Behind the Scenes: Shooting the Nyrah Beauty Campaign

Some shoots give you a clear brief and a full day to execute it properly. The Nyrah Beauty campaign was one of those.

Skincare campaigns have their own particular demands. You're not just shooting products, you're showing them in use, on real skin, in a way that feels authentic rather than staged. That means the model needs to be genuinely comfortable with each product, the lighting needs to work for skin texture rather than against it, and the overall feel needs to be clean without being clinical.

Produced by Hambi Media, the brief was to shoot Nyrah Beauty's full day and night skincare range. Model in use shots covering each product application, close up skin detail work and full set imagery for both routines. That's a lot of ground to cover in a single day, so the planning had to be tight.

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  Model using Nyrah Beauty Products

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  Model using Nyrah Beauty Products

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  Model using Nyrah Beauty Products

We shot the whole thing in my studio in Northamptonshire, just me, model Sarah Hannon and MUA Yvonne Aucott. That kind of setup works really well. The shoot stays focused, decisions get made quickly and there's a good energy on set when it's a small tight knit team.

The studio in Weedon Bec gave us everything we needed for this kind of work. The natural light through the large windows was ideal for the day range shots, giving that clean, fresh feel the brief called for. For the night range we shifted to a warmer, slightly more controlled setup while keeping the same overall aesthetic so the two ranges felt coherent alongside each other.

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  Model using Nyrah Beauty Products

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  Model using Nyrah Beauty Products

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  Model using Nyrah Beauty Products

The whole look was built around a no makeup makeup approach. Clean, natural skin throughout with minimal retouching. The brief trusted the product to do the work, and that confidence comes through in the images.

This approach also puts more pressure on the photography itself. When there's no heavy post production to fall back on, the lighting, the framing and the timing all have to work harder. It's a more demanding way to shoot skincare but the results are always more convincing. Brands that trust their products enough to shoot this way tend to get the strongest images.

Yvonne's work was spot on for the brief, keeping everything fresh and consistent across a full day of shooting is no small thing. Sarah was brilliant throughout, comfortable in front of the camera and great at holding product naturally, which is harder than it sounds.

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  Model holding Nyrah skincare products

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  Model picking up Nyrah skincare products

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  Model holding Nyrah skincare products

The full set shots at the end of the day tied everything together nicely. Getting all the products in frame in a way that feels considered rather than cluttered is always a satisfying challenge.

If you're a skincare or beauty brand looking for campaign imagery that shows your products honestly and compellingly, feel free to get in touch. The studio is based in Northamptonshire, just off the M1, and I work with brands across the UK and Europe.