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Moodboard

Where the shoot gets decided

The look, the light, the colour, the wardrobe and the locations, on one board. Collect references from anywhere, write the direction beside the pictures it applies to, and send a link when somebody else needs to see it.

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No card. Free keeps one active shoot going for as long as you want — it is not a trial.

Latentshoot’s moodboard, with section chips along the top for Everything, Direction, Location refs, Palette and Wardrobe. Sportswear references in saturated yellow, teal and gold sit beside a set line in display type, “One colour a look, and the wall carries the second”; a direction note listing flat light, one colour head to toe and shoes on the floor; an unanswered question about whether the shoes get their own set-up; a link card to a reference collected online; a print shown on a white mount; and swatches named Court teal, Tracksuit and Concrete with their hex values. Every photograph carries its photographer’s name.
A lookbook being worked out: the palette taken off the references, the wardrobe rule written next to the pictures it applies to, and the question nobody has answered yet — whether the shoes get a set-up of their own — still on the board with everything else.

Collecting

Every reference you have found, in one place and credited

References live in a browser rather than in a folder, so Latentshoot takes an address as readily as a file. Paste one and the page is fetched for you. A page that is one photograph — a Behance project, an Are.na block, a Commons file, an Unsplash photo — arrives as the photograph, labelled with the photographer and the site it came from, and keeps its link. Anything else arrives as a card carrying that page’s own title, description and thumbnail. Text that is not an address at all becomes a note with those words already in it.

The photograph is copied into your own storage rather than pointed at across the web. Left as a link, a reference disappears the day somebody reorganises their site, and it tells that site who is looking at your board. Some publishing sites refuse a server outright: those stay cards, assembled from whatever the page published about itself, and the address you pasted still opens.

A close view of the board: a link card headed ARE.NA reading “Colour blocking, sportswear”, with the page’s own description and a link to open it, sitting beside two photographs captioned “Clément Falize / Unsplash” and “Meg / Unsplash”, and a monospaced note asking whether the shoes get their own set-up.
Two pasted addresses, side by side. The Are.na channel became a card carrying that page’s own title and description; the photographs came in as photographs, each with the name of whoever took it.

Finding

Look for a reference without opening another tab

The panel searches Openverse, Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash, Pexels and Flickr with your board still beside it, and only ever returns work you can use on a paid job.

Pick several and they arrive on the board together, each copied into your own storage with the photographer’s name on it. Anything already on your board is marked, so you do not add a second copy without meaning to.

The moodboard with a panel open down its left side headed “Find references”, searching “long winter light, wool, ochre” across Unsplash, Openverse, Wikimedia Commons, Pexels, Flickr and Pinterest. Two columns of results, one of them marked both “On the board” and “Picked” and another marked “Picked”, with the button that adds the picks to the board at the foot. The photographer’s own board fills the rest of the screen.
The panel takes a column and the board keeps the rest, so you judge a new reference against the ones already up. Three picked here, and the panel says one of them is already on the board.

Your own pins

Work from the pins you have saved

Connect a Pinterest account — from the panel, or from Integrations on your account page — and it lists the pins you have saved. Adding one goes to the site the pin was saved from: the photograph if that page is one, a link card if it is not.

The same panel with Pinterest chosen. The button beside the field reads “Filter” rather than “Search”, above two lines: “Adding a pin takes what the site it was saved from publishes”, and “Connected for this team as @northlight” with a Disconnect link. One pin is labelled “from anothermag.example, as a link card”.
Typing narrows the pins you have saved. Every result says what adding it will produce, before you add it.

Arranging

Arrange it the way it needs to be read

Drag one reference near another and its edges and its centre snap to the ones already there, and to the centre line of the board. Select several and you can line them up, even out the space between them, resize the lot as one arrangement, or tidy a heap back into rows. The spacing evens out the gaps rather than the centres, because references are different sizes and even centres leave visibly uneven space between a wide frame and a narrow one.

Resizing a photograph holds its proportions unless you ask otherwise, since a reference that has been stretched is no longer the reference. Items tilt up to 24 degrees, and lock once they are where you want them. Positions are kept in board units rather than pixels, so an arrangement built on a large desktop screen still reads on a tablet.

The left of the board: a tall reference of a yellow tracksuit, a set line in large display type reading “One colour a look, and the wall carries the second”, a smaller reference shown as a print on a white mount, and the direction note beside them with one phrase in bold and a closing line in italics.
Nothing here is the same size as anything else, and that is the argument: the tracksuit frame is the one the shoot is being built around. The reference in the middle is shown as a print on a mount.

Direction and palette

The whole brief on one board, not four documents

The references are half of a brief. The rest of it goes on the same board: a note takes weights, italics, headings, lists, quotes, links, alignment and a choice of three typefaces at five sizes, so a set line can be set large in display type and its caveats small underneath. Written next to the picture it applies to, the direction is still legible to whoever is lighting the fourth look at two in the afternoon, which is not true of a paragraph in an email from three weeks ago.

Paste a hex value and it lands as a swatch you can name — Court teal, Concrete — and asking a reference for its palette drops five swatches out of it, ready to be named and arranged with everything else. Give items a section, such as Direction, Location refs or Wardrobe, and the board filters to one at a time: the same board reads as a wardrobe brief for the stylist and a location brief for the producer without either of them wading through the other.

