Leicester Portrait Photographer

Leicester Portrait photographer

Food Photographer

I few weeks ago I was contacted by a lovely lady called Harriet from Peterborough, who is setting a new business all around healthy food.

While I would not say I’m a food photographer, nor food stylist! Harriet needed a bulk of images to launch her website and also to kick start her social media channels. 

After a consultation phone call to find out more about her business, Harriet set to work plan out out each dish she was going to prepare and the overall aesthetic. This prep work was key to the photoshoot running smoothly. Harriet also sent me a selection of sample images from other health food individuals that she liked the look of, this was my homework to research how the final images were put together and lit etc.

When it came to the shoot day, I arrived in Peterborough at 10:30am to find that Harriet had got all the dishes underway cook wise. Within 30 mins the equipment was set and I started shooting. 

As it was a nice bright day, and the food photo area was near some bi-fold doors we used all of the available natural light. The only thing I used to modify the available light was a couple of small bounce cards/reflectors to reduce the shadows slightly on the opposite side.

During the final prep of each dish I swapped to camera 2 with a 35mm prime lens and grabbed some environmental portraits, I think these look awesome in black and white. 

Towards the end of the shoot we did some lifestyle shots inside and outside with a little bounced flash to give a nice clean look.

Overall I’m super happy with the results, and it was a great day.

Many thanks to Harriet and her husband Dan for being so accommodating and Uber prepared for the shoot. And for sending me off with a food parcel and bottle of red wine.

Here are a few photos from the day.

Leicester Portrait and Headshot Photographer

Leicester Portrait and Headshot Photographer

Location Headshots for Businesses

I love it when an email pops in from a contact I met a few years ago. Caroline Hunt owns Emerald Starfish recruitment, based in Market Harborough Leicestershire. Caroline had recently moved offices and taken on two new members of staff, so it was the perfect time to update the website with some fresh images. 

We did headshots in colour and black and white, and also did some environmental shot in the office and in the reception area.

Here are a few samples from the Emerald Starfish shoot.

Another nice surprise was an email from Northwood Estate agents. This was a new client for me, but a similar story to Emerald Starfish. Northwood was also recently moved office and taken on more new staff members. 

A date was set, but sadly I had to cancel!! 

Those who know me will know how much I hated to cancel and let people down. But I was ill, really ill… not COVID, but I’d burnt out. A GP advised me to rest, take more exercise, keep hydrated and generally take time off from my business to reset myself.

Northwood was re-arranged for the following week, and what a great shoot!

All staff members were ‘shot in the face’, two edits each provided in colour and black and white. I also did a couple of team shots while I was there.

There was a chap there who I recognised, but I could place him. Turns out his name is Elliot, and he used to live next to me 8yrs ago!! Small world!!

Here are a few photos from the Northwood shoot.

Commercial Photographer Leicester

Commercial Marina Shoot

Photo Shoot for multi service design agency in Leicestershire

MDL Marina Plymouth

A brilliant design agency I work with have MDL Marina’s as their client, they asked if I’d be interested travelling to Plymouth to photograph an Eco Gym at a Marina…. Of course I said yes.

This time a team of five headed down to Devon to capture images of the new site and facilities. The drone went up to get an Ariel view, it was nearly bought down my some crazy seagulls who though it was a play thing! We captured all areas of the gym, and we even got some of the public involved when there were using the equipment.

We stayed over on the Friday night and had a lovely Mexican meal. Saturday morning it was time to shoot the gym manager Helena in action on the equipment having a workout. These were my favourite shots of the weekend, the lighting was brilliant, everything just slotted into place.

The drive home was long, 4.5 hours, but I’m sure you’ll agree the photos captured were worth it!

See below for some of the shots.

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National Space Centre - Mental Health Week

Mental Health Awareness Week 2022

Leicestershire Charity Photographer

As some of you will know, I do quite a bit of work (paid and pro bono) for the Leicester mental health charity LAMP.

In April I was asked my Matt Barton from LAMP if I’d be interested in recording a short 3-5 minute video at the National Space Centre for national mental health week. The video would be about how astronaut’s cope with loneliness and their mental wellbeing in space. This tied in with the their theme, to take LAMP to the Moon. 

A meeting was held with key staff from the Space Centre, Matt and myself. It was soon apparent that one video would not be enough, we would need FIVE!.

This worked quite well as LAMP could release one everyday of the week during mental health week… The only issue was the time restraints in getting it filmed, edited and delivered as we were getting close to the start of mental health week.

Filming was done on a Wednesday, most of the edits were completed on the Thursday and Friday with only a couple of revisions required from the Space Centre and LAMP.

