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. 

Facebook Black and White Photography Challenge | Solway to Saltburn

As a north east professional photographer I like to keep my work fresh and I belong to many groups and forums to keep up to date and challenge myself. A York-based press photographer Mike Tipping recently challenged me to join in a Facebook five-day black and white challenge. The idea was to post a black and white photo every day for five days, and nominate other photographers to do the same.

I used a mix of photos I had on file and new ones. It was great fun to take part in and a good reminder of how powerful black and white photos can be. When you remove colour, you’re distilling images down to shape, form and contrast to tell the story and it was interesting to see such a wide variation of shots and what other photographers had done.

Day 1 – this was a photo I took in Portling, on the Solway coast during the worst snow in Scotland for 30 years.  I love the moody feel and the way the rock face is silhouetted against the sky, and how the black and white format really makes the dripping icicles stand out. 

Day 2 – I spotted a huge flock of Starlings feeding in a field between Marske and Recar, and when they flew off I jumped in my car and followed them until they landed at The Stray, a 2-mile long strip of grassland bordering the beach at Redcar. Shot against the light, you can see the amazing detail on the birds’ feathers, which I thought made up a visually very pleasing shot.

Day 3 – for my third day I chose a photo of a chap jumping in the air on Saltburn Pier. He is comedian Victoria Wood’s brother and a very colourful character who was in the town that day to promote the region, and was easy to work with. His straw bowler and pinstripes gave him a great ‘going yachting’ look, and the shot of him with his arms outstretched and mirroring the shape of the pier meant that several photos from this shoot appeared in the Middlesbrough Gazette. 

Day 4 – this was taken at the Stockton Light and Sound Festival in Thornaby, next to the University campus. I used a remote flash to photograph the performer using the firesticks, which also perfectly framed the couple snatching a kiss behind him. Black and white made for a very atmospheric feel to this night shoot.

Day 5 was one of my favourite shots, a picture taken in Preston Park showing Britains Got Talent motorbike and rider flying through the air. Shooting upwards gave me a plain white background and a perfect contrast between the rider and his disconnected bike. The two were reunited at ground level without any injuries, you will be pleased to hear.

I found the five-day black and white challenge very useful, and in turn I challenged my cousin Kevin Henderson in Scotland, Stu Bolton and Tom Banks from the Darlington-based Northern Echo, and Katie Lynn from the Middlesbrough Gazette. All of them produced some impressive shots, and contributed to a great challenge for professional photographers.

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North Yorkshire Commercial and PR Photographer | Behind the Scenes Providing Top Quality Service

As a North East commercial and PR photographer people often ask me what goes on in the design studio, Stockton on Tees. Over 25 years as a professional photographer I specialise in commercial, editorial and PR photography I can tell you it’s added up to thousands of hours of work checking and refining images one by one. I can sometimes do nine jobs in one weekend, and that’s a lot of editing when you consider one hour’s photoshoot can sometimes equate to 2+ hours in the studio.

I’ve invested thousands in top of the range cameras, lights and video equipment - that paired with my fast 27' iMac and professional editing software so I have the best tools for the job.  I use Dropbox or Hightail for image sharing, coupled with a super-fast 50G broadband service, all backed up onto 3 terrabyte hard drives (x2 backup folders)

Editing photographs can be highly technical and I like to keep my skills updated, so each year I set aside some days in January/ February as my training and update months. That might also cover customer service training, business advice, technical training or an update on issues such as copyright and intellectual property – there is always something new to learn and I apply that same approach to my photography, to keep my work fresh.

In the studio I might carry out 20 editing commands on one image alone. I never batch process for example, which basically means dropping a set of images into one folder and telling the iMac to ‘sort the colour’, it’s just not my style as a professional photographer. Every one of my images are hand finished and assessed for quality.

When it comes to what and how to edit, a good commercial and PR photographer will be respectful of personal things such as birthmarks. It’s important not to tidy the personality away, although if a self-conscious subject with teenage acne asks me to smooth away their skin tone a little I would probably oblige! Seriously though, if I’m on a shoot such as the one I did recently photographing several Subway branches across Northumberland,Tyne & Wear and County Durham, I’ll edit out things like a stray piece of litter blowing around the street because my client wants crisp, clear shots that promote the brand and can be used in brochures, advertising and online and nothing can be allowed to spoil that.

