harrington photography blog

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:17:00 +0000

The images we produced for the Aviva commercial photography shoot (that we mentioned in our previous post) can now be viewed on Aviva’s new website: http://www.aviva.com, which launched on 1st July. Aviva, previously known as Norwich Union, has just completed a rebrand across its entire range of products and services with the aim of moving the company to a single global brand.

To achieve a common identity across the board, our professional commercial photographer was given strict brand guidelines to adhere to. The style of the scenarios on our shot list closely followed the Aviva photography guidelines; informal, naturalistic and un-posed, with a light, airy mood. They were shot in a way that makes the viewer feel involved in the unfolding scene and not merely looking at models posing in contrived setups.

As well as being a very large shoot, the tricky aspect was implying that we were shooting into the sun to add lens flair to the images. The good old unpredictable British weather meant that we had to create our own sun with our lighting on location using our Elinchrome Ranger kit. The lighting stands were then ‘Photoshopped’ out afterwards and the lighting effects were enhanced using the highly effective Photoshop lighting effects plug-in, Knoll Light Factory.

We’ve also introduced a new service to our professional digital photography services – 360 Interior Rotations. The ability to create 360-degree panoramas of interior locations is an excellent way for clients to illustrate their resources and facilities. Here’s an example of a 360 shot we did for Microsoft, which involves 36 images being stitched together before being turned into a flash animation.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:21:00 +0000

A flock of new advertising digital photography business has come our way over the last few months. So we’ve been busy doing lots of interesting commercial photography shoots, each commission being very different from the next, for 3 clients: Fuji, Aviva (formerly Norwich Union) and Greene King.

First up: Fuji. The shoot was part of an animated digital campaign to promote the new Fuji Finepix Z30 camera, and was aimed at a young female market. We were provided with a layout to work to, requiring four female portraits. Once we’d provided the photos, the project was then handed over to the illustrator, who worked over the top of the images. The illustrations were then sent to design agency Cluster, where they pulled the animation together using all components. I think you’ll agree that the cocktail of different mediums created a rather unique campaign, which you can view via the link below.

Second was the Aviva commercial photography shoot, which involved a lot of production shooting time and post-production time; great for us as it’s nice to work on every aspect of the shoot, enabling us to consider everything before we started shooting. Our brief was to produce a single image for each of Aviva’s services, of which there are 30 in total. The images will run at the top of each page when the new Aviva site launches this June (so I’m afraid I won’t be able to upload any of the images until then). We covered eight locations, hired five vehicles and 19 models and at times four assistants were required all at once; so a rather involved but immensely enjoyable assignment.

The brief from pub retailer and brewer, Greene King, was to produce an old fashioned image of a man at the beach dressed in a Victorian style swimsuit, holding a beach ball and pint of Speckled Hen ale. The challenge here was to find a suitable model with a moustache (not your typical model, thankfully I had a mate who obliged!), a beach ball (which I sourced online) and the old fashioned swimsuit was custom made by a dressmaker (the stripes were added in post production). We used a great make-up artist, Sam Chapman, and 032 Design created the advert. Look out for the advert in a pub near you soon!

Finally, this month sees the launch of The Commercial Photographers Network /, of which I am one of the board members. Glaswegian photographer Richard Campbell set up the network when he discovered that his big name clients such as Volvo, while pleased with the work he did in Scotland had insufficient budget to send him elsewhere in the UK. When the client inevitably used a local photographer to do the work, this sometimes led to inconsistencies throughout their marketing material. So Richard’s aim was to set up a network of photographers that covered the whole of the UK, all of a similar standard to himself. He chose fifteen photographers in total, one from each major city. The website allows companies such as Volvo with photography requirements within the UK to quickly access a quality photographer through the site. I agree that there are other sites such as that represent thousands of UK photographers, however I feel that The Commercial Photographers Network offers a consistently high standard of commercial photography from a select and limited number of photographers, hopefully making life a whole lot easier for our clients. Do have a look at the site and let us know what you think.

Capturing The Moment. Nikon D3 Review

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:44:00 +0000

Over the past 12 years that I’ve worked as a professional photographer, I’ve worked with many different cameras but primarily with the following brands:
Linhof for large format work, Bronica and Hasselblad for medium format work and Nikon for 35 mm work.

