Redcar Press and Editorial Photographer: Christmas Events and Festivals

Photographing the happy atmosphere of Christmas celebrations, usually in near-dark conditions, which really tests your skills and experience, and I was lucky enough to be asked to be the only North East commercial photographer to be commissioned to shoot a trio of North East Christmas light ceremonies and parades this year.

Stockton Sparkles Launch

My first job was the Stockton Sparkles launch on 28^th November, with thousands gathered in the town centre. Attractions ranged from a nativity scene and firework display to carol singing children, entertaining the crowns. Stockton-born musician Mike McGrother coordinated the 1500 kids wearing flashing Xylobands, and the carol singing children drawn from schools across Teesside.  

At one point I was on stage and felt like a rock star as I encouraged the audience to wave their armbands. My childhood ambition was to be a drummer and I had a surreal moment standing up there, thinking ‘What on earth am I doing?’

Stockton Sparkles had a real festival feel, marking the first night of late night shopping in Wellington Square and the Castlegate Centre, the Press photographs were for the local papers the Darlington Northern Echo and the Middlesbrough Gazette. It was what I call a ‘live shoot’, where my photos have to be edited and sent back to the client or to local media titles within a few hours or even minutes! I got some great front page pictures of the large crowd, using a fish eye lens on my Canon camera, which can cope with near darkness and was well worth the investment.

A couple of days later saw me photographing Redcar’s Christmas light switch on at the Beacon, it stands above the town, to mark the completion of the £30m seafront regeneration programme.

Redcar Light Swich On

The town centre stage was the heart of the celebrations and drew a big crowd, keen to see Santa and experience a fabulous snow machine that delighted children and adults alike. I moved through the crowd taking photos of people being entertained by singers from the Topline Youth Choir and One Voice Choir, as the Christmas parade made its way from the blue clock to the main town clock, before the lights were switched on by Councillor Brian Briggs.

 

Middlesbrough Fire and Ice Procession

The third of my seasonal jobs involved photographing Middlesbrough’s Fire and Ice procession. This was a fantastic spectacle, with around 5000 people gathered in the streets and in Centre Square. The Coca Cola truck proved a popular attraction, while with ice queens, Jack Frost, ice dragons and fire birds keeping everyone entertained.  

Santa and his Cairngorm reindeer parade provided the ‘aah’ factor, while an ice rink and coloured fountains in central Middlesbrough created challenging light conditions for this commercial photographer.

Capturing the spirit of events like these with clear photos taken in very low light takes every bit of my years of experience as a north east press and commercial photographer,  and as well as a top of the range camera I use techniques such as bouncing the flash off the ground to light up the crowd’s faces.

I love photographing Christmas events, they are an important way of bringing the community together as well as creating tourism revenue, and as well as making the news this year, many of the photos I took will be used to publicise next December’s events through print publications, advertising and social media.  

I was proud to have been asked to photograph the three big Christmas events & festivals across Teesside, and to help to get the festivities off to a great start for local people. 

...Merry Christmas!!!

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Direct Website Link to Dave Charnley Photography

North East and Yorkshire Commercial Photographer: Wide Variety of Photography Commissions

As a North East PR and commercial photographer covering Teesside, Tyne & Wear, Durham, Yorkshire and Northumberland I’m lucky to be given a massively wide variety of photography jobs.   

I thought I’d run through a few recent jobs, to show the depth and breadth of my work for PR and marketing agencies, photography agencies and freelancers, plus private and public sector clients. This year I’ve seen increasing amounts of work coming from London, Manchester, Aberdeen and Edinburgh PR and marketing agencies, which means my website is reaching potential clients outside the North East, which is great.  

River Rat Race, Stockton: This is the third year Stockton Borough Council has asked me to document the race, which is best described as a wet assault course, and includes some running, splashing, walking the plank and kayaking around a 10k stretch of the River Tees. It’s a job that means  working at a fast pace, moving the 10k course that takes in the Infinity Bridge, the Victoria Bridge, the Newport Bridge and the Barrage Bridge alongside the entrants so I can capture the spirit of the event and come away with hundreds of photographs of people enjoying the day.

Industrial shoot:  A PR consultant who specialises in the industrial sector booked me for a commercial photography shoot in Peterlee, at a business that manufactures metal tubes. Having taken my studio kit I was able to get close to some welding action and get some high quality shots of various processes. There is a lot of beauty to be found in industrial settings, from surface textures to different shades of grey in what at first glance does not look very visually appealing – spotting the opportunity is the trick to successful commercial photography.

