North East School, College & University Photographer : Brochure, Prospectus, Awards & Press Photography

 

The old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ always springs to mind when I’m photographing North East schools, colleges and universities. 

In my 25 years’ experience of commercial, portrait and wedding photography I’ve successfully turned my lens to a wide range of subjects, but I particularly enjoy working in the education sector. It’s a chance to create pictures that reflect the spirit of a place and give people a natural, uncontrived glimpse of life there.

As a parent I know that people want to see that the school or college is a safe, supportive learning environment and somewhere that children and young adults can flourish academically and develop their confidence. And what better way to do that than to use images to show, rather than tell them? A website or printed prospectus is often their first impression, so the images used in printed marketing materials or online have to make the place stand out from its competitors and encourage parents and potential students to visit.

As an former - newspaper photographer working across the North East, my patch was 40 square miles and as well as covering Teesside I've photographed schools in Durham, Gateshead and Newcastle - in fact I’ve probably covered nearly every school from the Tees Valley across to Bishop Auckland.

I don’t get my camera out until everyone is relaxed.  I try to make every subject feel important and to treat everyone sensitively whether they are small children or teenagers, while also dealing with the different challenges every environment presents.

My style is to keep the pictures real and vibrant, and a world away from fluffy, American-style campus or crazy leaping around shots. The lighting, the lens you use, the angle you shoot at – it all makes a big difference to the finished result and I find that a little bit of staging mixed with some natural reportage pictures always deliver the best results. 

Clever design needs good images, so I’m always thinking about how I can vary the shots to give designers a good range to choose from when they are creating the layout. This means including a mix of portrait and landscape orientation, varying the colours and even adding some shots with pale backgrounds so text can be laid over them.

All the pictures are high resolution so they can be used in print material such as prospectus and newsletters, as well as online or in large format, for instance on open day posters and display boards. While I have a portable studio that I sometimes take along, I usually keep my kit simple and find that two camera bodies, a remote flash trigger and a couple of lenses is all I need to produce great photos.

The many images in this blog are taken from just a few of the schools I’ve worked with, including Pallister Park Primary School in Middlesbrough, Parkside School in Durham, Thornaby Community School, Stockton on Tees and Errington Primary School on Marske.

Earlier this year I blogged about London publisher St James’s House, which asked me to take a series of photographs for the learning and education section of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Souvenir Album 2012. This was a big job and saw me working at some innovative sites such as the Excelsior Academy in Denton to the West of Newcastle, Durham Trinity School and Sports College, and Elmore School near Pittington, County Durham.

The result was a set of colourful, lively lifestyle photographs showing north east pupils studying and taking part in activities such as dance, drama, music and sport, all of which gave a flavour of school life in and out of the classrooms.   

 

As well as taking prospectus photographs I’m often asked in to cover news stories such as donations, new buildings, sports days, pupil achievements, royal visits and awards ceremonies. All of them benefit from a good photo to help sell the story to newspapers and magazines. My picture of Dragons’ Den Duncan Bannatyne from Darlington receiving his honorary degree at the University of Teesside was used by several national publications.

I’m genuinely enjoy my work in the education sector, and I’m pleased to be using my professional skills and experience in support of our North East schools and the learning and development of all our young people.

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Direct Website Link to Dave Charnley Photography

Stockton on Tees Magazine, Commercial and Event Photographer | Canon 5D Mark III Test Shoot

  

The launch of the new Canon 5D Mark III camera earlier this year, with its eye-watering price tag of £3000, caused a stir in the world of professional photography.

I prefer to minimise my use of flash as it can often spoil a very natural moments, so when Canon promised this new version would deliver high quality performance in very low light, I was interested.This feature alone makes it ideal for jobs such as a winter portrait photography, photographing a reportage wedding last dance, or an evening conference event where key speakers have no lights on the stage area. 

It’s a bit investment so I thought it over for quite a while before bringing it home.

I have no commercial links with Canon so I’m being totally honest when I say that having spent 27 years as a North East commercial, wedding and press photographer working on all kinds of photography commissions and in places from Dumfries & Galloway, North Yorkshire down to Teesside, I genuinely feel that this takes the game to another level. 

I decided to give my new Canon body its first outing at Stockton on Tees Council’s Prometheus Awakes. This was the launch event for the Stockton International Riverside Festival 2012 (SIRF), and an outdoor spectacle led and performed by disabled people, featuring gigantic puppets and bringing together dance, theatre, circus and sports.

I like to work with the minimum of equipment, but still get the best results, so I took along the 5D mark III camera body, a very fast Canon 50mm F1.2 (fav lens) and the Canon 135mm F2 telephoto lens. Stockton town centre was packed with people and lit by street lamps, fire sources and vivid professional lighting set ups, which all presented the perfect testing conditions.

The hundreds of adults and children on Stockton’s High Street were transfixed by the 8-metre tall figure of Prometheus, as it walked down the street, defying the gods by creating light and humanity, and I was able to move through the crowd, working quickly to try out the settings and photograph the audience and the performers.

  

Lucky no rain was present in the air at this event, but if it had the camera has improved weather sealing. This will pay off when I’m photographing north east winter weddings or covering outdoor sports events such as the Stockton River Rat Race.

