We were asked to shoot headshots and portraits of Jordan van den Lamb, who's a Senate candidate running in the 2025 Federal Election representing the Victorian Socialists. He's also a renters and housing rights advocate, who runs the website Shit Rentals, a website in which users can rate rentals and agencies. He's known online as Purple Pingers.
Case study - at a glance
Project overview:
Client: Jordan van den Lamb (on behalf of the Victorian Socialists).
Type: Personal branding photoshoot, election campaign headshots.
Location: Hosier Lane, Melbourne CBD.
Objective: Capture a series of posed images of van den Lamb for use during his 2025 Federal Election Senate campaign.
The Brief
Scope: Photograph van den Lamb in a variety of poses that can be utilised as part of his election campaign material.
Style: A grungy look and feel that keeps true to the grassroots edge of a small Left-wing party, while also being stylised and professional looking.
Must-have shots: A hero shot and a headshot of van den Lamb for use in election campaign materials.
Strategy and execution
Equipment used: A 70-200 f2.8 lens was used for the headshots to provide a smooth, de-focused background that emphasises the subject. A wide angle, 24-105 f4, was used for the more dramatic hero shots. Subtle touch ups and colour correction was done in post production.
Lighting: Dark and dingy, punctuated by the brightly coloured street art. An off camera flash attached to a tripod served as a movable light source.
Workflow: As time was limited, the focus was on getting the required hero and headshots and once this was achieved, shifting locations to shoot images with a variety of different backdrops, in order to provide a variety of assets to van den Lamb's campaign team.
Challenges: The main part of Hosier Lane is a major tourist location in the Melbourne CBD that sees hundreds of people going through it on a daily basis. This meant contending with crowds. We overcame this by choosing less crowded areas nearby that provide the same look and feel, as well as choosing upward looking angles and even, in some respects, creating purposefully busy looking images by incorporating background crowds into the frame - partuclarly where the background is de-focused.
Results and deliverables
Content use: The resulting images provided an extensive array of assets for use in a variety of electoral campaign contexts, including: flyers, corflute/yard signs, posters, websites and in media articles promoting van den Lamb's campaign.
Impact: The quality of campaign imagery has a big impact on how election candidates are perceived (whether they're taken seriously or not) by voters. The images produced were used on yard signs affixed to hundreds of fences and front yards across Victoria during the course of the election period, as well as on flyers, how-to-vote cards, on van den Lamb's campaign website and in various news articles talking about van den Lamb and his campaign more broadly. The Victorian Socialists more than tripled its Senate vote when compared to the 2022 Federal Election.
Hosier Lane in Melbourne's CBD served as the backdrop for this photoshoot, the alternative and grungy vibe fitting perfectly for someone who's known for giving dodgy landlords grief by exposing their profit driven motives, and not playing within the bounds of establishment politics.
These photos were used on yard signs, on flyers, online and in the media to promote his election campaign.
We can help you out with personal branding, political or not.
For good measure, we also shot some headshots at a location with a more suburban backdrop too.
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