Ah, the jet-set lifestyle…

Being the top-end commercial and corporate photographer that I am, you can imagine all the pampering I get.

My clients delight in sending me chauffeur-driven cars to take me to the heliport so I can be flown in style and at the greatest possible speed to my next assignment. The girls on-board the flight spoon feed me the finest caviar while massaging my temples so that I arrive relaxed and ready for anything.

If only…

Of course the reality is much more down-to-earth, but you know I wouldn’t enjoy knowing that my mode of transport was powered by liquidized baby Pandas while the inflight meal was the result of nine-year-old girls squeezing eggs out of fish for a penny a day (and that’s the middle-management wage for the fish-squeezing industry).

So I pootle along to my assignments in my trusty, and actually rather economical, diesel Ford Focus. Another Panda gets to live, a fish gets to lay its eggs where fish eggs should be laid, and the circle of life remains largely un-interrupted by my activities (until I hit a pheasant on a B road, which is always a bit distressing).

I’m the kind of person who is pathologically early to assignments. I’m either ten minutes early (rare) or, more commonly, an hour early. Well, it gives me time to find the last parking space in the universe and work out the mathematics of 20p for every 12 minutes at the parking meter, discover I need a small mortgage and a hundred weight in £1 coins to park the car long enough to cover the hour that I’m early, plus the 4 hours I need to do my job, at which point I discover the maximum stay is 3 hours with no return allowed before the next equinox at which point my head explodes and I start to daydream of helicopters, caviar and temple lobe massages.

chicken's arse

I’ve photographed some weird things, including a chicken’s bum for thechickenvet.co.uk

All this stress is more than made up for though by the joy of making pictures and pleasing my clients (aw). And even if most of my work seems routine when described in terms of portraits, people at work, processes and the like, believe me nothing is ever routine. It may not all be glamour and excitement, but receiving an enthusiastic response to my photos makes it all worth while. And sometimes I get to do some really fun stuff too. I get to see things not many people see. Some of which I would tell you about, but it’s top secret and it would take me too long to kill you all.

So next time you want to lavish me with helicopters or First Class travel, save your fish eggs, dancing girls and gift boxed Rolex. A parking space will do nicely.

I’ll be away next week, but will return refreshed and ready to blog again.

Take care, each and every one of you…

Two for the Price of One!

self portrait of tim gander

Your leader is speaking; please be seated.

Hello my lovely, loyal readers.

This is just a quick update to bring you the thrilling news that not only can you read my semi-cogent ramblings here, but also now at the Warehouse Express blog site. The articles I submit there will not be featured on my main blog, though I’m sure I’ll find an excuse to link them from here, so if you want to keep up with my every utterance, you’ll just have to bookmark the Warehouse Express blog page. Click here for the first exclusive article I’ve posted there just for you…

And that is all. Move along now, there’s nothing else to see here.

Tim

Shouting from the Gallery

I’ve recently introduced a new system for presenting and delivering images to clients. I haven’t shouted about it to everyone yet because I felt it needed to be tested with some trusted clients first, but it’s proving so popular that I’m offering it to anyone I think can benefit from it.

Here’s how it works, but a little history first:

female corporate portrait

The system is great for keeping any commercial images organised.

It used to be I’d shoot an assignment, then make a web gallery from the images before any post production was carried out on them. The client would choose images from the gallery, send me the image reference numbers, and I would carry out post production and send the photos via CD, email or FTP.

The client would either have an agreed number of images included in the price, or would pay an hourly post production fee according to how many images they needed.

This was all well and good, except that most clients would end up choosing 30 images from a 30-image deal (for example) when they only needed maybe 12 images to start with. The rest they were picking just to make up the package, when they didn’t necessarily know how they might use those photos.

Now with the client-specific, interactive gallery, I do the shoot, edit the pictures, do post production on all remaining shots and upload them to the client gallery, from where the client can download the files they need, when they need them. The files are all ready to be published when the client sees them, and they don’t need to download the entire package of photos in one go. The gallery remains for as long as the client requires it, and indeed the client can have me add to the gallery with subsequent shoots.

This development has also allowed me to put together a more formal pricing structure for all those assignments which don’t have special, extra requirements in either equipment, travel or licence to use the images. In other words, standard corporate shoots.

You can download the rates card here Tim Gander Fees to see how it works. I put together three packages to suit different business sizes, types and picture needs, from an all-in option for the busy client with a need for quick access to lots of images over a period of time, to the startup that might just want to have a bank of images sitting safely there for them to buy as and when they need them, thus managing their cashflow better.

Of course there will be times when clients need more extensive rights to the images than my standard terms allow for, and there will be clients with a much lesser requirement, or shoots will be more or less complicated or expensive to run, in which case rates will be negotiated according to the assignment and the client’s needs, but this system will suit the majority of standard, corporate assignments.

I welcome feedback on this, so have a look and tell me what you think.

Tim Gander is a commercial photographer shooting corporate photos for businesses in the Bath, Bristol, Swindon and Salisbury areas of the South West of England, and has a habit of talking about himself in the third person.

Contact Tim on  07703 124412 or tim@timgander.co.uk