behind the scenes info on how we lit it, see Natasha’s Lighting blog here

Photographer: Claire Pepper

Lighting Assistance: Natasha Alipour Faridani

Photographers Assistant: Harry Ward

Backstage Video: Jonathan Gales

Backstage stills: Tim Bowditch

Shot at the McLaren Technology Centre, Woking, 2011.