What format I use depends on the job. It doesn’t make any difference whether I’m shooting film or digital as the same theory still applies to each format. To put it simply: the larger the format, the better quality image you capture and the sharper, larger and better tonal range you achieve. So for example large format work is great for studio photography and architecture. The smaller you go, the faster you can work and the easier it is to capture the action so 35mm is great for sport and press work.

For the past two years I’ve favoured my Hasselblad combined with my Phase One digital back as the quality is just stunning and I’m able to work well and reasonably quickly hand held. However, for capturing fast action I still rely on my Nikon D2x.

After reading some very interesting reviews on the new 2008 Nikon D3, I upgraded my Nikon this January. So far the results have been outstanding. In my opinion it’s the first digital camera that does just what I want it to. It locks brilliantly onto a moving image and shoots a very impressive 10 frames per second. This new fall frame camera comes with a 12.8 mega pixel chip. The other great plus is that as the pixels are so spread out it’s practically noise free when working at very low light levels. So in a nutshell I love it!

Here are a few examples of work that I’ve shot from the new camera.

The Year Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:14:00 +0000

The new year ahead looks uncertain for many. Despite us having loads of commercial photography work, we’re taking nothing for granted. Far from sitting on our laurels wondering what will happen to us as the credit crunch enters 2009, we’ve been working hard to ensure we cover all bases. Thanks to having several moneymaking options, such as stock photography, commercial photography work and editorial photography work for newspapers and magazines, I believe we’re in a far less risky position than those that work in one set area or discipline. Without a doubt, I think it also helps having enough experience to maintain a high standard in all areas.

So to our new moneymaking venture; The Packshot People, a commercial photography business specialising in high quality, value for money product photography, creative photography and image manipulation for use in a wide range of applications including catalogues, brochures, websites, magazines, packaging, marketing and advertising. Using high-end digital photography equipment and imaging techniques, The Packshot People produces cost-efficient high definition images (50MB for packshots and up to 90MB for creative photography) with a quick 48-hour turnaround and minimal fuss.

We believe that ecommerce is a growing market crying out for value for money photography. We want to prove that professional quality pack photography needn’t be extortionately expensive and that we can offer fantastic service and a quick turnaround without compromising on quality. So how do we do it? By being super organised and putting systems in place that enable us to turn work around quickly and cost effectively. The more you shoot, the cheaper it gets and all business is done online making the process fast and simple. We also do creative product briefs for advertising but will quote for the job rather than per shot.
The website launch is expected to be February 2009, so keep an eye out on this blog for launch date.

Another recent project that took cost into account, was producing stock photography images for Getty Images as cost effectively as possible. The samples attached to this blog post are of a dancer and a businessman leaping into the air. All images were shot in two stages. I shot the dancer/model in the studio over a half-day shoot and then shot the backgrounds on separate occasions. I used a typical lighting set up in the studio to simulate a typical external light. I used a high light from above to imply the sun then filled in the rest to shape the figure as best as possible. I then found typical locations that I had in mind and shot them to match the figure. You may think this seems like a bit of a backwards way of doing things but it worked and as all the retouching was done in-house it only cost a few hundred pounds. Do let me know what you think of the images.

Food Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:08:00 +0000

We like to mix it up. In recent years most of our advertising and commercial photography work has been producing lifestyle images for stock libraries and commissioning clients. While food photography is usually left to the very specialised market of food photographers in London, we love taking on work in other areas depending on the brief.

Norfolk based restaurant Butlers in Holt recently added the well established traditional restaurant Tatlers in Tombland Norwich to its expanding portfolio. With new owners often come new ideas and concepts. The new team wished to keep the traditional look of the restaurant but also to modernise the menu in the hope of attracting a broader audience.

London based design company Design Spy approached us with the brief to see what we thought. After a meeting with an agreed shot list we allocated two days to shoot at both restaurants. All the food photography was shot at Tatlers Norwich using the restaurant as a backdrop. The lifestyle images were shot at both restaurants.

When shooting food in the past I have always found it best to have two dishes for each shot. One to set up your composition and lighting with and another fresh dish as identical to the first one as possible to shoot with. Under the heat of the lights, food changes very quickly. The fat on meat for example starts to look cold very quickly. So the fresher the food and the quicker you shoot the better.

