End Of Year Roundup Pete Martin Photography

Leicester Headshot Photographer Pete Martin 2024 roundup

Professional Corporate and Events Photographer Pete Martin - Leicester

My Best Year Yet

I'm so excited to share that this has been my best year yet as a professional photographer! I've had the opportunity to work on some amazing projects, meet some incredible people, and capture some truly unforgettable moments.

I'm grateful to all of my clients for trusting me with their photography needs. I couldn't have done it without you!

Here are a few highlights from my year:

 * Working with the brilliant people over at Miele

 * Learning more video and drone skills

 * Selling an image to the Daily Telegraph for a1yr usage

I'm so excited to see what next year brings! I can't wait to continue to grow my business and capture even more amazing moments.

Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,

Pete M

Furnley House Community Champions Awards - Photo & Video

Leicestershire Photographer & videographer Interviews and Events

One part of my work I don’t often speak about is Video, or Videography.

Whilst my passion will always be photography, lots of the same principals apply to videography. Ok, the lighting kit if different, and there is audio to consider.. and the editing is completely different! 

But I enjoy it. 

A regular client, Furnley House needed some video interviews for their Leicester community champions awards night. Last year I was a finalist in the awards so couldn’t photograph the event. But I did attend the interviews and enjoyed the whole experience. 

This year Furnley House wanted a different look to the videos, last year they had vides against a plain wall with people looking into the camera. Absolutly nothing wrong with that, and those videos looked great in my opinion.

As they wanted in different, myself and Charlotte from Cross Productions chose to do an interview style video, which would mean the camera was set to one side and the person who was being interviewed was looking at Charlotte and not the camera.

But I wanted it to be even more different.

So, I set up using Furnley Houses coffee bar as a background, but threw it out of focus. I then added to accent lights to the side of the person with different coloured gels on. I kept the lights in shot and even changed the gels around half was through the day.

Everyone got mic’d up with a wireless radio mic ensuring great audio.

The recording day was a great success, here are two interviews

The following month and it was time fo rhte awards night, which I photographed. This took place at the City Rooms, a notoriously hard place to photograph as its always pretty dark in there at night and the ceilings are high not allowing for great on camera flash techniques.

Here are a few shots from the awards night.

Young People Work Experience Photography Leicestershire

Young People Work Experience Photography Leicestershire

Location photography in the workplace, environmental portraits

One of my first ever clients was LEBC (Leicester Education Business Company) I was tasked to shoot their National Citizen Service awards ceremony at Athena Leicester. It was a great evening, over two nights as there were so many young people receiving awards. It was at this time that I also swapped camera brands from Canon to Sony. My assistant was using Sony and when I edited his photos a few days later I knew I just had to swap brands, this was summer 2018. Canon have now caught up I believe, but I’m firmly in camp Sony!

Anyway, back to summer 2024. I had the call to photograph various young people on work experience. I did this 2 years ago and it was a fun day! This year is was split over two days due to the amount of young people in placements.

Over the two days I visited a Florist, University of Leicester, Leicester Royal Infirmary, an engineering factory, Belgrave Hall and Gardens, a gym, a building society, my friend Rob Spence at Paragon Sales Solutions and a few more.

All of the young people were very engaged and enthusiastic about their placements, it was great to witness. Photographing this was pure joy, and I loved hearing about their individual journeys and aspirations. 

I shot this very simply, one camera (Sony A7 IV), one lens (Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4) and the occasional on camera flash (Godox V1).

Leicester Photographer Raises money for local charity

Leicester Photographer raises money for local Mental Health Charity

Headshot, Portrait & Event photographer Pete Martin raised £765 for Leicestershire Mental Health Charity LAMP

It was that time of year again, national mental health week 2024.

For the last two years I‘ve organised little gathering at one of my favourite Indian restaurants. This year however, the restaurant was already booked! So a new venue was foudn and the the organisation began.

Tickets were produced, the online booking system went live, emails went out to raffle prizes, a poster was designed. I asked a few people to share the social media posts to help with ticket sales and before long we had just under 40 tickets solds for the event.

It was no nice to see so many friendly faces, some i’ve not seen in quite a few years!

Enjoy some of the photos below, I kept the camera equipment really small, one camera, one lens and a small flash.. Great quality results from such a small compact set up.

