The Shoot makes its way to The Liberties

‘The Shoot’ is a creative outlet where models and photographers come together to experiment and enjoy the process of creating visual art.

They had their third event on September 23 at St. Patrick’s Park.

The theme for this particular shoot was ‘street edition’.

‘The Shoot’ had its first event on July 2 in Killiney Hill, and the second one at Burrow Beach on August 19.

‘The Shoot’ welcomes models and photographers from all over Ireland to participate and it is a free event.

The community was founded by photographer Gavin Lowndes, who spoke to The Liberty about the idea.

“The community started from me doing my own portraitures and reaching out to other agencies,” Lowndes said.

“I noticed after talking with my friends who are also photographers that they weren’t getting the same kind of opportunities that I was getting, like working with different models.

“I decided to make a WhatsApp group with some people I know and put the word out on social media platforms like Instagram to see if there was a demand for it,” Lowndes continued.

Through the use of social media, word got around to various models and photographers in Ireland about the events.

Each time there’s an event, more and more people begin to show up. The first event had 25 people, the second event had 30, and the most recent one had over 40 attendees – both photographers and models.

The ‘street edition’ was the first shoot with multiple locations.

The main meet-up was at St. Patrick’s Park, then the group would walk the streets of Dublin and find aesthetic areas to take photographs.

“It’s a good opportunity for models and photographers alike to meet up and network, and it’s free as well,” said Lowndes.

“As of right now we’re just doing themes but hopefully for winter, I’m planning to have a shoot indoors and possibly a ticketed event, but at the same time more focus on themes and mood boards. Those are all plans I’d like to take this, in future, although that’s not the focus right now.”

Lowndes said that the focus right now is building up the community and seeing if there’s potential for growth.

One of the attendees, Alex Coppinger, a freelance photographer gave more insight on ‘The Shoot’.

“I joined the WhatsApp group chat pretty much the same way everybody did,” he said. “I messaged Gavin, got a link to join the WhatsApp group and that’s how I got here.”

I’ve been doing photography for almost eight years now. I started by testing out shots with my friends and I was amazed by the results because it was only my first time,” Coppinger said. “So I thought ‘imagine if I put more time and effort into this, I could really make something out of it,’” he continued.

Alex mainly focuses on portrait work, and likes his photos to have a dreamy, surreal feeling to the photos.

One of the models, Toto Okafor, said that it was their first time in this sort of environment, and that their friends told them about the event and encouraged them to go.

Videographer Cian Brennan also attended the event, and made a recap video.

The next ‘The Shoot’ event is planned for October 14 at St. Anne’s Park, with the theme for this event being ‘Autumn’.