Commercial Photography > Case Studies
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Client: Austin Neves furniture
The brief: to photograph hand made pieces of furniture, for portfolio and advertising purposes.
My interpretation; The work of this craftsman is out of this world, and demanded a setting that would benefit the quality of the workmanship. We set up a studio in a nearby country house for some of the pieces and placed them in a “lifestyle” setting. Other items were shot on simple backcloths
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Client; Food Trail Holidays
The brief; To shoot at a number of locations for a new website and brochure.
The client will be offering holidays visiting local food producers in Derbyshire.
My interpretation; We visited a number of local food producers and manufacturers in the area that would be used for the holidays.
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Client: Doncaster museum
The Brief: to photography a number of artefacts for a website, advertising and postcards.
My interpretation; this was a very enjoyable brief and very educational. It was fascinating to handle and learn about the individual artefacts some of which were thousands of years old. It was incredible to see the details on the roman coins and to learn how the fashions changed
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Client: Eve magazine,
"Face of Eve campaign"
The brief: to tour the country from Glasgow to Kent photographing women over the age of 30, size 12 - 16 and over 5'8" in height. These were everyday people who had never modelled. The campaign was run by Eve magazine and the prize was a catwalk show at London fashion week, a photoshoot and a front cover image on the magazine.
My interpretation: The team consisted of a road crew who set up every day before we arrived, two beauticians and a team of promotions girls who spent all of each day finding suitable models from the streets around us. I was also assisted by someone from Nikon each day who helped with the printing of the images. (Being sponsored by Nikon cameras I had to use a D2X and D2H for the week).
I had to take two images of each model and these shots were attached to an entry form and forwarded for judging along with images sent in by the public.
Because the public could also send in their own images my shots had to be "snaps" rather than Studio style portraits. We worked very fast with a permanent queue.
Even reflectors were abandoned. I could only use two lights, set up at the start of the day and there was no time or opportunity to be "creative" in any way. The tall girls unfortunately had a sticker on their images advertising the magazine. It was impossible to avoid it in the cramped space we had to shoot.
It was a great experience although exhausting and I was glad to get home for a hot meal. I only had time for one lunch during the entire week and "dinner" consisted of a portion of chips or similar on the motorway services en route to the next location after a hard days work. By the time we all had driven up to 200 miles to the hotel we were too exhausted to eat anything.
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Client: Firefighters games, Sheffield
The World Firefighters Games is held every two years and is a fundraising event for charity. It is bigger than the Commonwealth Games and is held for Firemen, their partners and ex firemen from all over the world.
I was fortunate to be one of about 30 photographers who spent eight days photographing every sport you can possibly think of, from Dragon Boat Racing, to Arm Wrestling, Darts, Swimming, Athletics and even Bucket brigade races.
We worked hard and generally joined in the fun of the event.
It was the most enjoyable shoot I think I have ever undertaken and although I could not attend the 2006 games in Hong Kong, I have every intention of taking part in the 2008 games.
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Client: Cookery book - A taste of Country Markets.
The brief: To shoot a selection of foods for use in a cookery book.
My interpretation: This location shoot was to supply a series of images of dishes as they came out of the oven. The cookery book is for cooks who supply food to Country Markets and each image had a "country" feel to it.
The style was traditional with good depth of field as opposed to selective focusing which has become popular in recent years.
A thoroughly enjoyable shoot its just a shame the dog ate the cakes they sent us home with before we had a chance to sample them!
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Client: Country Markets, Food to Go campaign
The brief: To shoot a variety of images of cakes and preserves for their Christmas / winter promotion and leaflet.
My interpretation: A studio based shoot working on images for use on the internet and in leaflets.
It was also necessary to supply some images leaving space for text.
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Client: Holiday Cottages Group
The Brief: To photograph interiors and exteriors of properties advertising with Country holidays, English Country Cottages and Welcome Holidays.
My interpretation: Some clients specified which angle they wanted their property shooting from but the majority left it to me. Some enjoyed being part of the shoot and making suggestions whilst others weren't on site at all.
The images were for use in the 2007 catalogues and website.
A very enjoyable shoot and a good opportunity to see some wonderful properties.
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Client: Castlehill Farmhouse,
The Brief: I was contacted by the owner of a bed and Breakfast who felt that the images on her site could be improved.
My interpretation: The walls in the house were very crooked and the rooms quite small, so we spent time dressing the rooms to make them look larger and creating a "lifestyle" for the potential guest. The previous images on the website were taken with such a wide angle lens that the room looked drunk and very distorted. My brief was to correct this.
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Client: Bloody Peak
The Brief: This shoot was for one of a series of books being published in the Peak District to encourage visitors to enjoy the area more. Each book focuses on a specific subject and the Bloody Peak is all about places that are haunted, have an interesting history to them or where murders were committed many years ago.
My interpretation: A very enjoyable few weeks were spent visiting many locations I hadn't previously visited. Waiting for the best light and atmosphere was often the hardest part especially in a location with a spooky past. Only once did my assistant refuse to get out of the car at a particularly creepy mine, and at one location I was followed by a ball of what can only be described as white fog. It appeared just as I had set up the camera and hovered about six foot in the air the entire time I was shooting. It came out clearly on my images but looked so unreal that those images weren't used. I don't scare easily but that particular spot un-nerved me considerably....
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Client: Caramba Marketing
The Brief: To shoot images of staff for marketing purposes inside a chemist shop.
My interpretation: Although I had taken all necessary lighting with me, when I arrived at the shop there was a continuous stream of customers passing through, so it was not safe to start erecting lights and tripods. Instead we had to resort to on camera flash.
The shop is about to be refurbished and the company required images of the staff and pharmacists to show customers that nothing had really changed. I took ¾ length shots of the staff and slightly closer images of the two pharmacists.
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Client: Vanilla Kitchen
The brief: To take images of the newly opened café and adjoining holiday cottage for web use and publicity purposes.
My interpretation: I set out to photograph the café on opening day as requested, but it was so busy that I returned at a quieter time in order to obtain images that would create the impression they required. A contemporary café with traditional values required a variety of approaches for the images.
The adjoining holiday cottage was small but beautifully presented so I aimed to recreate the atmosphere and unique features in my images.
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