The board at 200 per cent: three swatches named Court teal, Tracksuit and Concrete, each showing its hex value, taken off the gold-painted photograph above them; the direction note in bullets with “one colour” in bold; and a monospaced note recording that the court is booked 07:00 to 11:00.
The swatches were taken off the photograph above them and then named, so “Court teal” means something to the stylist reading the board and not only to whoever picked it. The hex value is there for whoever has to match it.

From board to shoot day

The shot list is what the board turns into.

Once the look is settled you write the shot list, and you can pick each shot’s references straight off the board. They sit beside the shot on the list, come up on the phone in on-set mode when you come to take it, and travel on the link the crew are holding. The person lighting a look is looking at the photograph you chose rather than at a sentence describing it.

Signing it off

Send the board on its own, to anyone

A share link can carry the moodboard and nothing else — the direction, before there is a running order worth showing anybody. It opens with no account at the other end, on any phone. Left as it is, the link only shows the board. Tick Let them comment and suggest when you make it, and whoever has it can also comment on anything on the board and send you pictures of their own.

What they open is the board as you arranged it, with every picture at the size and angle you gave it, scaled to fit the screen it is opened on. A tap opens anything on it full size, which is how a note gets read on a phone, and a swipe moves on to the next. Your sections sit above the board as a row of names; choosing one fades everything else, so a stylist can pick out Wardrobe and still see where those pictures sit. Change something after you have sent it and the link is already right the next time it is opened, so there is no second version going round.

What a client sends arrives in a From the client tray beside your board, under the name and email address they gave before their first comment. Latentshoot does not check either or send anything to the address. They are there so you know who wrote and can email them. You reply to a comment on the picture it was left on, and they read the reply on the same link; each client sees only their own conversation with you. A picture they send stays in the tray until you drag it onto the board or decline it, and one they upload from their phone counts towards your storage. You get one email once they have stopped for half an hour, rather than one for every comment.

The same board as a client opens it, on two phones. On the left, the project title under the studio’s mark, a row of section names starting with Everything, Direction and Location refs, and below them the whole board in the photographer’s own arrangement, fitted to the width of the phone. On the right, one photograph from the board opened full size, with its photographer’s name under it.
The client’s side of the same board, laid out as you left it and fitted to a phone. Tapping any picture opens it full size, as on the right.
Images on the board count towards your storage: 2 GB on the free plan, 200 GB on Pro. Past the limit new uploads stop, and nothing already on the board is touched.

Questions

About the moodboard

Can a client sign off the board without an account?
Yes. A share link can show the moodboard and nothing else, and it opens with no login at the other end on any phone. What they open is your board as you arranged it, scaled to fit their screen, and a tap opens anything on it full size. It always shows the current version, so a change you make afterwards does not leave a second one going round. Tick Let them comment and suggest on the link and they can also comment on anything on the board and send you pictures, from their phone or as a web address. Before their first comment or picture, they give their name and email address, which only you see, so you know who wrote and can reply by email. Each client sees only their own comments and your replies, and a picture they send waits beside your board until you add it or decline it.
Can I paste a reference from anywhere on the web?
You can paste any address, and Latentshoot fetches the page itself rather than pointing at it. A page that is one photograph — a Behance project, an Are.na block, a Wikimedia Commons file, an Unsplash photo — comes in as the photograph, with the photographer’s name and the link kept beside it. Anything else comes in as a link card carrying the page’s own title, description and thumbnail. Some publishing sites refuse a server outright; those stay cards, built from whatever the page published about itself.
Can I search for references from inside Latentshoot?
Yes. The moodboard opens a panel down its left side that searches Openverse, Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash, Pexels and Flickr, with the board still in view beside it. Every search is limited to photographs that may be used on a paid job. Pick several and they arrive on the board together, already selected, each copied into your own storage with the photographer’s name and a link back to where it came from — the same as pasting the address yourself. A photograph already on the board is marked, so the same search run a week later does not quietly give you a second copy.
Do I need my own API keys for the photograph libraries?
No. The photograph libraries are set up already and there is nothing for you to sign up to. Pinterest is the one you connect yourself, because it is your account: link it once, from the panel or from Integrations on your account page. Searching is capped at 60 requests every 15 minutes, which is far more than a day of building boards. Go over it and you are asked to wait a few minutes rather than charged.
Can I use my Pinterest boards as references?
Yes, once you connect the account. The panel lists the pins you have saved and typing narrows them. Adding one goes to the site that pin was saved from and takes what it publishes there, credited to it — the photograph where that page is one photograph, and a link card where it is not. The panel says which before you add it.
How is a photographer credited on the board?
Their name sits under the picture, linked to their page where the library gives one, next to the licence and the site it came from. It is worked out from those fields every time it is shown rather than written into the caption, so editing your own caption cannot destroy it. The same credit appears on the share page.
What happens to a reference if the page it came from changes?
Nothing. The picture is copied into your own storage when you paste it, so it is still there after somebody reorganises their site or takes the page down. The address is kept next to it, so you can still go back to where it came from, and so can whoever you share the board with.
Is the moodboard a grid of tiles?
No. Items go where you put them, at the size you make them. There are tools to line things up — snapping, align, even gaps, and a tidy that packs everything back into rows — and the tidy keeps each item at its own size rather than flattening them all to one.
Do the references follow the shoot onto the day?
Yes. A picture attached to a shot sits beside it on the shot list, comes up on the phone in on-set mode when you reach that shot, and travels on the share link the crew are holding.

Start with the pictures.

Drag in the references you have already collected, paste the addresses of the ones you have not, and build the board you would put in front of a client.

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No card. One active shoot is free for as long as you want it.