holly
I admit, I didn’t know a lot about Holly when I first met her. She rose to fame via BBC introducing and within a short time found herself supporting my close personal friend Olivia Rodrigo on tour.
As always with this behind the scenes portraits for the BBC, I didn’t have a huge amount of time. But as she is at the start of her career, I was given a few minutes rather than just a few seconds. I wanted to try and capture both a clean portrait, but also show that we were in an impressive glass box in London. I brought her to the glass staircase which used to be hidden at the back of the 8th floor and did my best to make her at ease with a little chat on our way there.
She was lovely and friendly and told me all about her music and process, a gentle young English woman who your mother would love. The funny thing was, in front of the lens she transformed into this almost “bad bitch” vibe. Again, she’s a lovely person. But when the camera hit her, the gentle smile dropped, replaced with a perfectly flat teenage stare. It was a jarring experience but I respected the commitment to the bit.
Image wise, I’m happy with the balance of flash to ambience light, showing the BT tower and London behind her. I’m holding the classic Profoto clic softbox with my A1 over her head, camera in the other hand.
She reminded me of a young Avril Lavigne, best of luck to her to emulate that level of career
