North East Corporate and Marketing Photographer | Middlesbrough Football Club, Teesside

Last month one of my jobs was to take photographs for a corporate brochure for Middlesbrough Football Club, at its Riverside Stadium.

The photographs will be used on the website and for a new brochure and marketing material to promote Middlesbrough  club’s range of hospitality and match sponsorship packages, which form the perfect facilities for meetings, weddings and events on Teesside.

I am no stranger to Boro, in my work as North East and Yorkshire commercial and sports photographer I spent several years at the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette in 1997 and regularly covered premier league footballers such as Fabrizio Ravanelli, Paul Gascoigne and Marco Branca. 

Those days I was part of the press pack at Wembley shooting the League Cup finals, and photographed the team’s triumph when they won the Carling Cup in 2004, and I was at the 2006 European Cup Finals in 2006 in Eindhoven, when they were sadly beaten by Spanish side Sevilla. I was very often the only photographer covering the event for the local paper – great days!

As I arrived for the match against Nottingham Forest the sun was about to set and I just had time to get some pictures of the iconic metal Boro gates (top picture) framed against the sky.

My job was to circulate unobtrusively among the guests with my camera, photographing people as they were arriving and enjoying a drink and a bite to eat before the match.

Corporate brochure photography for a business like Middlesbrough Football Club is essentially about showing people having a relaxing time and enjoying the facilities, and fits well with my preferred informal, reportage style that allows the photos to tell the story.

I made for the executive boxes overlooking the pitch, which are a great place to conduct business, reward staff and entertain family and friends, giving people their very own piece of the Riverside ground through glass-fronted viewing areas so they don’t miss any of the action.

The Ayresome is the most exclusive matchday facility available at the Riverside Stadium, overlooking the famous old gates and offering guests the chance to enjoy champagne and canapés, a complimentary bar and exclusive invitations to join club officials to view the match in the prestigious Directors Box.

Familiar with the building’s layout, I moved around taking pictures as I went, and the deep red of the club’s corporate colour on the reception area’s walls made a sharp backdrop against which to photograph some of the busy corporate hospitality team in their smart uniforms.

As usual I was working mostly without flash so I didn’t get in the way of or distract people. As well as photographs of people enjoying themselves and watching the match I added in a few photos of props such as close ups of table settings, to extend the range of shots and give the client as wide a choice as possible when using the pictures in print and online.

As an adopted Teessider living in Stockton, I just had to get a few shots of the statues of Boro and England legends Wilf Mannion and George Hardwick, which stand near the entrance and remind fans of the club’s illustrious history.

I returned to my Stockton studio armed with a set of pictures that used my photographic skill and imagination to tell the story of the club’s great facilities, and the audiences they are aimed at.