East Midlands Event Photographer

Leicester & East Midlands Event Photographer

Professional Event Photographer covering Leicester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Northampton (East Midlands)

A few weeks ago I had two events back to back, Menphys sports club and the Real Entrepreneurs Dinner. 

Menphys Sports Club is done of my favourite events to photogrtaph, all of the guests are great and the speakers are brilliant. The events are always really well attended and there’s so much to capture. 

Gear wise on these events I like to keep it quite simple, One Camera and a 28-75mm zoom lens. This allows me to capture people right in front of me and up to around 8-10m away. Over the winter months when the ambient light is lower I also use an on camera flash unit to help light the scene. During the summer months I often ditch the flash and zoom lens and go for a 24mm & 50mm prime and shoot more ‘wide open’ to get a slightly different look. 

When I photograph the speaker being interviewed on stage I’m often at the back of the room to try and keep out of the way of the guests, I don’t want my job to spoil their enjoyment of the event. For this reason I switch lens to the awesome 135mm f/1.8. It gives me ample reach to the stage area while staying on the sidelines. 

Menphys also have a ‘media board, this a branded fabric banner which at the end the guests can have a professional photo with the speaker. For this I set up a studio flash with a soft box on a stand, It really makes people look their best. Check out what a camera phone captures compared to my set up… very different!

An iPhone 13 Pro photo from the event

My photo from the professional equipment

Take a look at a few images from this event.

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Next up was the Real Entrepreneurs Dinner at Winstanley House. I don’t get the shoot many of these events as they have a regular photographer, a very good friend of mine. He was shooting another event so the organisers ‘Cross Productions’ got in touch with me again. 

The theme of the the evening is very similar to Menphys, open networking and drinks on arrival, a sit down meal followed by an excellent speaker 

Gear wise, it was exactly the same as Menphys… One camera with zoom lens and a flash, then change lens to capture the speaker.

Here are a few examples from the evening.

Both of these events were edited and delivered the very next morning, so the organisers could create social media posts and send out to the attendees. 

Leicester Charity Photographer

Leicester Charity Event Photographer

Charity work by a Leicester Photographer

Charity work is a big part of my life, and definitely part of my companies corporate social responsibility.

For the last 5 years I’ve been heavily involved with two charities, LAMP and Menphys.

LAMP is an advocacy service, they help people struggling with mental health issues navigate the  complex issues and get their life back.

Bing a charity LAMP needs funding, and that’s where myself and others step in. So far with LAMP I’ve climbed Ben Nevis, marshalled at a Leicester 10k running event, ran a 10k, helped set up and partake in the now annual 5k campaign during national mental health week and am also part of ‘Team LAMP 23’.

This year we had local Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth run with us, he was also kind enough to be interviewed (if you can call it that!) by me after the run.. and of course i vlogged it here https://youtu.be/uJvpG8ky-vM

Team Lamp is myself, Greg Hollingsworth and Dave Green.  Dave is an ex trustee of LAMP and Greg is an ambassador. Together we set the challenge of running a Parkrun alphabet, in 2023. We sold each letter off to a corporate sponsor and also set up a just giving page for donations. Our target is £10k, which we are well on the way to achieving.

Greg deals with most of the money, Dave does the organising and social media posts. My contribution is a weekly vlog of the run, and anything else that we get up to!.

This was a real challenge for me, as I know it’s hard to believe, I’m not a natural in front of the camera!

Looking back at vlog 1, I couldn’t wait to stop recording and get it over. I walked out fo sight of most people as I was a little shy and almost embarrassed at the thought of recording myself in public!

Now I almost crave it, and I definitely miss recording when we have a week off.

As of writing this, we have completed 22 runs, with just 4 remaining… and the last 2 are going to be amazing as they are international!

Here is a link to the vlog playlist on YouTube

Doing this also led me to try open water swimming with Charlotte Miles from Cross Productions who also hiked Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike with myself and a group of other fundraisers.

Here is a link to those videos. Pete & Charlotte

Charlotte did a training run with me, then I did an open water swim, then we combined a run and a swim. It was so good, just a bit cold! And if you want a good laugh, I’m in a wetsuit!

I also support Menphys, a local charity that runs sport programs for disabled children. I hiked Scalfell Pike for Menphys, and did Ben Nevis for both LAMP and Menphys. Menphys have and amazing business sports club, which i’m a member of, and I also photograph each event at a discounted rate.

