PR & Commercial photographer Scotland

AgriScot, Scotland 2012 press photography

pwpadmin — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:45:20 +0000

To be honest I was only at the AgriScot 2012 business farming event at Ingliston in Edinburgh in a back-room capacity helping my father out processing and wiring photographs to Scottish and national newspaper and trade magazines. Suffice to say I ended up photographing a well attended NFU press conference with cabinet secretary Richard Lochhead. Couldn’t help myself shooting a few candid shots as well once our pics were wired – all on a 50mm lens at f1.2.

Wedding shoe product photography for Arabesque

pwpadmin — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 10:51:55 +0000

I’ve spent the last couple of days in the studio photographing these gorgeous wedding shoes made by Diane Hassall for my client (and wife!) Arabesque. The images are for use on her e-commerce website and blog. The setup is reasonably straightforward, we photograph all the shoes as pairs, then as singles, then re-rig the lighting and shoot the toe caps rostrum. While we’re set up we shoot various pairs with a little bit more space around them so that theses images can be used in advertising campaigns throughout the year. Lighting is kept reasonably simple too and all ratios and camera settings are retained so that there is consistency when we next shoot products for the site.

Thanks for reading!

Food photography for the Dalmore Inn

pwpadmin — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 11:04:00 +0000

Here’s a small selection of photographs from a shoot last night at the Dalmore Inn just outside of Blairgowrie. I rigged a simple lighting setup in the kitchen and photographed the dishes as they came off the pass before they headed in to the restaurant. As such, there wasn’t an awful lot of time to play with so the pressure was on to get the shots right in a couple of frames. I opted to shoot this on a standard 50mm lens to retain a realistic perspective with the dishes and shot everything form the same camera position to maintain consistency in the series.

High volume photo processing

pwpadmin — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:30:17 +0000

Me and the kids are pretty much hooked on the ‘How it’s Made’ series of programmes. We usually watch a couple of them while sitting eating morning snack. We’re well versed on how peanut butter, nutella, frozen chips and fish fingers are made but this week we moved from food stuffs and I found this video behind the scenes in a very high volume photo processing lab. Despite having processed colour film and prints in the past I had no idea of the scale and automation of these big players in the photo finishing business. It’s quite interesting and only lasts five minutes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiLjznwYG1E

Valid Photoshelter promo / voucher code

pwpadmin — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 09:42:53 +0000

Photoshelter is an online photography management website and it also just happens to be one of the most useful resources I have in running my photography business. Simply put, it allows me to deliver images to clients for viewing and downloading, market and sell my stock photography and sell reprints and products for my weddings & portraiture work. Straight out of the box, Photoshelter has more than 10 customisable designs for displaying your photographs or it can be integrated with various WordPress themes from Graph Paper Press. Other features that score highly with me is the ease of sharing images on social media – either you or your customers can simply click one button and share images on all the usual platforms. SEO is pretty decent too and by ensuring that simple fields are completed on images means that they are easily found in Google image searches and the like – particularly useful for selling stock photography.

I also use Photoshelter as a temporary online backup while a job is still live and yet to hit my raid drives. It just gives me an extra little piece of mind with my ‘work in progress’ Once a job is archived off I simply remove it from Photoshelter. However, what I love most about Photoshelter is delivering jobs to clients. Once I’ve edited my photos in Lightroom, I simply export the full resolution files to a gallery in Photoshelter, apply a password for the client and mail them the link to their photos; all from within the back-end of Photoshelter. That’s it! My client can view, download selected files or the whole job at a variety of resolutions to suit their end usage. They can forward the link to their team of web / graphic designers or internal colleagues and they too can access the files; and all the time they are exposed to my site and archive of work – great for referral work. I simply don’t email photos any more, or burn DVD’s. Photoshelter is the only way I deliver my photography to clients.

You can try Photoshelter free for 14 days and if you click HERE you’ll get a discount of up to $40 dollars if you sign up to a monthly or annual subscription. The promo code is CR5ST9CL6Q Below are some screen grabs to give you a flavour of what Photoshelter looks like!

