In the third instalment of her High Fives series, photographer Holly Falconer chats with Clare Shilland, a London-based snapper whose work she’s long had a crush on. Her carefree portraits are so full of freedom and joy, you can’t help but be drawn in. She’s music mag Beat’s regular cover photographer, and her clients range from i-D, The Gentlewoman and The Wire to Supreme and Marni.

Clare Shilland : Alice with tea, Summer 2010. From the self-published book Love from Alice, which I made with Alice Goddard, Beth Fenton, Suzy Wood and Martin McGrath. We went to a small island near Stockholm to shoot this. We had an amazing time and made something.
Clare is known for the brilliant subjects she chooses to work with, relationships that have resulted in stunning projects such as Love from Alice, an intimate photo story on Alice Goddard which used Swedish locations sourced from found or received postcards, and her excellent series on female drummers. The people she snaps also confound stereotypes: girls sometimes look tough, and boys gentle - and everyone’s snapped in soft, non-judgemental black and white or pared-down blocks of colour. It all makes for compelling, unfussy work. Holly caught up with Clare to find out more…

Clare Shilland : Warpaint, Beat 1st issue cover, September 2010. Brilliant art direction by Dean Langley.
I scouted around and found a freshly-painted white hoarding in a back street near the venue. I took the four girls there, the sun came out, and we took the best pictures ever. They were just dressed in their tracksuit pants and it was super natural and fun and free - I did 10 pages and a cover in about an hour. Serendipity.
The last one I did is also a favourite - Skinny Girl Diet, also a cover that came out a couple of months ago. Those girls are so cool it’s hard to take a bad picture of them!

We shot the whole thing in a day, on every different format and camera (35m, polaroid, 120m, Flip) but Dean made it look like we spent weeks shooting it. It’s really special. We were lucky to have a client that gave us the opportunity to do that.
Supreme are fun to work with. I went to Miami with them earlier this year and hung out with teenage skateboarders. What’s not to love?
I work a lot with my friend Sofia's label Aries. I love the clothes and it’s nice to watch it grow. We have a similar aesthetic and like the same kind of girls - it’s always really creative.

Clare Shilland : Spread from the Marni book FW 13/14. With Michele Rafferty and Dean Langley

Clare Shilland : Damaris. From a new project being published in September 2015 with Hanna Kelifa and Suzy Wood.