Tuesday 10 April 2012

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I can't believe that this is my first commercial photography blog since mid-November!  December to February is usually a fairly quiet time for photographers and it is a time that I normally use to update  my website and to generally catch-up.  It was not the case this year as I have been rushed off my feet!  So much so, that I haven't had time to blog.  It has been the busiest December to March that I have had in 16 years of being a freelance photographer.  


I have had so many photography jobs in the last few months that it is impossible to blog about them all, so here are three that I have chosen to highlight:


I was recently commissioned to do some commercial photography for a national glass company.  My brief was to photograph the processing, handling and delivery of the glass in an imaginative way, to be used in their new brochure.  I was impressed by the way that they handled the huge sheets of very heavy but fragile glass - especially when they flipped each sheet down onto a cushion of air to go into a computerised cutter.  This job was quite tricky as with so much glass around, I had to be very careful not to get my own reflection in the photos or to get flare from the reflection of my lights.  The glass did, however, provide some excellent opportunities to photograph the staff with their own reflections.













Another technically challenging but highly interesting job was to photograph a laser cutting factory in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.  The company cuts anything from thick steel to moulded plastics with such high-precision and with great speed.  It is amazing to watch, but very difficult to photograph as the laser-cutting is all carried out behind safety glass or perpex, and the factory had very patchy, but mainly dark ambient lighting, so it was quite a tricky job.  They also do precision welding, which again, was behind glass, so this certainly was a job for the inexperienced!  Even the conventional welding shots are tricky as I couldn't look through the camera viewfinder at the welding, otherwise I would damage my eyesight.  I then went back for another day at the same factory for some product photography to photograph their finished products against a studio background.









Another interesting job was to photograph TV chef Richard Fox giving a cookery demonstration to some pupils at a school in Newark.  Richard is a real character and he kept the children entertained as well as giving them some useful cookery tips.  




I have also been working on a massive corporate video project, but that will be the subject of my next blog post, so I better not say any more - said too much already!


N.B. This blog covers just the PR, commercial, corporate editorial, architectural and aerial photography and videography side of my business.  Please see my Reportage Wedding Photography Blog for up-to-date news about the wedding and portrait side of my business.