Professional commercial, portrait photographer West Yorkshire, covering Wakefield, Barnsley, Huddersfield, Pontefract

Commercial photography shoot for Redrow: Andrew Stewart MP

August 25, 2017

Another commercial photography shoot for Redrow Homes, this time to capture some press and PR images of Andrew Stewart MP on his visit to the Redrow site at Horsforth Vale. Following an introduction describing Redrow’s approach to house building and overview of the site layout, the group headed out on a tour of the site. As well as being shown the various stages of the development, the Conservative MP was introduced to some of the apprentices on the site. Redrow take apprenticeships very seriously and are proud of their record of winning various awards for their apprenticeship programme. I was briefed to follow the tour and take some candid shots of the MP along with a few more formal staged shots. Here is a sample of the images I captured as we dashed round the site, I took a Profoto B1 in 40cm octa along for the ride to use in the more staged shots of the meeting with the apprentices.

Wakefield commercial photographer Andrew Stewart MP

by John

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Wakefield commercial photographer: Redrow Homes Apprentice of the Year Awards

August 18, 2017

Another commercial photography shoot for Redrow, this time to create some press and PR images of the awards presenttation to the employee of the year and the trade apprentice of the year. I met up with regional director, James Pyner and head of apprenticeships, Gary Woodhouse at the Redrow offices in Wakefield where the awards were to be given. Officially, the awards had all been presented at the company annual dinner a short while ago, so today was just for the camera. Firstly, MD james presented Lisa Kelly with the award for employee of the year and then Gary Woodhouse prsented the apprentice of the year award to Thomas Trigg and a certificate to runner up Lewis Moorhouse. The decor at Redrow House is rather plain anf unctional, typical of a modern office and so backdrops were limited. all I could do was to shoot the images in the reception with a Redrow poster in the background. Lighting was simple with just two Nikon speedlights, a 40cm octa and a home-made cardboard snoot.

by John

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Cecile & Alessandro’s wedding at The Pavilion, York

August 14, 2017

Today I caught up with Cecile and Alessandro for their wedding at The Pavilion, York. The ceremony itself was at the York Registry Office and then we had planned on heading to the York Museum gardens for part of the photoshoot before heading back to The Pavilion for drinks, canapes and more photographs. However, like all great plans, it didn’t happen quite the way I had envisaged as major roadworks by Northern Gas Networks, just past The Pavilion and before the A64 junction, caused a traffic jam that gridlocked the whole of York city centre at 4pm on a Monday afternoon and it took exactly 1hr to do the 2.2miles from Marygate to The Pavilion!

We began the day at Cecile’s house in York for the bridal prep shots before heading over to the registry office to meet up with Alessandro and the rest of the wedding guests. It was only a small wedding with around 29 guests making the journey over from France and Italy, but it was a lovely friendly, family gathering and three different languages didn’t seem to present too much of a problem. The weather had been set to be cloudy all day with maybe a shower mid-morning, but on the way to York, it was pretty grim and we had drizzle for most of the early part of the day. However, as we apporached the time to leave Cecile’s, the weather broke and we had a lovely sunny day right through to dusk. After the ceremony, we headed into the museum gardens for the family and friends photographs and while the guests picnicked on home made canapes and Prosecco, we began the photography. As the guests left and headed to The Pavilion, we took Cecile and Alessandro down to the river for a few shots, but not before doing some lovely images around St Olaf’s gateway into the gardens.

By the time we hit The Pavilion, things were running very late and so there wasn’t a great deal of time to do any more images as the wedding breakfast was ready to be served. In true Italian tradition, the meal was taken at a leisurely pace so, straight after dessert, it was into the bride’s dance with her father followed by a super Europop dance routine from the bride and groom. There’s lots of images to go through, below is just a sample from the day so that the friends and family who couldn’t make the journey can see what we got up to and how beautiful the bride looked :¬)

York wedding photographer at the Pavilion

Wakefield wedding photographer at The Pavilion

Wakefield wedding photographer in York museum gardens

by John

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Wakefield commercial photographer: Morley Wicketfest

August 12, 2017

Today’s job as a Wakefield commercial photographer took me to the Redrow Homes Weaver’s Close site at Morley where I was given a brief to shoot some PR images for the upcoming Wicketfest organised by Morley Cricket Club and sponsored by Redrow. We did the bulk of the shoot outside the show homes on the estate and used a couple of the guys from Morley CC as well as Redrow sales representive Angela to represent the compnay. The proceeds from the summer festival are all going towards Martin House Children’s Hospice at Boston Spa, a charity that Redrow supports often. In terms of the brief, I was to shoot outside the homes with subtle or no branding, for media purposes, as well as full on branding for Redrow internal promotions. Although it was a bright, sunny day, I used the Profoto B1s to overpower the sun for the majority of the images. This is a technique I like to use to get a dramatic, studio effect to the shots.