Fashion photoshoots and food photography are just two sectors where retouching is demanded or at least positively encouraged in order to show the product off in the best possible light. The fashion shoot I did for a Teesside marketing agency needing a series of unique, high impact fashion photos to promote Middlesbrough Fashion Week’s ‘Fashion Rules’ events took many hours of painstaking editing back at my Stockton studio.

Many amateur photographers buy themselves a copy of Lightroom and let the plug-in software do the work for them, but there are many pitfalls for the unwary. Blowing out the whites in a shot such as a wintry snow picture is a common mistake made by people without experience and training. Once a shot has been over-exposed you can’t restore it so the picture is spoiled. 

It’s also possible to over brighten or add crazy saturated colours which is my pet hate. This might be just what you want if you are trying to create an artwork based on photography, but it’s not acceptable in areas such as corporate portraits or reportage photography where the colour and the image must be true as possible. The trick is knowing which detail to retain and which to ditch, and that all depends on the client and the assignment.

There’s no doubt that editing is a time consuming job but it’s part and parcel of being a professional photographer. I pride myself in turning jobs around quickly, but I’ve heard of people who take 10 days to deliver a simple 1 hour job.  That’s unacceptable in my book, particularly for commercial and PR shoots when images are often needed the same day for the north east press. 

Going too far by cloning and retouching is banned by most of the big media owners and publishers, who need their news photography to be completely authentic. Readers trust them to deliver honest images, and I know of no titles that would compromise the faith readers place in them for the trust and accuracy of their photography.  

Global newswire Associated Press recently fired Pullitzer prize winning freelance photojournalist Narciso Contreras for removing a rival photographer’s video camera (pictured above) from a Syria war image.  Narciso accepted he had done wrong but maintained he was doing his duty as a professional photographer by removing an item that could have distracted the reader but AP maintained that the cloning violated its ethical standards and cut its ties with the photographer, removing all his previous images from its database.

It goes to show that even in this weary world, there are still areas where when it comes to photography, editing  is not always required, and standards of truth and honesty apply.

REFOCUS in Stockton on Tees, Cleveland | Freelance and Editorial Photography Coverage

As a North East freelance editorial photographer I am blessed with beautiful locations and landmarks, so it was a pleasure to be asked to photograph a stunning artwork created to celebrate Stockton and the surrounding area.

Arripare is a large scale photographic work styled around a mythical island, which shows an alternative version of some of our region’s best loved landmarks. Unveiled late last year, Arripare was the centrepiece for the launch of REFOCUS, the new biennial Castlegate mima Photography Prize.

Keen eyed visitors will spot many of Teesside’s best known sights in the 38-metre wide piece, which sits on the outside of Stockton’s Castlegate Shopping Centre. Renowned international artist Gayle Chong Kwan created Arripare by focussing on Stockton on Tees photographic landmarks and scenes taken from around the region, including Stockton, Thornaby, Norton, Yarm, Seal Sands, Billingham and Ingleby Barwick. 

She then used a combination of documentary photography, collage and sculptural construction around Stockton to create this amazing piece of work that is constructed to encourage the viewer to see the island as either sitting in the clouds or out to sea. I made several visits to Arripare, to make sure I covered all the angles and in a range of light conditions. Close up, it is full of vivid colours, with extra tiny details becoming apparent at every 

viewing.

It’s an amazing piece of work from any angle, and I photographed it from the Millennium Bridge,Riverside Road and the River Tees. Using my monopod allowed me to shoot it from low and high angles, some of which would have been inaccessible without the monopod.

The resulting set of photos are being used on large format display boards, in marketing literature and press articles and on a range of online sites.

I also covered the official launch in October, which was held at Joe Rigatonis behind Castlegate Shopping Centre, and saw a number of speakers praise Arripare and welcome the effect it will have on tourism.

The launch was a packed event, drawing Journalists, video journalists and photographers from the Middlesbrough Gazette, the Darlington Northern Echo, TFM radio and other media, all as keen as me to get the best shots. I was pleased to be the only North East editorial photographer allowed to go out on a river boat on the River Tees with Gayle and a video news cameraman, and we got some unique shots.

If you get the chance do go along and view the piece and see how many local sights you recognise - it is well worth the trip and really cements Stockton’s position as a thriving arts scene.