A big thank you to Digital Leaders for asking me back to photograph their highly successful Impact Awards, now in its 6th year. The event took place at Ministry Venues in Elephant and Castle.
The whole team at Digital Leaders were incredibly helpful for both me the photographer, and the venue itself. The professionalism and experience is immediately obvious when working with these guys.
Here are a few screenshots from their website, so you can see an example of how they were used.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES
Of all the interesting challenges of working in such an atmospheric venue, one that I was not expecting was during the award ceremony itself. The stage had great lighting, and I had been given the opportunity to test my flash and settings before the event took place (this is a rare treat). However, the test-run and the actual show was quite different as the atmospheric haze (a theatre/club trick used to make light beams more visually appealing) was much stronger on the night. It took me a few clicks of the first winner to realise that my flash was actually bouncing off of the haze and causing the images to look misty! So, counterintuitively, I had to quickly switch off the flash and increase my camera exposure to get a clearer image. I must admit that my photographer’s brain had to run at 100% capacity to work out that turning off the flash would produce a cleaner image. Thankfully I was quick enough that nobody realised my tiny crisis, and everybody got nice clear shots of them receiving their awards.
Thanks again to the team at Digital Leaders, particularly Ellie who was the first to struggle with the branded banner with me before others got involved! We got there in the end! Hope to see you all again soon!
It was a pleasure to photograph for reSHAPE at The Royal Society of Arts in London, which was a joint venture between Aspect, The British Academy, ARC and Aspect Angels. My point of contact was freelance events manager Sarah Umar, as well as Sean Farran (Head of Communications at Aspect).
BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS FOR A CORPORATE EVENT? GREAT IDEA!
I was asked to shoot in black and white for this event. I think this is a fantastic idea as it really helps logos and corporate colours to stand out on the page. It’s also rather interesting to see black and white photography for a corporate event in 2022, so the imagery feels quietly confident next to the competition. I have included some red and pink bars to show you how reSHAPE’s colours stand out against the monochrome.
WHAT DOES reSHAPE MEAN?
SHAPE (Social Sciences Humanities & the Arts for People and the Economy). The talks, fireside chats and lightning pitches all fell under this umbrella. You can find a much better explanation on Aspect’s newsfeed!
DID THEY LIKE THE PHOTOS?
Yes they loved them - so much so that I was asked to work on another project before the event had even finished.
It was a pleasure to photograph Terrapinn’s business to business event about identity at the ExCel Centre. I had only just photographed Google Cloud’s stand via Audience at ExCel a few days before so it was nice to photograph Excel again so soon. And thanks to the Elizabeth line/Custom House I can get there in 30 minutes instead of an hour. Thanks Queen!
Terrapinn were great to work with. Marketing manager Abby Cairns made sure I was fully briefed before sending me off to find the winning moments across the sprawling set of booths and talks (both on stage and more informally in the main arena). They needed a fast image turnaround on the same day of selected images. Both Abby and marketing director James were very complimentary indeed about the initial set of images!
FAST IMAGE TURNAROUND YOU SAY?
Yes indeed. I have speedy, portable and colour accurate equipment for on-site delivery of selected photographs, which I can tweak and edit before sending to you via email, WeTransfer or hard drive/memory stick. Terrapinn needed just a few images on the day of people reacting and looking happy, as well as some on-stage shots. They received around 12 images on the day and their simple reaction was “These are amazing! Thanks so much”. So that helped me get through the rest of the day with a spring in my shutter button.
Also a big thank you to photographer Jennifer Moyes who I was covering for this particular event due to unforeseen circumstances (she’s fine). Jennifer is a seasoned professional photographer working in a reportage style.
Thank you to Digi Leaders for asking me back to photograph The Digital Leaders 100 Awards Ceremony 2022, at Aqua Shard (near London Bridge).
THE VENUE
Aqua Shard is a fantastic space to hire for a corporate event. Guests can enjoy the views, and staff at the venue are very well set up to work with these kinds of events. I’ve worked at The Shard a lot as an event photographer, and have experienced only positive things from the staff there. The canapés and bowl food have always looked (and when I get a chance, tasted) great. I have also photographed Hutong for a private banking firm, which was really quite special.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES
The Shard is beautiful of course, but from a photographer’s point of view there are plenty of complexities when shooting there. In the daytime, the glass walls are super bright compared to the light on the people indoors. To work around this, it’s good to use considerate angles and have a fairly deep knowledge of the camera’s dynamic range and post processing capabilities to get the most out of the venue. Also, there is nowhere to bounce flash in the main area where people tend to network, which means that if I’m using flash (which is rare but it does happen at The Shard), it needs to point directly at whatever I’m photographing. I use some extra techniques to make sure this kind of flash does not appear too harsh in the photos, or shock the guests by being too powerful.
DID THEY LIKE THE PHOTOS?
Yes they did! They received a few images on the same night as requested (before I even left the venue), and the rest the next day.
Thanks again Digi Leaders!
Thanks so much to Audience for having me back, this time to photograph for a Virgin Media PR activation (ie a live event designed to grab attention in public for promotional purposes). The activation centred around the appearance of DJ Luck and MC Neat (witta little bitta luck we can make it troo tha night).
This was a multi-sensory experience set in Kings Cross. You can read more about it through The Drum.