Regarding lighting we shot lunchtime dishes and evening dishes. The lunchtime images we kept bright and fresh using a lot of local window light and a small amount of fill light for the shadow areas. To create a contrast for the evening images we used a warmed up key flash light to imply the warm light you would get from a candle or a log fire. For the shadows we used a soft cooler light. I like to use Lee filters for this, which you can buy in large plastic rolls and cut to size as you wish. The mixture of filters not only gives the food a more 3d look but also brings it to life and makes it look much more like advertising photography. A paintbrush and a pair of tweezers are also very handy for moving food around on the plate.

Samples of the food photography shoot are shown here as well as a link to the website for further examples. http://www.butlersrestaurants.com/
www.designspy.co.uk

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:47:00 +0000

Finely our new studio is finished. Here are some picture of the new set up.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Change is good but you may think with the current financial crisis that we’d be mad to take on new projects and expand. Not us. We like the idea of bucking the trend and showing that a successful photographic studio can continue to grow despite predictions of doom and gloom.

First off, we’ve got a brand spanking new commercial photographic studio. An opportunity arose to extend the studio space in our building when the company in the next unit moved out. Capitol House used to be an old industrial factory, which has been converted into sturdy office units with great high ceilings and big windows that let in lots of natural light. We got permission to knock through, to create a completely white 950 square foot studio, which includes a secure storage area, an office with two editing suites, a cosy seated area for clients and a 7-metre white infinity core for shooting large items. The studio feels brighter and fresher, as well as welcoming we hope!

Last week the new space was put to the test when a client came in for a commercial advertising shoot and we were really pleased with the response and way it all worked. The new layout has meant that there is more fluidity in the working process, so not only does the client feel more involved in the creative process, but it also means we save time (and money) in post-production. The improvements have meant that we’ve been able to get the job done much faster, while having the client more involved in the decision-making process. Everyone wins.

Our ability to shoot tethered in the studio means that captured images can then be sent directly to our editing Macs via WiFi for post-production. This has the added bonus when you have a client such as an art director with you on the shoot, he/she can watch the images as they appear on screen as they are captured as well as overseeing the post-production stage. With the instant feedback, the photography can be adjusted according to the client’s needs.

Images in this months post are from The Advertising shoot in London for BiOrbs new Life range mentioned in Septembers Blog.

Our other news is that we’re about to launch a new photography business to complement our current services. With the economy in the state it is, we want to keep our options as diverse as possible. We can’t reveal anything at the moment but watch this space for further developments.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:44:00 +0000

Have we had a summer? Doesn’t feel like it but despite the distinct lack of sunny days, ours has been full of location shooting. It’s been challenging at times but thankfully we’ve also had a very enjoyable set of assignments.

One regular client of ours, Mezzo Folding Bikes, asked us to shoot another brochure for them this year. The Mezzo, which was launched three years ago and has since been voted ‘Folding bike of the year’ by the Daily Mail, has become a prime competitor to the classic Brompton folding bike. Mezzo wishes to target the UK commuter market and with the current costs of travelling rising as fuel prices escalate, the Mezzo is an ideal money saving alternative for the city worker.

With this brief in mind we set off with one female model, the client, art director and a bike. The newly regenerated Brighton North lanes was an excellent location to start; Brighton also being a very trendy place to live for the typical London commuter. With the model dressed in casual weekend clothing, we portrayed the bike as a practical accessory, shooting in and around the cafe marina and shops of Brighton.

Day two was spent in London with our female model dressed ready for work, travelling and enjoying the busy life the city has to offer. For once the weather was on our side and model’s experience made the whole shoot go very smoothly.

Another shoot was for the aquatic company Reef One. Reef One designed the well-known BiOrb, which has made people look at fish tanks as more of a trendy accessory to have in your home, rather than just a fish container. The new Life range, which has already been successfully launched in the US, comes in three sizes and colours and has taken on a classic 70s look.

The brief was to site the product in a modern trendy location in a variety of rooms such as a living room, office space and media room. The location was sourced from location agency 1st Options in London. Location agencies cut down a lot of the hassle. A good location agency will have high standards and have reccied all properties before placing them on the books. Eight people attended the shoot including three assistants. Each assistant was briefed and allocated two locations to work on each. This enabled me to move from one location to the next quickly resulting in all six shots being completed in one day. Following a day of post-production we were ready to deliver. Job done.

