Photographing Annie Dabir's, "What if The Row had a beauty line?

In 2024, I saw Annie Dabir's fantasy art direction of a "The Row" beauty line, and wanted to turn that into a reality.

Feb 25, 2025

’s Substack post, “What if The Row had a beauty line” was the most interesting and inspiring piece of art direction content I saw in 2024. I thought it would be a fun concept to execute, as a personal photography project and also as a great addition to my folio.

As I’m a photographer based in Australia - The Row is a brand I admire, but not quite in my scope of current possible employers. The internet is a great place to find collaborators in places other than the community where you live - so after commenting on Annie’s post - I got together a team to create this concept as my last shoot of 2024.

Planning

I broke down the shoot into two major elements - still life and beauty. I chose two creatives - Meg McConville, who is a makeup artist currently based in Melbourne, and Helena Inez Abapo a set designer and still life stylist also based in Melbourne. In my previous work with Meg, I thought not only was she lovely to work with, but her technical skill and taste was really impressive (I’m not the only one who thinks this - she recently did Julia Fox’s makeup in Melbourne) - and she’s fantastic with skin first makeup - which I think was key to this shoot. Helena Abapo is a set + prop stylist I’d worked with on a commercial shoot, and her experimental and fun spirit was something I thought would add a lot to the simple concept.

Notes from Art Direction

Key words from art direction were - minimalist, chic and high-quality. Some imagery was to not be super sharp. Added noise, and some motion blur was apparent in the imagery. No posing.

I used a large natural light studio space - and mostly used natural light for this shoot. I imagine a campaign like this being shot in a large studio space in either New York or Paris.

I cast two models - Matilda at Chadwick Models and Yeon at Viviens Models. Both have a timeless, chic beauty that I felt resonated with the brief.

This is Annie’s original moodboard (Annie, if you don’t want me to use this, let me know and I’ll take it down :) )

The Shoot

I created images in two ways - traditional photography and also using a scanner to create images. I noticed in the brief that some imagery had a scanned-like texture, and thought that would add a lot to the final work. The intersection between nature and technology is really interesting to me, and I felt the use of the scanner as technology in this circumstance worked well. Also, using the scanner was a pleasurable and tactile way of working. I used a vintage Pentax lens for the beauty imagery, attached to my Fuji GFX 50sii, the particular lens I’ve been using has a softness that feels very film-like.

The bottles we sourced for the shoot weren’t exactly as clinical as the brief, but I feel the organic shapes, straight lines and timeless quality of the vessels worked well. We used a Burberry perfume bottle also - and while I love the images - they didn’t make the cut as the bottle is too widely known.

I chose final imagery that felt undone, effortless and anti-commercial. Overall, this was a very freeing experience that felt fun and playful, while creating something new for my folio. I have included an extended edit on my Instagram - which you can find at this link.