Shooting behind the scenes on fashion shoots and interviewing A list celebrities for brands such as Pirelli, Lancôme and L'Oreal is a position I’ve found myself in many a time.

When lighting a celebrity; Attention to detail becomes very personal. The lighting has to be supplemental to the celebrities specific look. Use of specific under the chin light, eyelight or hair kickers.

Naomi Campbell has to be lit in a very different style to Giselle or Jennifer Lopez.

We also had the luxury of shooting our own montage sequences with the featured model, independent of the photographer. These sequences are used to lend a sense of location, environment and culture behind the shoot.

When it comes to filming the talent on set and under the direction of the photographer, you lose all control over the lighting and set up and have to work around the conditions set by the photographer.

This is where diplomacy, patience and working while ‘treading on eggshells’ comes into effect in order to document and capture the shoot without any imposition on the fashion crew or model. Photographers of the calibre of Nick Night and Annie Leibowitz are very different kettles of fish!

Some fashion shoots can look quite 2 dimensional if shot up against a plain background, so I am always looking for depth in my shots by shooting through things, be it props, stills equipment or lighting rigs. Focus pulls off of a stills camera to reveal the model. My job as a documentary camera operator is to tell a story within my frame with the visual aspects at my disposal.