Stockton Freelance Photographer | Fire Engine and Vintage Vehicle Show in Eaglescliffe

In my 30 years as a professional press and commercial photographer working across the North East, Scotland and Teesside I’m used to taking photos under tricky circumstances, so I wasn’t fazed by this job which seen me 106 feet up in the air on an arial platform so I could get a bird’s eye view of the Fire Engine and Vintage Vehicle Show held at Preston Park Museum and Grounds in Eaglescliffe.

Thousands of people turned up to this annual event organised by Stockton Borough Council, where visitors could see fire fighting vehicles from bygone days to modern streamlined appliances, plus bikes, commercial and passenger vehicles, agricultural and military exhibits from the 1930s to the present day.

For family fun and great pictures, the main arena’s programme of events and activities couldn’t be beaten, particularly when monster trucks “Big Pete” and “Grim Reaper” rumbled into the ring to crush a line-up of old vehicles, and I got some high-impact shots from high in the sky.

From up there I could also use my fish eye lens to photograph the long line up of historic and modern day fire appliances, which from high in the sky stretched into the distance like a red ribbon.

Coming back down to earth for the display given by the bike riders from the Bolddog Lings motorcycle stunt team, as seen on Britain’s Got Talent, was a good move – their thrills and spills had spectators on their feet in amazement and I was able to get some great close up pictures of the action. 

Lots of the exhibits were like stepping back in time and you could see the work that had gone into maintaining them. One particular charming couple dressed to kill in their lovingly restored vintage car seemed very pleased to have their photos taken with their beloved vehicle.

With the large amount of shiny chrome and polished paintwork about, I was able to use reflections to bounce off photos of people admiring the hundreds of vintage motorbikes and cars and taking the obligatory selfies against them. 

It was a fun-filled day and although we didn’t get any brilliant sunshine, I was actually very happy with the soft light that the cloudy conditions presented. Too much sharp sunlight can often be a nuisance – check out the number of photos on your phone or camera where people are squinting against the sunlight – so a more milky light can often produce a better effect.  

It was hot all the same though, and I was mighty glad to get out of the harness and get my feet back on the ground!

Preston Park’s £7m restoration was looking beautiful, and I was pleased to have been able to document such a great day out for all the family. 

Football PR Photographer | Ex Middlesbrough Manager Steve McLaren Opens New Centre

One of my latest North East sports photography jobs was to cover the opening of the Cleveland Juniors Football Club’s new £418,000 clubhouse at Mill Hill playing fields in Acklam.

Opened by former Middlesbrough boss and ex-England manager Steve McLaren, who lives on Teesside, the new building was a big hit with everyone. Players had formerly been using an old shipping container as their changing facilities so this amazing building with a series of changing rooms, showers and office facilities was quite a contrast. 

The commission came about after a well-established commercial photographer in London found my website at www.davecharnleyphotography.com liked my work and after some discussions about the brief, then booked me for a commercial photography shoot at Acklam in Middlesbrough. My job was to take a series of photos of the building and grounds, plus some of the young players in action on the pitches, the family sports and activities on offer, and of course to cover the official ceremony.

A pretty big crowd had gathered for the event and out on the playing fields the young players were pleased to have the chance to show off their best moves in front of the camera, with their smart red and white strips adding to the energy of the shots. The same bright colour theme continued inside the building too, with lime green flooring throughout the building standing out against the cream and red walls.

On the pitch I had to work quickly to capture the action in the cage football area, where four players played a fast and furious game. It was good to see so many girls playing – the club has nine girls’ teams and two soccability teams and they play well, quite rightly expecting the same opportunities  as the boys.  

Also covered by the Darlington-based Northern Echo and the Middlesbrough Gazette, the ceremony saw Chairman Michelle Rush and other VIPS say a few words as I moved around unobtrusively with my camera taking pictures of the speakers and the crowd, before Steve McLaren cut the ribbon and declared the centre open.

I was delighted to be trusted to record this event in pictures for a club that really is embedded in the community and has a history of encouraging young talent, with a long list of young players who have gone on to play professionally.