Wakefield commercial photographer: Morley Wicketfest

by John

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Yorkshire event Photographer: Geoff Boycott’s fund raising event

August 10, 2017

Working as a Yorkshire event photographer means I have to be able to adapt and accept last minute bookngs and today was one of those occasions. Pivot PR contacted me at around 3pm to see if I could attend a Yorkshire Air Ambulance fund raising event at Geoff Boycott’s house over at Boston Spa at 5.30pm! So, with just an hour or so to prepare and also rearrange another job I had scheduled later that evening, I readied the camera gear. I doubled the pressure on myself by going to shoot the event with my new Nikon D5 DSLR which I had just taken delivery of the previous day and had not fired it in anger as yet. I’ve used the Nikon D3 and D4 cameras for many years and to be fair, the D5 is pretty much identical on the outside but with different internals; a higher megapixel sensor, faster AF and greater ISO range all mean the camera has differnt nuances to my trusty D4 which I’ve recently had stolen!

I turned up at the house before the rich and the great were due to arrive for the event so that I could scoutr the venue and work out where I would be creating the images. The champagne reception was due to take place on the small kitchen terrace and patio and, with the rest of the garden taken up by a huge marquee, I knew things would be tight. I managed to set up a Profot B1 in a 70cm Octa thinking I might create some formal portraits but, in the end, things were so cramped and nusy, I just ended up taking shots on the run as it were. I did manage to get Julian Norton, Channel 5s Yorkshire Vet to pose for a portrait and I liked the set-up I had envisaged. It was a shame I didn;t manage to get a few of the other famous faces into the same location but really, the brief was just to capture the guests enjoying the event in a way that would appeal to the press and magazines such as Yorkshire Life.

The Nikon D5 performed flawlessly as was to be expected, and I managed plenty of shots of the guests and have included a few of the more easily recogised guests here, including Kevin Conolley of Dead Ringers fame. His impressions of Geoff Boycott and William Hauge are legendary!

by John

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Commercial photographer York: WIS uniform shoot

August 3, 2017

Looking for a commercial photographer York? Look no further, WIS didn’t and today I was on site at their offices at York Business Park to photograph the new uniforms for their web and print. Sometimes, shoots don’t always go to plan and this is where my experience as a professional commercial photographer comes into play. I was told that the brief was to shoot headshots of managers who would all be on site for a conference. I asked if they needed a specific background colour but was told white would be fine so I knew I could create a white background by simply lighting a pale coloured wall with flash. However, on arrival, it soon became clear that the requirement was for full length shots on a high key white background and I hadn’t brought a backdrop with me! After the initial panic, I decided to go with a white sheet (which one of the staff managed to acquire) taped to the wall to hide the wooden skirting board, and to stand the subjects in front of a narrow strip of white wall. I needed to be able to step back to create full length shots so it was the focal length of the lens which influenced where we set up. I hate shooting full length shots with a wide angle lens, I see this all too often and the distortion affect, whereby people seem to taper away to a point at their feet, is something I just can’t live with. I really needed to shoot with my 70-200mm for a better perspective, so shooting from inside an empty meeting room out into small corridor seemed the best option! In true ‘strobist’ style, I used a Nikon speedlight in a 40cm octa to light the wall and added a bare speedlight for further lighting at the base of the wall and I used a Profoto B1 head in a 70cm Rotalux as key light. So long as I could get the whites white, I knew I could reasonably easily cut the staff out in post and create the effect the client wanted. However, I didn’t want to have to spend hours in Photoshop so the better I got things right in camera, the easier the post production would be.

In the end it turned out fine and here is a montage of some of the images we shot. I’ve also posted an image showing the set up and to illustrate what a confined environment I had to shoot in. If you are in need of images for your business, it makes sense to use a full time professional commercial photographer, so why not give me a call on 01924 229800?

by John

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