Now looking forward to the prospect of having more space to work in. We’ve got the builders in at the moment, knocking through into the adjacent studio, which we’ve just leased. Once done we’ll have around 950 square foot to work and play in, and more elbow room to accommodate our ever increasing workload.

http://www.mezzobikes.com/

http://www.reef-one.com/

http://www.1st-option.net/2007/buffer.php

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:13:00 +0000

Since returning from holiday business has been very busy with lots of travelling in the UK including a three day commercial shoot for May Gurney in Manchester. When working away I always try to encourage the client to book a hotel in the heart of the city or town or at least somewhere with decent public transport into the centre.

Over the last 12 years as a professional photographer travelling has been a big part of the job. Although we work overseas from time to time most of our business is based in the UK. And I love exploring UK cities having worked in most of them over the years. Each is different in their own way and after a days shoot, an evening out exploring a new place and eating a good meal makes the whole trip an enjoyable experience. Manchester, York and Bath have been my favourites so far.

Alongside the commissioned work I’ve been fitting in stock shoots for Getty Images as and when I can. I’m currently working on a business brief which has taken a lot of organising as well as being self funded, so I try to keep costs to a minimum.

Finding the correct location to shoot in is a big part of the job and location agencies can often do it all for you but can be very expensive. At starting prices of around £800 per day for Editorial Photography and for Advertising Photography that price will normally double.

Then I had an idea. I was looking for some modern premises for a business brief I was developing, so I contacted my various architectural clients to see if they had any large office spaces, which were completed, and waiting to be handed over. After a few phone calls LSI in Norwich came up with the perfect location at Broadland Business Park. Suddenly I had 5000 sq feet of empty office space including a lift to develop a shot list from. Genius.

Power Modelling Agency sourced the right female model for the topic: Businesswoman building her empire. As you can see from the photos I’ve posted here, I like to incorporate a fun angle to my shoots and try to break away from the obvious. This tends to give me a better chance of producing more unique imagery for Getty and hopefully result in better sales results.

Power Model Management

1st Choice Location Agency

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:27:00 +0000

Following a very busy May it was time to take a long overdue holiday in Spain with my wife and children. Although it’s supposed to be a time to unwind and relax, I always like to take a small amount of camera kit for two reasons. Firstly to snap away at my lively children for the family photo albums and secondly you never know what picture opportunities may arise. Unfamiliar surroundings along with a more relaxed frame of mind can get the old creative juices flowing. I tend to find myself photographing unusual, often random things, which I don't see back at home in England, such as showers in the middle of the beach; Photographing them does attract a few funny looks from time to time though! I try to keep kit to one camera body from my Nikon kit and two lenses covering the super-wide angles through to about 100mm. Any longer lenses would just be too heavy a load for a family holiday. An SB800 speed light is also essential when shooting in very high contrast conditions.

Even though I think Canon is excellent I’ve always stuck with Nikon as the build quality is excellent and I’ve a cupboard full of Nikon lens so a changeover would be quite an expensive process. To carry my kit when on holiday I use a small Lowepro rucksack with a dual purpose. The top half is a normal day bag ideal for pack lunches etc and the bottom half is a camera bag. Inexpensive and ideal for what I need. However, this year I did find myself getting tired of setting up my camera every time I wanted a quick family snap as I'm sure my wife and children did too!

Now the world of instamatic cameras (point and shoot types) has never crossed my mind before. As a professional photographer I’ve tended to have nothing to do with them until now. But after 18 days away on holiday and a few pointers from people, I decided to have a look at the market. My instinct was to look at the two big names in the SLR world: Canon and Nikon but found myself drawn to the Leica D-Lux 3. This is up there with the top of the range instamatics. It looks surprisingly similar to its film ancestors from the 1970s and has a cracking sharp lens, a pop up TTL flash and all the usual SLR shooting modes as well as a nice panoramic chip of 16x9 at 10.1 million pixels. The camera itself is a very stylish matt black and comes with a lovely old school, brown leather case. Only downside is the price; the camera and case come in at around £500. If you are after a cheaper version, Panasonic also produce some very similar cameras.