After I had dropped off Julie from RWE at the Middlesbrough railway station (all part of the service) I reflected on Michelle Rush’s words when she said: “This is a community club with a strong ethos of offering free football and quality coaching to local people. There are no fences or boundaries - the club is for the whole community.”

It is so important to encourage young people into sport, and the enthusiasm and commitment I saw around me as I worked convince me that Cleveland Juniors FC’s new clubhouse will quickly become a firm favourite with young people from all over the borough.

North Yorkshire Commercial Photography | How to book a freelance photographer

My years of experience as a commercial and press photographer in North East England and Yorkshire comes in useful when I’m working with clients who are not familiar with booking and briefing a photographer. I often get asked the same questions so I’ve put together a few points that should help you draw up a briefing sheet for a successful photo shoot.

Date, time and location should be the starting point, plus contact details on the day in case of any problems. If it’s an event, detail the names and titles of any VIPs, and the running order so the photographer knows where he needs to be at what point.

Remember to think about whether he needs a security pass, or protective clothing. I’m used to taking commercial photographs at many of North East and Yorkshire’s chemical and pharmaceutical plants, factories and production environments so I always take my own protective gear with me, just to be on the safe side.

Uses: think about where you want to use the images. Your primary purpose might be to get some press photography for newspapers, magazines and in newsletters, but you may also need them for large format print such as banners, in bus shelters or on the side of vehicles, and on your website where landscape format and the ability to place text over the image will make life easier for your designer. All of these uses might need a different approach but an experienced commercial and PR photographer will guide you on that.

Style: your photos might need to fit with your existing corporate style. Give your photographer as much guidance as you can on what style you are looking for, for instance is the feel you want to achieve fun and funky, or serious and corporate - Coca Cola style or IBM?  I’m not suggesting you ask your photographer to copy anyone’s work, but giving them a flavour and feel of what excites you is useful. If you find that hard to put into words why not create a mood board on Pinterest. I’ve turned up on jobs in the past to find the client still establishing what style they want, and that can be a waste of everyone’s time and the client’s money.

Liability: check your professional photographer has the right public liability and professional indemnity in place. See my earlier news story (link), about the importance of having the right cover. Consent forms are something else to consider. It depends on the type of shoot but it is always wise to make sure you have people’s consent, for instance particularly on shoots involving locations such as care homes, schools, etc. 

Delivery:  I usually deliver the photos between one and three days after the shoot, unless the client has specified an urgent press or print deadline, which I’m happy to meet. A shoot with up to 200 shots can take quite a while to process properly and I like to take the utmost care at this stage. Tell your photographer what format you want your pictures in. Large format print work might call for large TIF files, but for most uses a high-resolution image of around 4MB will be fine. I use three platforms to send the results to clients - Dropbox, Hightail and We Transfer . Or I can deliver via email or drop the images onto a memory stick or disc if that’s what the client prefers

Invoicing: Make sure your brief details who should be invoiced (include post and email contact details), and whether your photographer needs an order number.

A little planning at the outset will help your photographer get the best possible results from the photoshoot. And when my clients are happy, so am I.

North East and Yorkshire Sport Photographer | Redcar Triathlon Event

This is the second year in a row that I’ve been asked to photograph the Redcar Sprint Triathlon in NorthYorkshire. I’m an experienced sports and events photographer used to working at venues like Gateshead Stadium,Middlesbrough football ground and the official BHF commercial photographer in Newcastle’s Great North Run, so I’m very familiar with being in several places at once, in order to capture all the action.

Organised by Trihard Events in partnership with Redcar and Cleveland Council, the Redcar Sprint Triathlon is a swimming, cycling and running race, with entrants taking on a 750m swim followed by a 20km cycle race and 5k run.

This gruelling event takes place on Redcar Esplanade and sees entrants dive into the sea next to the Dundas slipway, then run back to the transition point, collect their bikes and cycle along The Seafront between Zetland roundabout and Majuba Road, doing six laps. They then ditch the bikes and run a 5k lap along the seafront heading for Marske, turning just after Green Lane and then racing back to the finish line.

Fortunately the triathlon transition area and the seafront made a great area for a panoramic view of the action, and in some spots I was able to take pictures of runners and cyclists from one vantage point, as they passed each other.  

