Corporate Fun Day for Apollo Fire in Havant/Southampton
It was a pleasure to photograph for Apollo Fire in Havant for their outdoors team building/fun day.
It took place at Stansted House in Havant, which is between Portsmouth and Chichester in Hampshire. I’m London based and it’s so easy to hop on the train (at no extra cost to my client), with the bonus of having time on the train home to edit some of the images.
Megan and the team did a fantastic job organising this event of 450 staff. People were clearly having a great time and making new connections. Zing Events put on some great entertainment for the team building exercises; Purbeck and Caravanilla vans were serving really great ice cream; local company Hayling Hog Roast put on some amazing looking meaty foods including crowd pleasing burgers and (of course) a hog roast; Queenie’s and Mochatado were serving great hot/cold drinks - the iced lattes were extremely popular; Crepe Britain were serving crepes; great plant-based catering from Jo’s Kitchen… as you can see, there was a lot happening!
There were lots of activities for the staff to take part in, where they were divided into teams. What I found striking was how everybody was included - even those who were initially not so sure ended up having a great time. For those who were either a bit wobbly on their feet or simply not up to partaking in the physical games, there was a wide range of things to keep everyone entertained, including great food and drinks.
THE BRIEF
The brief itself was simple: photograph people enjoying themselves during the day, and capture a couple of awards and speeches taking place at given times. Oh, and a 450 person group shot! My own aim on top of this, as I do like to be organised to give optimal value/coverage, was to try wherever feasible to capture every activity (10 in total across a couple of large fields), all the food and drink stalls looking busy (another 10 or so), and hopefully capture nice pictures of everyone in attendance in a candid way during activities or at leisure (450 people in total). So I burned a lot of calories that day, and took full advantage of the hydration station. Thankfully, I’m quite used to running around for hours at a time, as most of my work does involve constantly moving. Even during more static events such as panel discussions and presentations, I am invariably on my feet, slowly inching around in ”stealth mode” and constantly optimising my view for the next shot, so I get plenty of exercise in this career!
PHOTOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES
The activities were fairly intense, and to make the most of them I was constantly moving around at high speed while they were on. However there were also many opportunities for me to sit calmly and take photos from a seated position, which I often do to get nice candid shots - nobody suspects the photographer to be sniping them with the camera if he’s sitting in a deckchair with camera in lap!
I do like to appear casual while actually being on high alert - I believe it helps me to blend into the environment and people pay less attention to me. This is why I usually wear non-descript but smart black clothing from head to toe (but not on this day - I was in jeans and a linen shirt so I could look presentable but not overly corporate in this setting). Sometimes, I’ll multi-task by raising my camera to a scene that I believe will develop into a great shot (for example a few people chatting who might suddenly start laughing in the next 30 seconds). I’ll then look around for other moments while keeping my camera on the first scene. I’m well practised in this, and will often work out the zoom and exposure requirements in “scene 2” by eye, meaning I can effectively shoot two scenes at once with a little foot swivel while changing my camera settings back and forth.
Thanks again Apollo, and congratulations on such a great day!