Graduation Time!

If I’ve been a little quiet the last couple of weeks it’s because of sheer pressure of work; it’s hard to take photos and blog at the same time, but I wanted to give you a quick post to let you know I’m still alive and clicking (see what I did there?)

This week has been a busy one for me as I’ve been helping out with the University of Bath’s coverage of their Summer (haha) Graduations. In between other work, my task has been to capture celebratory images to show the joy and fun as students receive their certificates in Bath Abbey.

Within minutes of the end of a ceremony I’ve been dashing off to a quiet corner to edit, caption and deliver the images so the press office could get them up on Facebook and twitter. Apart from some torrential rain, it’s all been pretty smooth.

I leave you with a selection of photos taken over the last three days.

Paws for Thought

Sourcing photos for a local charity fundraiser is the kind of thing which all too easily falls into the “an iPhone snap will do” category, but when you’re aiming to gain PR exposure across a range of publications, there’s no point wasting good public relations effort with poor imagery.

That’s also the view of Jennie Wood of Avalanche PR, so I was delighted when she came to me for this particular project.

On Friday June 10th 2016, the fifth annual Kennel Break Challenge will be hosted at the Bath Cats and Dogs Home and Jennie was tasked with getting the word out to local business people encouraging them to get involved.

The idea is that participants get locked in a kennel with nothing but a laptop and mobile phone, which they use to raise pledges from their contacts. Once they reach £1,000 in donations they get released, ideally in under an hour, but up to a maximum of three.

For the press release photo session at Bath Cats and Dogs Home, ambassador for the home and former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies MBE, came to the Claverton Down centre so we could get a series of photos of her in kennels with rescue dogs.

Jennie and I arrived ahead of schedule so we could work out the best angles and options for the photos. I also wanted to ensure we had a choice of larger and smaller dogs to work with, so I liaised with senior fundraiser at the home Zena Jones who checked which dogs would be suitable.

Sharron arrived promptly and after introductions, and a few moments discussing what I was after in terms of photos, we got on with the task in hand.

In true April style the weather was a mixture of sunshine and heavy showers and bitingly cold, so I had to work fairly fast to ensure Sharron didn’t leave with hyperthermia. Even so, within half an hour we’d generated a selection of upright and landscape-oriented photos, with and without dogs and with a choice of large and smaller dogs (which created a choice of tighter and looser compositions). Job done!

This week’s gallery includes one of the cutest photos I’ve taken in a long time as well as some of the cuttings showing how the photos got used in both local and national publications, helping to raise the profile of this great cause.

Contextual Portraits

One thing I love about being a photographer is the chance to meet a wide variety of people, all with different backgrounds, interests and personalities.

As a prime example, this week started with a delightful encounter with local ceramicist Jane Gibson who runs a gallery in Bradford on Avon. Jane needed images of her work to send to art galleries and for her website update.

With a simple backdrop and lighting set-up I was able to create lovely fresh images of Jane’s quirky work, but when I’d finished photographing the pieces I also felt a portrait of Jane would be useful for the promotion of her art. Thankfully she didn’t need too much persuading.

Although Jane’s specialism is ceramics, she also offers a selection of her paintings and I wanted to suggest this in the background of the picture without it overwhelming the photo or being too distracting. I think Jane looks beautiful in the soft window light of her studio with subtle hints of her work behind her.

I particularly enjoy taking portraits with context, and this is a good example of what I mean. A contextual portrait is a great way to broadcast not only what you look like, but also what you do or where and how you work. This can really engage the viewer and hold their attention in a way a headshot against a plain background won’t always achieve.

Most of next week I’ll be working exclusively on contextual and action portraits, which I hope to share with you soon. It’s going to be challenging, but huge fun.