#instaxSpotlight: Holly Humberstone 'Haunted House' music video shot by Jordan Curtis Hughes
Today we're sharing some behind the scenes instax snaps of the music video shoot for Holly Humberstone's new single 'Haunted House' and caught up with the photographer who shot them, @jordancurtishughes
About JCH
Jordan first picked up a camera at 13 and became a full time photographer at 21. He's been working professionally for nearly 7 years now, but he's had a camera in his hand much longer! Jordan shoots portraits, live music, commercial and editorial work. Working with bands such as the 1975, The Streets, Enter Shikari and many more artists.
"you should photograph bands!"
We asked Jordan about how he started out shooting musicians and live music. "I used to take days off school so I could be on the barrier at shows and would naturally always take a disposable film camera with me as cameras on phones at that time were still awful (my lifelong friend would do too).
To cut a long story short, my photographs were always decent and my friend's were terrible, so one day he was like "you should photograph bands!" and here I am many years later doing it for a living. I was lucky to find something I enjoyed so much at such a young age, as it gave me something to look forward to and work towards, as I never enjoyed school."
As more of everyday life moves digitally I think the physicality of the instax is my favourite thing about it
When asked about his favourite thing about being a photographer, Jordan said travel. "I've seen so much of the world and so much of it has been because of my job. The travel will never cease to put a smile on my face whether that's Ibiza, St Louis or Cape Town."
Jordan has been shooting with instax since 2013. He can't remember a time where his kit didn't include some form of instax! Jordan's favourite thing about using instax is the physicality of the image. "As more of everyday life moves digitally I think the physicality of the instax is my favourite thing about it. I don't want to get too philosophical about it but to capture an important moment and feel it in your hands moments later is a special feeling as opposed to a digital capture onto a laptop."
Enter Shikari instax giveaway
Back in 2015/2016 whilst touring with Enter Shikari in Europe, Jordan and the band would run an instax giveaway everyday. He would take an instax snap of the band at a recognisable spot in the city (for example, the Louvre in Paris). The band would then sign it and hide the print, they would then take a photo of the print in situ and post it to social media. Whoever found the print would get to keep the one of a kind signed instax!
Jordan also mentioned 'I used to work with A$AP Rocky and the first time we met we had a photo taken together on an instax mini. He asked to keep it. I wonder if it's still in his wallet?'
Holly Humberstone X JCH
Jordan and Holly started working closely together last year, after hearing what an incredible artist she was and shooting various bits more generally with the two of them at her house. He was then asked to capture moments on the set of the Haunted House video, which was a big change from how they had normally worked together with such a big video crew on site. But always the professional, Holly made it easy for them to capture some great imagery from the day.
The whole aesthetic of the video is dark and ghost-like so taking photographs on the instax without the flash to create beautiful colours with slight blur was ideal. Holly is a fan of imperfect imagery and the instax SQUARE SQ20 does that wonderfully with it's multi-exposure settings/capability in darker settings even without flash.
The instax prints were taken at Holly's house on the set of the music video for Haunted House.
"The house is like nowhere I've been before – it oozes character and you can find the best of backdrops in the smallest of nooks and crannies. With it being Holly's childhood home she knows it from back to front so she was able to show me every inch of the house & garden which gave me a massive advantage of (hopefully) really showing how characterful the house and more importantly, it's residence are."
Jordan Curtis Hughes shot the images with an instax SQ20 and SQUARE film, and also shoots with an instax WIDE 300.
Click here to watch Holly Humberstone's Haunted House video and you can follow her on Instagram here.
To find out more about Jordan and his work you can follow him on social media or check out hiswebsite.