Leica D-Lux 3

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:02:00 +0000

The joys of new budgets! Clients have received theirs for this year and are spending them, so this month’s been jam packed full of commercial photography commissions. We’ve been working on May Gurney’s annual report, which has taken us all over the UK, to Manchester, Wales, Gloucester and London, not missing of course Head Office here in Norwich.
The design work is produced by London creative communications consultancy, Radley Yeldar, renowned for producing annual reports for many of Europe’s top companies. So following several meetings we’re left to our own devices to fulfil the brief.

Another substantial photography commission was for Microsoft’s research department based in Cambridge. Microsoft Research Cambridge was set up in July 1997 with three researchers. Today over 100 researchers, mostly from Europe, do computer research at the lab developing new concepts and software technologies for the future. What amazed me is that they are working 15 years in advance, which just shows how much goes into the development process after the initial concept. The brief was to produce corporate photography of their development staff to be used across a wide range of mediums including newspapers, magazines, reports and websites.
The stylish architecture of the research centre complimented the subjects and was an obvious choice to add impact to the images. One of the images can be viewed here.

On a more personal level, a good friend and his girlfriend have launched a quarterly men’s magazine aimed at Norfolk’s car and golf market, 1º East. 1º East has the look and feel of a national magazine but is tailored towards men who live, work or play in the eastern region. 1º East is no ordinary regional; it offers a unique mix of men’s lifestyle, automotive and golf in a refreshing way and contains high-quality editorial by national writers as well as inspirational photography by Jarowan Power. 1º East is also elegantly designed, beautifully printed and expertly edited by automotive journalist, Suzannah Sorrell.

May Gurney
research.microsoft
1degreeeast

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:32:00 +0000

We’ve been on the bubbly this month, celebrating a win at the Creative East Awards 2008 for ‘Best Commercial Photography’. The industry’s been a tough place over recent years so it’s nice to get the recognition, especially as we’ve all worked very hard as a team. So big thanks to the team! The winning image of a girl holding an energy-efficient light bulb was produced for Getty Images for a series of environmental shots entitled Future Generations. You can see it in January’s blog entry. Our good news also made it into the local press, the EDP Business, where the photo was printed too. With the award, we also got a four-page spread in Professional Photographer so look out for it in the May edition.

The judges were photographer Tom Mackie, photographer Andy Earl, and Ian Farrell, editor of Professional Photographer. Tom Mackie is one of the world’s leading landscape photographers and I recommend a look at his website that speaks for itself:
Andy Earl is known for producing over 120 album covers for bands such as Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones and Robbie Williams.
Ian Farrell edits Professional Photographer magazine but is also a photographer in his own right.

Apart from that, a large proportion of this month has also been taken up with stock shoots. I’ve been working on a business brief and tend to try my hardest to avoid the obvious when shooting for Getty for two reasons; the first obvious reason being that it could effect sales but secondly as new concepts create new challenges.

The image included in this blog entry is a shot of a businessman taking a plunge in the sea to relieve his frustrations with his life. In taking the shot, there were several elements, which were likely to cause problems. It was freezing cold – about 3c, and very windy which meant there were huge waves so we all had to be on our guard at all times. Both these elements meant that the time in the sea was going to be limited which kept us on our toes! To keep the camera dry I used a Kata waterproof camera cover which are brilliant in these conditions.

I used an assistant who filled the part as a model dressed in an old suit of mine, which was unlikely to see the day of light again. As for lighting, I used a second assistant with an Elinchrom ranger strapped to his back and the flash head was hanging off the end of a boom arm and a small soft box to soften the light. The Elinchrom rangers are excellent for this as the power packs are waterproof, they give out 1200 watts of light and they recycle in about a second so you can work fast. You can source them from The Flash Centre, UK distributors for Elinchrom.