Whitby Esk Energy Project, Ruswarp:  my client is a large UK supermarket chain with a top reputation for corporate social responsibility, and I was booked to take photos of the 50kW Archimedes screw hydroelectric power turbine on the River Esk at Ruswarp, nr Whitby in North Yorkshire. The event was an open afternoon held as part of September’s Community Energy Fortnight, and drew around 60 people, all keen to make the most of the opportunity to get a close look at the machinery and tour the turbine site. The subsequent press pictures went out to media including the Leeds Yorkshire Post, Whitby Gazette, Middlesbrough Gazette and Northern Echo in Darlington.

Borough Green Farm, Great Ayton, North Yorkshire: the farm has been shortlisted for a prestigious award, to celebrate its approach to using the latest milking and feeding technology to reduce costs and increase productivity. The job meant being suited up to go into the milking parlour, which instantly took me back to my days as a press photographer in Middlesbrough. The photos of the farm and the Fullwood Merlin robots that milk the 110-strong herd will go up on a big screen on awards night, so the quality had to be pin-sharp.

Newcastle PDSA PetAid Hospital: I was asked to go in and take some photographs of the injuries to a group of cats, which made a national news story, and the photos are also being used on social media and in the PDSA’s fundraising literature and web activity.

Butterwick Hospice in Stockton: I’m a regular visitor to the hospice, which serves the surrounding community and is an amazing, inspirational place. I went along to photograph the opening of the refurbished garden, which has been transformed by The Garden Centre and Greenfingers, a charity dedicated to creating gardens in children’s hospices, into a tranquil spot for residents, staff and visitors to enjoy time. The renovated garden has a new water feature, vegetable beds and new softer, sensory planting plus a ground level trampoline to play on. The renovation was a real community effort, and I was pleased to see the photos in local North East press and online.

Teesside University, Middlesbrough:  This was a shoot for the new brochure and magazine, showcasing the university’s facilities and the wide range of courses available. Today’s universities have to operate on commercial lines, attracting UK and overseas students and maintaining high standards of service, so good quality images that inspire new and existing students are essential.

Great North Run, Newcastle upon Tyne: My client was the British Heart Foundation, and the Great North Run is a regular fixture in my calendar. In some years I’ve done the run at the same time as taking photos, but this year it was photos only. It’s always a pleasure to work at this event, the atmosphere is fantastic and everyone is out to have a good time and support each other. It makes for some great photographs of people laughing, puffing and sometimes running through the pain to raise money for good causes. 

Sorry I couldn't resist a shot of Super Mo

I hope that’s given you a small glimpse into life behind the lens as a North East PR, Editorial and commercial photographer. It’s a job I love and I’m lucky enough to work with a diverse range of clients on some really interesting projects – long may it continue. 

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Direct Website Link to Dave Charnley Photography

Press and PR photography coverage of Diversity Ashley Banjo in Stockton on Tees.

Thousands of people turned out in July to help Britain’s Got Talent winner Ashley Banjo and Diversity dance group get Stockton dancing.

Part of the Sky 1 series Ashley Banjo: the Town That Danced Again, the day drew huge crowds on to Stockton High Street next to the Town Hall, where specially constructed stage platforms had been set up for the professional dancers.

Ashley Banjo is an English street dancer, choreographer and actor, and the programme was all about celebrating Stockton’s dance heritage and reinvigorate the whole town by bringing together everyone from shop assistants and librarians, to care workers and teachers to get them dancing in the streets.

The day was building up to be the hottest of the summer when I arrived an hour before the start of the event. I know the open air space well so I had already visualised where the best photography vantage points would be. This was a big event for the region and as well as the Sky 1 team there were a few other professional photographers from Sunderland to Harrogate there and of course nearly everyone in the audience had their camera phones out.

I knew I would be carrying my kit all day so took my monopod and a handful of lenses including a mega wide angle. The crowd was packed so the monopod and camera set on 2 sec timer were particularly useful in getting shots above the heads and with some good views of the various stages. 

As this live event was also being filmed, several of the dance routines were done in segments and repeated until the director was satisfied. It was interesting to see the clock in Stockton’s Town centre being stopped and rewound for continuity several times!

I was kept busy darting about documenting not just the dancing but the street party atmosphere of the day too. Everyone was in party mood, including my daughter and her friends who had gone along. Moving through the crowd I swapped out my lenses to do some fly on the wall photos and get some close ups of the dancers as they encouraged the crowd to join in, choreographed by Ashley Banjo himself. Some of the youngest ones were particularly good, and showed no sign of nerves at all the cameras going off as they performed.

At one point the kind people manning the Vodafone stand let me take some shots from their stand overlooking the sea of people, which was a fantastic vantage point to see everything that was going on.

 It was a brilliant day that generating some amazing pictures, and Ashley’s tweet from @AshleyBanjo summed up its success in a nutshell:  ‘What a day...What a night....Amazing times with amazing people. Stockton we love you and we will miss you #TTTD #20DV’.

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Direct Website Link to Dave Charnley Photography