Below is a photo gallery containing a selection of images from all of my charity work and events that I’ve been involved in.

#LeicesterPhotographer

#photographer

#eventphotographer

#charity

#mentalhealth

#mentalhealthawareness

Labout MP Jonathan Ashworth joins me for a charity run

Ben Nevis Summit

Charity week

National Mental Health Awareness Week 2023

for a Leicester Photographer

Wow what a week!

So last week was national mental health week, & there was a lot going on.

Monday I had organised a charity curry night at the Cuisine of India in Wigston on behalf of LAMP

Over 80 tickets were sold, there was a raffle, I played a bit of guitar.. in total we raised £1714.2. Also on Monday I had a 9:30am shoot, in Kent!!

Tuesday was mostly spent editing Mondays shoot, before going for a run.

Wednesday I had a 9am shoot in South Leicester for a new client, which went brilliantly!

At 11am there was a 5k walk before the Lamp Charity business club, due to the shoot I only managed half of the walk with Scott Mathie.

The LAMP business club is one of my favourite clubs to attend, this time I was on the main stage talking about my time as a member. I have to say it was quite nervous being on stage with Greg Hollingsworth, Jenny Collard and Dee Beckett (nee Patel), all people great a public speaking it seems!

Thursday I had 3 schools to photograph, they have recently joined a trust and needed new promotional shots for their prospectus, website and social media channels.

On the way home I called into see Tony Cox. I’d met Tony though an old friend a few years ago, and we’d recently reconnected at an event at Menphys. Tony wanted to freshen up his headshot. As the session went well, and there was time left I decided to get a bit creative and give Tony a few extra shots.

Friday I was long overdue a catch up with Anup Singh from Oadby Estates, a really nice guy who runs his family business with his brother.

From Oadby I went to Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre for some overcoming fears with the amazing people from LAMP.

LAMP’s theme for national mental health week this year was overcoming mountains, and mine is definitely a fear of heights. I agreed to the abseil, but as most people seemed to switch activities half way through, I ended up doing the air walk activities too… and it was terrifying, but I did it!

Saturday it was LAMP’s take over at Leicester Victoria ParkRun. This was timed perfectly with myself Greg and Dave's A to Z in 2023 fundraiser for LAMP. Lena Patel FPFS graciously sponsored this weeks run, Lena also came to run with us!!

The run was brilliant, lots of people cheering us on, marshalling etc. I've never been able to complete a 5k in under 25 mins, but after some amazing coaching from Matt Green, & constant running practise… I finally did it!

Talking of running & LAMP’s 5k campaign.. I set myself a target of running 5k every day Monday-Saturday… Apart from Monday (where I ran 3k &walked 2.5k) I ran a 5k every day. Huge achievement for me, as I normally run 2-3 times a week. Also, finding the time during this crazy week was a challenge!

Sunday it was the return of the Cool As Media 5km (it’s actually 6.5km :-) ) starting at the Craddock pub, walking through Aylestone Meadows & ending at Everards Beer Hall for food and a few drinks. Thanks Gabrielle Miller for organising.

Phew!

#mentalhealthawareness

Leicestershire Charity Event Photographer

East Midlands Charity Event Photographer, Leicestershire Based

Menphys Charity Business Sports Club

I was introduced to the Leicestershire Charity Menphys via my good friend Chris Cain from Kazzoo IT, during Chris’s headshot session he mention a charity hike up Scafell Pike in aid of Menphys.

Menphys is s children’s charity working with disabled children based in South Wigston here in Leicestershire.

During the hike, I was introduced to a number of other businesses and Liam Deacy, the head fundraiser at Menphys. I recognised his face, but couldn’t place him.. After a slightly odd conversation in the car park it turns out his uncle is a singer and we were in the same band together in 1996-2001!

Menphys have an amazing business sports club, where for a nominal fee you can join and attend 4 meeting a year with a sporting personality. There is a 3 course dinner, a presentation by the sports person then some question and answer time. Right at the end there is a photo opportunity, which is where i come in!

I photograph the entire evening, but my favourite part is the meet and greet at the end of the night. I use a simple studio light set up against the Menphys backdrop to get a nice clean look. All of the edited photos are available via my private gallery and from Menphys the day after the event.

Here are a few images from the events i’ve shot for Menpys in 2022.