McCann approached us about a shoot for Just Eat. They were looking for someone to shoot their UEFA European Football Championship campaign. Having worked with McCaan on other campaigns, they knew we love to bring out the best in every subject, making them look like a hero, whether they’re street cast models or footballing legends like Fernando Torres or Eric Cantona, as in this campaign. One problem – this was spring 2021, the tailend of lockdown, and international travel was tricky.

We photographed Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk and the Just Eat delivery driver in the UK but for the shoots abroad, we had to come up with a way of replicating our trademark style at a distance. We wrote a guide for hand picked local photographers, with precise instructions for everything from camera angles to lighting layouts and we even did one shoot remotely using Zoom to direct German footballer Lukas Podolski on set in Turkey – before retouching all the images ourselves for consistency.

Although it all went remarkably smoothly, we have been happy to get back to shooting in person. For us, a friendly, respectful atmosphere on set, a spirit of creative collaboration, and an authentic rapport with the subject is what photography is all about.