Wildlife on London’s Doorstep
Not much happening at the moment so I thought I’d blog about some commercial photography I did for the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) in mid-July when they were opening a couple of new Hi-Tech Ponds sponsored by Thames Water to add to their park experience.
The 42 hectare London Wetland Centre in Barnes (London) is regarded as the best urban wildlife site in Europe and, as I’d never been before, it was something I was looking forward to.
When the day came it was a scorcher.
The temperature was hovering around 28-30 Celsius which wasn’t ideal when I was carrying around 10kg of equipment on my back and 3kg in my hands, but the scenery in the hot summer sun was stunning.My task was to photograph the opening of the new Interactive Digital Pond as well as their Pond Safari, a remote-controlled underwater camera pond (that water was looking very tempting in that heat).
They were opened by TV wildlife presenter Miranda Krestovnikoff who was great to work with and sharing her love for wildlife with the kids.Following the 2 unveilings I was to take some general scenery images for the WWT to put in their image library which would be used for future advertising, poster, banners etc.
My contact for the day was the very knowledgeable Jamie Wyver and we walked around the park with Jamie showing me the areas of the park which he wanted photographed. We made an efficient team with him getting disclaimer signatures from parents and me getting the shots of the landscape.
At the end of the day the images were given to the WWT to put into their image library for press releases and to Thames Water for their own press releases.
It was a longer day than I expected, but the park was such an amazing place to visit and the time flew by.
Who knew such a jewel sits virtually in the middle of London?
More pics below:
Luxury Apartment shoot in Oxford.
Luxury Apartment shoot in Oxford.
I was booked for a 1/2 day photo session today. It was an early start as I had to be there and ready to go at 08:00 and I had to cover 5 apartments as well as hallway and exteriors.A lot to do in a few hours, but I got the images the client was after.
I’ll put them on a web gallery for the client so he can select the images he wants me to edit so he can use them for advertising purposes.They are amazing looking apartments which makes my job a lot easier and the tenants occupying some of the apartments were very welcoming and helpful when I was taking the interior shots.
All in all a great day today
Chêne Bleu Wines – Launch Event
Wow – this is a late one.
Just back from a corporate event. Chêne Bleu Wines from La Verrière were launching their label in the UK and they were holding the launch party in Belgravia in London (https://www.bottaccio.co.uk/)I was working alongside my friend Helen Jones and we both have studio lighting which we both had to bring in order to light this event.
One area was for after the guests drop in their coats and move through to the wine sampling room so they could try the new range of wines launched on the night.
Due to some limitations on space we set up my large octabox on one of my Elinchrom heads planted on a tall stand and this was used for the couples/portrait shots as the guests arrived.Upstairs we had another 2 Elnchroms set up to light a n area in front of a painted scrim between 2 columns with vases and shrubbery. The theme of the party was Toga and so the Greek look fitted into the rest of the party’s layout nicely. We were using 3 flash heads which left us with our fourth as a backup which was ideal
None of the studio lights were set to ‘slave’ mode to stop them being triggered by the guest’s cameras and so we were triggering all the flashes with my wireless radio triggers (PocketWizards), but even though we were on 2 separate floors we had to make sure they were in independent channels to ensure we weren’t triggering the other set by mistake.
PocketWizards (https://www.pocketwizard.com/) are an amazing piece of kit and definitely worth their weight in gold for their versatility, 100% performance and range of operation
