Evolution Rebrand | North East Commercial, Portrait and Editorial Photography

I was delighted to be asked to take commercial photographs around Hartlepool, Gateshead, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and surrounding areas for accountancy firm Evolution LLP recently.

As well as being a photography partner to many marketing and PR agencies, I also work directly for clients and this commission came via Evolution’s marketing partner. A brand refresh meant some new advertising photography over the north east and involved a lot of careful planning and several meetings to establish the look and feel that would work best.

As well as using customers to tell Evolution’s story, we opted to go with a technique known as de-saturating the colour, to give a stylised, almost black and white look. This fitted well with the colour palette used by the web designers and lines up with the company’s new brand identity and push to promote its dynamic accountancy practice.

Being involved with the planning process for a photoshoot is really useful, it means I can get to grips with what the client is looking for, and suggest some appropriate approaches. 

Several meetings with Evolution staff and its marketing and web experts led to a schedule of commercial photography at six client locations including Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Gateshead, Brotton and Skelton.

Each location involved taking photographs of Evolution’s client in their natural habitat and included shots on a factory floor, at a creative agency and even a rally school. I gave the client several variations of shot at each venue, to make sure the photos would be suitable for a range of print and online uses. 

The clients are all highly successful business people and I went for strong, engaging shots with subtle backgrounds - what I call ‘hero’ shots. Having my mobile studio equipment with me meant I could dismiss the use of flash in favour of using all the natural light available and making the shots gritty and ‘real’.

As well as the portrait shots I was asked to cover the rebrand launch event for 150 invited guests. The event had been booked at Crathorne Hall in North Yorkshire but a huge fire there the night before saw a last-minute switch to photograph the event Wynyard Hall in County Durham and the event organisers did a great job of swapping venues without a hitch. 

As I moved round the room photographing key speakers and guests I was pleased to see how well my shots had worked on pop up banners and in large screen format as the audience were treated to Evolution’s new brand film. 

I was very happy to have been entrusted with producing the imagery to sum up Evolution’s fresh, engaging and contemporary new look, and I wish the firm and its clients all the very best for the future.

Gadget Show Jason Bradbury launched Tees Valley 'Get Your Head into Digital' Event

The Tees Valley ‘Get your head into digital’ campaign scheme aimed to boost digital skills in North East businesses, and when award winning Cool Blue Brand Communications wanted a North East PR and commercial photographer to cover the launch events in Middlesbrough and Darlington, they booked me to do this job.

The morning event saw me do a two-hour photo shoot at the Thistle Hotel in Middlesbrough, before covering the second event at Teesside University campus in Darlington. Channel 5’s Gadget Show presenter Jason Bradbury was a guest speaker at both events, where the audiences had gathered to hear more about the free digital skills workshops that are being held for businesses in Stockton, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Darlington and Redcar and Cleveland.

Jason was a great speaker, demystifying digital and informative about how using digital tools will help businesses grow and be more effective. He was joined on the speakers panel by Bob Coff, Managing Director of the Middlesbrough Gazette, a good speaker and very down to earth; and Michael Ryding, Director of DigitalCity, who spoke about the economic benefits to businesses of all sizes and sectors. 

To fit with the theme and get some freshness and originality into the photos I asked Jason to take a selfie with his iPad and then turn the screen towards me, so I could get a shot of him behind the screen and match up the images. I was really pleased with the results, which Jason declared to be ‘awesome’ and he even liked my tweet about it, which was subsequently retweeted over 600 times.

I used the same technique to photograph members of the audience, and I was pleased to see the photographs used across North East newspapers and online media.

A couple of weeks before the events I had also been out to take some case study photos of local employer Terry Goldspink of freight and international shipping company Evolution Forwarding, which is on track to achieve a £1m turnover, with 90% of its business coming from the internet.

It was my pleasure to cover the launch of a scheme that could benefit thousands of businesses in the region. To find out more about the scheme visit www.headintodigital.com and see how your business could benefit from adopting digital tools.