The Middlesbrough Gazette estimated that 200 people gathered for the event, and I guessed that around 170 were actually taking part. They were of all capabilities and ages from about 20 to late 50s too, not just elite athletes. It was great to see people challenge themselves, setting their own personal best and pushing themselves as hard as they could.

With the Redcar Beacon and the Palace Hub forming a colourful backdrop to some of the shots, the sun shone and the blue sky was contrast to the black wetsuits and lime green swimming caps distributed by the organisers. One of the joys of sports and event photography over the North East is all the contrasting colours people wear, whatever type of sport they are doing, that adds to the impact of the pictures.

Because I knew people would be spread out over the course and particularly for the shots of the swimmers, I had taken my latest piece of kit the 1.4x convertor along fixed to the Canon 70 -200mm F2.8 IS, which proved very useful. In total I had two camera bodies and a set of lenses in my lightweight bag, to give me a great choice at the edit stage. 

The whole event is done at speed and is over and done with in just over an hour so I had to work quickly to get all the pictures I wanted. The local press hailed the event a great success, and I was pleased to have captured the spirit of the occasion, and the efforts of the contestants.

Tees Valley Commercial Photography in Hartlepool, Darlington, Stockton, Middlesbrough & Redcar

A recent commercial photography job saw me photographing across all of the Tees Valley, for my client Local Enterprise Partnership Tees Valley Unlimited. 

Tees Valley Unlimited works to deliver jobs and economic growth across the Tees Valley, an area of 304 square miles, which is located between North Yorkshire and County Durham, stretching from the mouth of the River Tees through to Darlington.

This was a wide-ranging photography project that needed a lot of planning to structure a large number of shoots in different locations, and each with a different focus. I spent hours putting together a comprehensive plan to detail not just the type of commercial photos I would take, but how I would carry out this complex project, and I believe this was one of the factors in my winning the work.

My first job was to sit down with the LEP team to talk about the Tees Valley commercial photography project, and what they wanted to achieve from it. This was a useful stage - getting to know the client and their objectives is the most important part of a job and happens long before I pick up a camera.

My brief covered key areas across Tees Valley and nine specific topics ranging from photographing wind turbines in the North Sea and trains to people and places, all designed to promote Tees Valley as a great place to work, live and do business.

I also needed to factor in both landscape and portrait shots, plus some with the space for designers to overlay text if needed. The images will be used across the LEP’s new website, its marketing literature and could feature on large format outdoor spaces such as buses and billboards or used as canvas prints in meeting rooms, so the photo library had to be extremely versatile.  

Wide ranging projects like this that include a lot of outdoor photographs are governed by changeable weather, and I did a lot of early mornings and late nights.  At one point I photographed Middlesbough from Eston Nab in the dark and I can tell you I’ve never come down a hill so quickly.

The pace was fast and I remember one Sunday shoot that started at 4am and finished at 4pm and as I rounded off the day by taking photos of people enjoying themselves on Seaburn beach I was pretty much exhausted.

Every day was different and I covered a 100's of miles. I might start off with an early morning photography shot at Hartlepool, then move on to photograph apprentices at a chemical plant at Wilton in Billingham before calling at Darlington Railway Station to photograph business people getting on and off trains, and finish by photographing aircraftshots at Durham Tees Valley airport near Darlington.

One of my favourite leisure shots from this job was one of a mature chap simply standing looking at the beautiful Saltburn coastline. A perfect lifestyle shot, this reminded me what a little gem the Tees Valley is, and I realised I was not alone in thinking this when I tweeted from my Twitter account @charnleyphoto  that ‘Teesside is not full of smog’ and it got 34 retweets.

I love being a North East photographer. We are blessed in this region with beautiful coastline and countryside, presenting a fantastic commercial photography chance to showcase Teesside towns such as Darlington, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool and Redcar, plus traditional villages like Norton, Yarm, BIllingham and Eaglescliffe.

It’s an incredibly beautiful part of the world, I’ve lived here for 18 years and I still keep on discovering areas I’ve never seen. The great thing about being a professional photographer is being able to help people see familiar sights with a fresh eye, and I hope my work has achieved that aim for Tees Valley Unlimited.