In older cameras like the Canon 5D, Canon 50D and older 1D's the pixels in the shots broke up, but I was pleased to see the Canon 5D Mark III lived up to its promise – check out the picture of the child in his father’s arms – the detail in his eyes is pin-sharp as he gazes past me.

Even in extremely low light the camera picked up the tiniest details, such as the sparks coming off the flames of the flare, as well as faithfully reproducing colours. The image quality was fantastic, and means the shots can be used for press work or blown up for posters, billboards and other large formats.  

The Canon’s fast focussing ability showed itself in some shots of children blowing bubbles in the dark. When I’m working on wedding photography commisions across the North East speed is essential for capturing relaxed, natural wedding moments of the bride & groom - a split second can make all the difference.

People often ask me what camera I use, and how many pixels it shoots at. For the record, this one shoots at 22 million pixels, but while that’s important to a degree, a good photograph takes the right combination of lens, sensor, pixels and the photographer!  The lens is particularly important, there is no point investing in a top quality camera and teaming it with a poor quality lens.

 

My camera kit list includes three professional camera bodies, plus a range of  lenses from a 15mm  fisheye to powerful 400mm suitable for photographic jobs ranging from pictures of commercial wind turbines half a mile out in the north sea, to detailed close ups. I’m fairly fit – all the running round photographing sports events sees to that – but I don’t want to heave around big bags of kit. It would interfere with the relaxed atmosphere I like to create, so people forget about the camera and I can get the natural, reportage photos that are my trademark style.

To sum up, the Canon 5D Mark III camera is an incredible piece of kit, and I haven't  even look at yet! using the Canon camera’s full HD video capabilities, which is something I’m going to explore in my own work.

When I first used a digital camera (Nikon D1) back in 2000 it was a revolution in professional photography. Even today’s mobiles have more camera power than that one, and the Canon is the next logical step – who knows where technology will take us next? 

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Direct Website Link to Dave Charnley Photography

North East Event & Press Photographer: Stockton on Tees River Rat Race

This is the third year (collection of images above) I’ve been asked to photograph the River Rat Race in Stockton on Tees, which this year saw a record entry of 1,000 people signing up to take part.Organised by Rat Race Urban Adventure events in partnership with Stockton Borough Council, the event is best described as a kind of wet assault course, and includes some running, splashing, walking the plank and kayaking around a stretch of the River Tees.

Based at Stockton’s Riverside Park and this year’s course included a white water course at the Tees Barrage International White Water Centre, where I was asked to photograph the official launch by HM The Queen earlier this year – you can read all about it in my blog here.

Stockton Borough Council asked me to photograph the River Rat Race, which is now a firm fixture in the calendar. Despite its name and the fact that entrants wear electronic timing tags, people can go as fast or as slow as they like on this crazy fun day. No special skills are needed, all that’s required is some sturdy footwear, a spirit of enthusiasm and no problem with getting wet and muddy.

The 10km course takes in several bridges over the river Tees, including the Infinity Bridge, the Victoria Bridge, the Newport Bridge and the Barrage Bridge. Entrants can get to grips with walking the plank at the replica of Captain Cook’s ship HM Bark Endeavour, do some kayaking, climb up and down the Newport Bridge, go rafting across the canal, get through two assault courses and take part in a lock gate swim.

An 11am start saw the first of four waves of runners setting off, with me alongside them – it’s a good job I’m training for this year’s Great North Run to raise money for The Autism Society and I’m reasonably fit. At least when I do the run I won’t be carrying a stone and a half of very expensive photography equipment!

Having photographed this and other River Tees events in previous years I knew where the best vantage points were, and had planned out a route in advance to make sure I could get up and down the course fast enough, and get a good range of shots of people at every activity point, plus the stretches in between.

Sports event photography is just part of what I do as a North East-based press, commercial and wedding photographer covering Teesside, Tyne & Wear, County Durham and Northumberland, and the key to success is always to get some movement into the shot.  The weather was on my side this year, with the sun beating down from a blue sky and bouncing the clear light off the water to give me some great close up and telephoto or wide angle photos that can be used on the web or in newspapers,magazines or brochures to publicise strong photography next year’s Stockton on Tees event. 

As I worked my way round taking natural action shots of people enjoying themselves getting wet and muddy, I really felt part of the atmosphere, running alongside people as I photographed them and seeing how people at all levels of fitness spurred each other on. Colourful kayaks and other water equipment, plus lots of runners in River Rat Race branded t-shirts added some colour into the photos – at least they did before they got wet and muddy.

Some of the entrants slowed down to a walk on various stretches to give themselves a breather, and we had some laughs together as they spotted me with my camera and immediately broke into a trot so they wouldn’t be photographed slacking!

Having worked at a fast pace for several hours I came away with hundreds of photographs of people enjoying the day on and off the water, and of course lots of tired but happy faces as they held up their medals at the finish point.

This was a superbly well-run event, and I take my hat off to the organisers, and to the people who turned up to test their fitness, have a laugh and raise some money for good causes.

Here’s to next year!

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Direct Website Link to Dave Charnley Photography