Commercial Photography Scotland

On the Commercial front it has been a good and busy time, last Friday I was on a building site again – anew property developer client had commissioned me to photograph their homes for a web site and promotional material. It is always very difficult doing a job like this on a working site with lorries, diggers, builders and unfinished houses but it needed to be done and the weather was good so I got the job finished. 




They are lovely houses with great views of the River Tay, on a day like this it was great, one tenant said they never watch the telly, they just sit and look out the window at the view – I can see why.




The problem with a job like this is contrast between the light sky and dark foreground, there is not a lot that can be done about it except try and find a good balance point between the two. A grad ND filter works well enough or taking 2 shots exposed differently then merging the 2 in photoshop is another way.

This week I won another new client, a big advertising and design company in Glasgow commissioned me to take a series of shots for a client of theirs. This is a call centre operation with sites round Glasgow, they take calls on behalf of various large organisations. They wanted to show the culture of the company, they invest very heavily in staff development and try very hard to make staff happy at work so we took some shots of some staff members doing various things, pulling faces, juggling, playing the guitar etc. I cant say much more about them – they are very security conscious and mentioning the name or the organisations they work for is an absolute NO, sorry.

 

Tomorrow it is Stephan and Sheenas Wedding in the grounds of Airlie Estate, the forecast is great so it should be good – they are a lovely couple. But first I need to photograph an industrial job in Brechin – it never ends.

Wedding Photography – Kincardine Castle

Once again I find myself apologising for the fact this is the first blog in ages! I am just so incredibly busy which is great news, the next 2 weeks are a little quieter so I’ll get more done, I am way behind with processing photographs  so I really need to get that done and get all my paperwork and accounts up to date.

Anyway, just before I left for Spain I photographed Saskia and Steve in Kincardine Castle, it was not a typical Wedding but it was very interesting. Kincardine is a great venue for a house party style Wedding, great gardens and a lovely great hall for the function. Saskia and Steve have 2 lovely kids and they were a large part of the day and I had been asked to spend a bit of time trying to get some great shots of them. Unfortunately the weather was not with us and we spent the whole day in the Castle, Steve and Saskia were not keen on any formal photographs of the 2 of them, they just wanted their guests photographed. It was their day and they should get what they wanted but I did firmly believe that they were missing an opportunity here so I negotiated 10 minutes with them for some photographs of the 2 of them outside between rain showers.

After the service we did get a break in the weather for more photography outside – here is a small collection of the 300 pics I sent to them.

 

 

Thief's

Well I am back from Spain. It was not  a great trip, on the first day I had my car broken into and my bag stolen, this bag contained a camera, ipod, mobile phone, 3G mobile modem and various other stuff - to say I was hacked off is an understatement! As you might know I had gone to Spain to sort out a little hassle with our house there and also to photograph the Jerez horse fair, unfortunately with no camera the horse fair was off the agenda.

It was a tiring trip, after a really long Wedding last Saturday in Aberdeen I had to nip to Alyth to do a little job then I was back home by 10.30, spent an hour or so downloading hundreds of photographs then off to bed at 1am and up again at 4.30 to catch my flight. On my way to Aberdeen I had met up with Arlene, she was interested in booking me for her wedding, well she decided to book me so that's the 13th June gone too.

I'll post some shots of Saskia and Steves Wedding in a day or so, I have still to get stuck into them!

I was supposed to be doing 2 jobs today, one for  a local authority then a new housing developer client but both jobs have been rained off for this week so I had a day of paperwork. I've had a lot of Wedding Bookings in this week so there was confirmations to send out and various other stuff to deal with.

 

I am having a well deserved day off tomorrow with no Wedding this weekend so I am looking forward to that. Next week will be busy if it is good weather.

Photography in Scotland

Sorry the blog has been a little sparse of late, I’ve been really busy which is great news considering the economic climate but it means that the blog gets neglected and having just seen the visitor numbered for last month there are quite a few of you that seem interested in what I’m up to.

2 weeks back I was on a highland estate continuing the job of photographing various properties for the new web site, this is a great job, nice people and a great location. I do quite a lot of this work and am getting quite well known for it now. I have 1 day left to finish the job which will be more outdoors photographing the type of activities that the estate offers it’s clients.

There are a few shots from the last job.


Recently I have been working for a client that is going into business to compete with British Gas in the home boiler maintenance industry, we found a good model, got him dressed up in the corporate gear and photographed him at various places round a house. It was a really enjoyable job, the weather was good, the model excellent and it just went really well. I’m not sure if I am allowed to mention the name or not so I better keep quite. In these kind of shoots the idea is to get the companies logo in as many places as you can to reinforce brand awareness so I’ve had to blank it out on these shots. It’s a big company and they are putting many hundreds of thousands of pounds into this new service so you’ll see it soon.

 
If any photographers are wondering about the lighting here, I used a remote fired speedlight held against the windscreen by the client zoomed to 80mm to bring the models face out of the dark interior.

I know blanking out the logo kind of spoils it and I am sure my client wont mind but I’d better do it just to be safe.

Other news, I’ve been working this week for one of Scotlands local authorities on a new job for them. Again my contract prevents me mentioning them – this is to make sure that they are not being seen to recommending me over any other supplier. So, no photographs, no names etc. Sorry!

2 more Wedding bookings this week, one for Dianne and Michael who get married at Taychreggan hotel near Oban in August and another for Helen and Douglas who get married in September in Morar in the highlands, this should be a great wedding if we get good weather as it is right by the beach and already my mind is running away with ideas for shots.

Tomorrow I head up to Aberdeen to meet a lady that wants me to photograph her Wedding in June – a very late booking and strangely enough I have had 2 enquiries for this date which is almost unheard of. Then I head to Kincardine Castle for the Wedding of Steve and Saskia which I am very much looking forward to. After the Wedding I’m off to Alyth for a very small job before heading home to bed.

Sunday I’m off to Spain to sort out a bit of hassle with our house there and also to photograph the Jerez Horse Festival, back Thursday than right into 2 jobs on Friday – I’m hoping for a day off sometime soon!

Wedding Photography – Glenskirlie

More great feedback

Claire and Gordon from the last Wedding have seen some of their shots on this blog and they sent this lovely email:

 

“Hi Angus,   Thank you for letting me have a wee peek at some of the shots of our wedding, absolutely stunning pictures we love them. Thank you again for making us feel so special and at ease with you.  Claire”

Photography – Scotland

Just a very quick post, today I was back on the estate of one of my clients photographing a large house that is used for house parties. Rather than the empty room approach, I like to create a lifestyle feel to the shoot so I always look for people to model. The client had provided some local people that were happy to model for us. One of them was a beautiful Hungarian girl that was convinced that she was not going to model because she was not good enough. I promised her that if she let me take just one photograph of her I’d prove to her that she was perfectly able to be a great model – she was convinced – what do you reckon!