Leicester Branding Photographer

Next, we have to talk about ‘Branding’. 

I had an amazing video call with two ladies from ‘The Orange Notebook’, a brand marketing agency over in Birmingham. There is actually 3 of them, Beatrice however is based in Sweden! 

Their company needed a bank load of images for their website and social media, we put a plan together to create the images they needed. It was decided that we would meet at Medicine, a coffee shop in Birmingham that they often frequent. We would use Medicine as location 1, getting individual and group shots. A local photo studio was also booked so they we could get some more varied shots, such as clean studio images with the orange background to tie in with their branding. This was a really fun shoot, the 4 hours went really fast. Sadly I was still suffering from the effects of COVID and was really tired towards the end. I don’t mind saying, I slept for 13 hours when I got home!!

I also competed a brilliant branding shoot for the fabulous Sukh Kaur and her bespoke matchmaking service, ‘Matched by Sukh Kaur’. 

We met up at the Exchange bar in Leicester, grappled a coffee and talked about the shoot. This shoot was originally going to be a simple headshot session, but after Sukh saw some sample images from The Orange Notebook shoot, an upgrade was ordered.

The setting in Exchange bar is always good for photos, and the coffee is pretty amazing too! We shot in 3 different areas before heading to my favourite studio in Leicester, XYZ.

At XYZ we used the classic white and grey for headshots and also positioned their graffitied sofa near the exposed walls for a more urban looking shot. 

Very soon there will be a personal branding page added to my wesbite!

I can’t explain how much I enjoyed these shoots, it’s a different process to my normal portraits and headshots.. and if you know anything about me, you’ll know I enjoy a creative challenge. Branding shoots tick all the boxes for me

An update from November 2021....

So, what’s been happing in the world of Pete Martin Photography??!

I’m going back to November 2021, and tell you about a few shoots that we completed.

After contracting COVID-19 in late October, I was released from isolation after the full 10 days and went straight into an event for the wonderful charity in Leicester that is Menphys. https://www.menphys.org.uk/hub

Menphys were being presented with the prestigious Queens Award. It was a lovely 2 hour event attended by many local businesses and supporters of the charity. Amazing food from Ben Knowles aka https://benskitchenleicester.com/ as well.

Below are a few images from the event.

Another shoot I particularly enjoyed was Moneywise Plus. These guys help people back into work with such activities like CV Writing. It was nice to see how they help all types of people in the community. Big thanks to Tim from BRanagh PR for recommending my skills for this assignment.

https://www.moneywiseplus.co.uk/

https://www.branaghpr.com/

More updates coming, and this year I WILL blog more!!

Over and out

Pete

Location Headshots

Leicester Urban Headshots!

Last week it was urban headshot time.

Not everyone wants a studio looking headshot, but everyone needs a quality headshot to stop people scrolling past on platforms such as LinkedIn!

Rachael from insurance brokers Morgan Betts & Co is this person.

During the Zoom consultation the week before we discussed various options and locations to achieve the desired results. I took my full mobile studio which included numerous backdrops, studio flash, softboxes etc.

All of the final images however used nothing more than natural light and a hand held reflector!!

We were blessed with an overcast day, which meant no harsh shadows on the face. I used the reflector to bounce a little light back to help create perfect even lighting across Rachael’s face.

Would you have your next headshot outdoors? or would you prefer the studio/indoor environment?

Drop me an email or give me a call for more information.

What's been happening??!

So, It’s October.

Following the UK’s COVID-19 Lockdown, things went a little quiet for me. I did 4 jobs in 3 months. But thats ok, I manajed to home school Callie, my 7yr old Daughter.

Around August things started to pick up. In fact, this August was best in 4yrs!. Sometimes 3 shoots a day.

These jobs ranged from clothing shoots, headshots for individuals & businesses, 4k video confrencing for a court trial in Hong Kong (yes, really!), enviromental portraits and some product work

I’ve updated my website with a few new images, below are a few.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

A blog about a vlog... ;-)

I did a vlog, now a blog about a vlog... ;-)

Professional Photographers Workflow

If you’re interested in what happens after a photoshoot, the stuff you don’t see… this is the video to watch!

In all seriousness, this stuff behind the scenes is mega important.

I had a phone call with a family member who was photographing a friends wedding last year.. I was also photographing a wedding. On a break I checked my phone and saw 5 missed calls from said family member. I called him back and he asked me a question…

“I changed lens towards the end of the ceremony, now when I look at my images I can’t find anything before the ceremony…”

My question back was “have you changed out the memory card for a fresh one??” he had not. So he did, and I arranged to meet up with him the following day.

Turns out he’d been victim to a fake memory card, which had corrupted and was overwriting old images when the card became full. So the whole bride prep and 90% of the ceremony was now gone forever.

The message here is he’s not a professional, and he didn’t have a professional camera.. a camera that has two memory cards. He put the images he had on his 8yr old laptop, and he was done.

This is very different to what myself and other professional photographers do.