Its a time of tightening budgets, cuts and a squeeze on spending and photography is an easy target. I am the same and looking to save money where possible but its value that should be looked at and with images stories are told. Everyone can read an image in a split second whereas a paragraph of text takes time to digest and understand. That’s why I try not to get too long winded and wordy in my posts, and hope that the images will speak for themselves. Here are a few from some of the charities I work for including the Martlets hospice and Sussex Beacon

So goodbye 2011! Here’s a look back at some of my varied commercial shoots over the last 12 months. As always it was quite a mixed bag but there were’nt many days that I had a chance to sit around twiddling my thumbs!

Here’s a little teaser to pass the time away while you worry about what to wear to your office party. See if you can work out what the little plastic things are in the photos below! Have a clue… they are essential to make any boxed item you are going to buy for Christmas. And a fact about the manufacturer based in Tonbridge… there are only three companies who produce this technical product, that’s not just in Sussex or the UK or Europe but on the whole planet!

This is why commercial photography can be so interesting it takes you to random places with which you would never normally cross paths. The clients are often apologetic when approaching about this type of shoot, they say things like …and to quote my client…”its very dull and industrial I’m afraid”. Ha! Far from it I really enjoy this type of micro work there’s a sense of being allowed in to a secret world and satisfaction at doing it well.

So did you work it out? Check out their website the company is called Man Mat

If you want to read the most comprehensive guide to running a business then look no further than the Essential Business Guide. I have been providing the photography for the publisher Julie Stanford since the first edition back in 2004. She is now producing the book in partnership with Cobweb Information.

The photography for the book is a mix of shooting illustrative images of real businesses in action and shooting editorial portraits of business owners whose stories are featured in the Guide. I enjoy the free reign it gives me to create images that tell a story. It’s also good for me to contact existing clients of mine to ask if I can either use images of them from my library, or shoot a few new photographs of them at work. Delivering copies of the guide as a thank you to them afterwards has been great too. I think everyone likes to see themselves in print in this way. Not least myself, look out for me on one of the images below!

Many thanks to Julie and Marianne at Cobweb, the guide is going to be as popular as ever! Below are a few shots I took of the book in my office…

Ok it was a bit longer than that. Alan Carr is the patron of the Sussex Beacon a charity providing special care for people living with HIV. Alan had promised the Beacon a slot to take a publicity photo for their current appeal. This was scheduled for sunday afternoon about an hour before he starts a string of 4 consecutive nights at the Brighton Centre with his new touring show Speccy Beast Live 2011
After waiting a few minutes at the VIP entrance we were shown up to his room by his assistant Kenny.
So we get in the room, Alan is relaxed and friendly (Juley and I met him last year on another Beacon shoot) and after a few hellos he gets into the Appeal t-shirt.
“It’s not a very good fit!” says Alan wearing it back to front, giving me time to shoot a few test shots with my assistant Corinna, and choose a background. Back on track with it the right way round and with one of his 5 identical performance shirts over the top, he jumps into action, ‘like this’ and ‘like that’ with and without the collection box. Job done. 90 seconds from first shot to last. All happy, quick signature of the shirt for the Beacon to auction and back out into the real world.

This wedding always looked good on paper and definitely lived up to my expectations! Constanza and James were married at the Little Oratory on Brompton Road and followed that by a trip on one of Londons Iconic red buses down to the river to be picked up by the Elizabethan paddle boat  for a trip along the Thames.  It was a great blend of traditional English wedding style with a dash of Chilean Latin influence.

Jim and Connie wanted an informal reportage coverage of their wedding capturing the atmosphere and fun.   It was a real pleasure to shoot and to be a part of their day. Below are a few of my favourite images from the day.

Ok I’m not asking anything too personal here!  When you’re photographing interiors its always a bit of a dilemma whether to have the lights on or off.  Last week I was photographing the interior of the Music Room in the Royal Pavilion, as part of a bigger project I’m doing at the moment.  The Music Room has 9 spectacular lotus-shaped chanderliers with extraordinary detail.  However when they are on they lose a lot of that detail because of the brightness of the bulbs inside them, but when they’re off the room loses some of its warmth.  I’m a lights-off man in this situation however my friend Trish Baker, functions manager at the Pavilion, is more towards lights-on!  Have a look and tell me what you think.

At the end of May the FT sent me to photograph wheat farmer Ben Taylor in Sussex.  The farm has had only 12mm of rain since March and the crop at best will only produce 50% of its usual yield.  The average rainfall for the same period is 180mm.  Ben was great to meet. He took me on a hair-raising journey up steep farm tracks to his fields on the top of the downs. It was good to hear that when he drove the bomb disposal squad up the track, to diffuse an old WW2 bomb, they were equally uneasy!

Last month I spent a day at the Domestic and General offices and callcentre in Brighton shooting new images for their website and promotional material.  The shoot was well organised and using staff who were happy to be photographed and were able to go about the usual routine always creates natural relaxed looking images.  The photographs are going to be used mainly  for recruitment purposes.  The shoot also involved a few relaxed portraits of the management.

With Annie and Rebecca from Annie Haak designs and model Izzy we spent the day shooting around a beautiful farmhouse in North Stoke near Amberley.  The weather was ideal sunny bright but with enough cloud in the sky to soften the light. the photographs are going to be used in advertising, pr material and editorial.