Tom Mackie:
Andy Earl:
Ian Farrell:
Professional Photographer:
Kata:
The Flash Centre:

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:23:00 +0000

February has already been busy with some interesting shoots coming our way. One of which was a two day shoot at Imperial War Museum Duxford near Cambridge. Aviation museum, IWM Duxford used to be a place purely for plane spotters but has recently had a complete revamp and is attracting a much wider audience including families. The exhibits have become a lot more interactive and family friendly so it certainly appeals to kids as well as adults, which I think, is a great improvement. Anyway, our brief from design agency, IRG, was to produce lifestyle images for Duxford’s advertising material that would appeal to this broader market, so we went with ‘family day out’ images rather than photos that would appeal purely to plane enthusiasts. The best part of the job was that we had a decent budget, so we got to work with 8 professional models from highly respected Norwich/London model agency Sandra Reynolds. Due to it being February, working with the elements, namely the fog, meant the shoot was challenging, but produced some interesting and dramatic images. (See image below) The adverts will be used in the press and on the London underground so you may well spot them on your way to work someday soon!

I do approx 30 days a year freelance teaching/lecturing at Norwich School of Art & Design (NSAD) where I was also a student 11 years ago. I’ve just discovered that the travel photographer, Philip Lee Harvey, whose work I greatly admire, left NSAD three years before me. Since then, he has worked in over 90 countries, ranging from Antarctica to the Sahara and his work has been featured in publications including National Geographic Traveller, The Independent, the Saturday Telegraph, Condé Nast Traveller, Tatler, Vanity Fair and Volvo magazine. His website is worth a look, I really like his energetic portraits; He has a great way of capturing people’s personalities within their own environment. The BA (Hons) Photography course run by Peter Sherwood is an excellent foundation for any enthusiastic young photographer and sets them in good stead for the workplace because the briefs are set to answer real life commercial scenarios instead of the ‘fine art’ approach. Graduates therefore have a high success rate at turning their BA into a realistic and profitable photographic career.

Finally with the workload increasing, it’s been a relief to welcome a new member to our team, Tara Peak, to deal with customer services. We advertised for the position through a Broadland Council training scheme and had a great response, with 13 applicants. I chose Tara for her excellent GCSE results, enthusiasm and above all for her very friendly temperament. It means I can get out of the office and on location more, knowing that I’ve left a friendly voice to answer any queries back at the studio. So next time you ring the office, it may not be me who answers, but the lovely Tara!

Sandra Reynolds:Sandra Reynolds: http://www.sandrareynolds.co.uk/
IRG: IRG: http://www.interregional.co.uk
Philip Lee Harvey: Philip Lee Harvey: http://www.philipleeharvey.com
NSAD’S BA (Hons) Photography course: http:NSAD’S BA (Hons) Photography course: http://www.nsad.ac.uk/courses/baphotography.php

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:09:00 +0000

Its that time of the year again when industry commissions remain elusive yet there’s more than enough to be keeping us busy; New print material, upgrading the website, tendering, interviewing for job positions and a bit of studio feng shui, all help to freshen us up and get prepped for the year ahead.

As well as a few outstanding commissions, I’ve been shooting as much stock as possible for Getty Images. While I’m missing being in the great outdoors, it’s been a great opportunity to escape the rubbish weather and get busy in the studio.

This month we’ve been shooting environmental issues, as it’s such a hot topic at the moment. We’ve shot a series of images of children (the future generation) holding energy saving lighting. Shot in the studio, we’ve taken them into Photoshop and added a relevant backdrop, as shown in the posted image.

With the quality benefits of the Phase One back, which I’m currently shooting on, the retouching only took a few hours for each image, giving a convincing end result.

The UK’s Photography trade show, Focus 2008 is only a few weeks away. Although it’s very similar from year to year there’s always something new of interest every time. The AOP (Association of Professional Photographers) always have a good stand, maybe this year we’ll sign up for membership!

The Phase One stand, organised by the Flash Centre, is always excellent, as it seems to be ahead of the game in the world of digital backs with something new and exciting every year. They also have some excellent speakers such as Drew Gardner who I greatly admire. The interesting thing about Drew is like me he started as a press photographer working for local papers before he became the well-known advertising photographer he is today. He still has the press photographer presence and just gets on with the job rather than being a prima donna in the process.

Drew’s work: http://www.drewgardner.co.uk/

Focus 2008: http://www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk/

The AOP: http://hub.the-aop.org/

Getty Images: http://www.gettyimages.com/Home.aspx

Welcome to the MH Photography blog!!!

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:55:00 +0000