Let me share a Photoshelter promo voucher code!

pwpadmin — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:40:09 +0000

The front page of my Photoshelter image archive website

The back end, image management interface

Products and photographic reprints for sale

Photoshelter member forums

Photoshelter member benefits and discounts

Agricultural brochure photography for Claas UK combine harvesters

pwpadmin — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:01:00 +0000

Here’s a small selection of agricultural commercial photography I shot for Claas UK combine harvesters. The shoot took place over two days in Northumberland and Aberdeenshire and was commissioned by Four Seasons PR for Claas UK’s combine harvester brochures. The brief was the same for both locations; to photograph the combines with a nice clean background and also shoot some environmental portraits of the respective farmers with machinery and branding in shot. The shoots were captured with available light exposing for the shadows to create nice, simple images and were processed in Lightroom. Where possible I shot in to the light to create a bit of wraparound lighting. Both combines were shot with a relatively long lens from a good distance back and from a low camera angle to emphasise the top line of the machinery. You can view all the images here on my image archive site or scroll to the bottom of the post to view a slideshow.

Pitcorthie House, Fife architectural & interiors photography

pwpadmin — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 10:21:25 +0000

I’m a huge fan of mid to late 20th century design and architecture and it was an absolute treat to stay at Pitcorthie House, near Elie in Fife for a week with my family. The property was designed by world-renowned architect Trevor Dannatt and completed in 1968. The sequence of images below are non-commissioned and form part of my archive of personal work. They were all shot with a 14mm prime lens at a fixed aperture so there’s consistency between the shots and were steadied using a monopod – a tool I use in much of my photography, although I usually photograph architecture and interiors using a tripod – but not on holiday! If you’d like to experience Pitcorthie House for yourself then click here to book it – I thoroughly recommend it!

I photograph architecture and interiors throughout Scotland for personal, commercial and real estate clients. Please get in touch using the contact tab to discuss your requirements.

56,000 gns Charolais bull sells at Perth in 1989

pwpadmin — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 11:24:39 +0000

One of the things I love most about social media is stumbling over footage like this. It popped up on my Facebook wall today having been shared by Robert Smith at CTN Media. It shows top price charolais bull Maerdy Director going through the ring at Caledonian Market in Perth and selling for 56,000 gns. I was 18 years old and still remember the thrill of standing at the back of the ring as the bidding went on and on and on! I was there shooting with my father, for various newspapers and as I recall would have been shooting a Nikon F2 with a 35mm f2.8 and a roll of XP1. We would have rushed back to the darkroom to process this then make hand prints, caption them then rush in to Dundee to get the photos on the train to Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow before dropping a print in to the Courier, then still on Bank Street I think. Happy days? You bet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2xIM_ggq0E

NSA & Textiles Scotland catwalk couture at the Royal Highland Show 2012

pwpadmin — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:15:04 +0000

Here’s a small selection of images photographed at the NSA & Textiles Scotland catwalk couture fashion show at the Royal Highland Show a few weeks back. I didn’t have this booked in to my diary but I was passing the NSA Marquee on my way back to the press room and it was just about to start so I popped in out of the rain and grabbed a few shots for the RHASS, one of my main commercial photography clients at the show. Some of the labels shown on the catwalk were 21st Century Kilts, Angela Cassidy, Alex Begg & Co, Brooks Brothers, Di Gilpin, Eribe, Iona Crawford, Jaggy Nettle, Johnstons of Elgin, Jo Storie, Joyce Paton, Judy R Clark, Kiltpin, Obscure Couture and Slanj Kilts.

All the shots were captured with available light, exposing for shadow detail and I brushed in a touch of exposure in Lightroom to give them an extra pop.

I photograph commercial, press & PR photography throughout Scotland. I’d be delighted to quote for your next shoot! Please get in touch using the contact tab to the right of the browser.