I’m really happy with how these turned out and the response to them has been positive.

Here they are below.

If you are looking for something similar for your charity or business please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Here are a few behind the scenes photos courtesy of Greg Hollingsworth, and ambassador for LAMP and the director of Hollingsworth’s, specialist commercial and litigation solicitors in Leicester.

Myself and Greg Holllingsworth also put on a charity curry night at Cusine of India in Wigston.. we asked local businesses for some raffle donations, I got in touch with my old singer Shona so we could perform a few songs before dinner… 

We raised just over £1000 for this great charity, here are a few photos from the event. 

During this week we also completed a series of runs or walks, mainly in 5km chunks.. Everyone who took part recorded their activities on the LAMP Strava group, and the aim is to reach the moon before July 20th, which is the Apollo 11 Landing in 1969.

Family Holiday 2022

Barcelona & Mataro Spain 2022

Photographers Holiday

It’s no secret the last few months have been incredibly busy work-wise, and I consider myself very fortunate.

We’ve had a holiday in Barcelona booked since July 2020, due to covid it was rescheduled, and rescheduled, and rescheduled!

As a family, for the last few years we have been doing a city break for the first part of the holiday, then a beach for part two. This year we did Barcelona for 4 nights, then Mataro for 4 nights. To be honest, we could have done Barcelona for 8 nights and still had loads to see and do, it’s an amazing city.. with a beach!

We did a few touristy things, saw the sights and found some nice local places to eat.

Being a keen runner, I had to get a run in whilst in Barcelona, and it’s aneven 1200m from the top of La Rambla to the beach. From there I ran mainly across the seafront, and then took a leisurely walk back to the hotel.

Here are a few photos from Barcelona. The last two photos were taken on my big Sony Camera, yes I did take it on a family holiday!!

Did I use it very often? not really. Will I take it again next year? probably not.

All of the other photos were taken on my iPhone 12, which is being upgraded later in the year to the Pro Max version, with the better camera system.

I’m not just a photographer by title, I actually love taking photos, especially of my daughter growing up, so having a great camera around has been brilliant. But the iPhone has a really good camera!

After a 40 minute buss ride, we arrived in Mataro, a small port town just up from Barcelona. This was to be the relaxing beach part of the holiday, and it certainly was.

It’s pretty fair to say there is not much to do there, we walked into town a few times, checked out Central Park, but mainly stayed near our hotel at the port. There were plenty of restaurants around, and the hotel had a great pool with my daughter Callie enjoyed pretty much every day. I also got a run in, but it was a difficult one being 30 Deg C!

Here are a few photos from Mataro.

On the last night we stayed out a little later for sunset. One of my favourite shots to do when I was a wedding photographer was a sunset shot using an off camera flash to light the couple. I have various small flash units that I use when I do on location headshots, so I packed the smallest one and a pop up beauty dish. You can see the results in the last shot above. This is the only thing I can’t replicate with an iPhone.

Overall a really good holiday, but maybe the last one where I take a proper camera!

School Photography

School Photography Leicestershire

Another type of job I really enjoy doing is commercial school photography, the type that gets used in the school prospectus, on the website and on various social media channels.

For the last five years I’ve completed work for Thomas Estley college in Broughton Astley. This year as they has a new classroom build during the pandemic I was asked to come back and get a selection of images of that and some of the classes in the main building.

I started at 9am and by lunchtime I’d done 15 classes. During lunch some staff had new headshots taken. We started the headshots in February 2020, but due to COVID we could not get the whole school done. Just over 350 images were delivered in total.

It’s great to see the photos being used on their website and in and around the school. They have the main corridors wrapped in vinyl wallpaper, with my images on!

Here are a selection from that morning.

Fullhurst College was another school that was booked in in May 2020, but due to COVID was pushed back to 2021, then again to 2022.

Due to Fullhurst being a huge school with two campuses, it took me two days (with a 3rd in reserve) to get every class photographed.

Over the two days the marketing manager Phill took me around all the classes, he was so prepared and knew exactly what was going on in each class and what needed  photographing. On day one we walked 16k, over 20,000 steps!!

My favourite shots from the day were the cooking lesson, and yes, I did get to sample the teachers Eton mess, and I can confirm it was delicious! (See pics below)

Overall from the two days I shot just over 2,000 images, and delivered just under 1,000.

Here are a few samples from the two day shoot.

If you are looking for amazing height quality photography for your school, college or academy, please get in touch via this website.

Leicester School Photography

Party, portraits and another party!

Commercial Portrait & Event Photographer Leicester

Leicester Business Photographer

December 2019 I was asked to photography a works party and awards ceremony, the company was Industria Personel. Industria are a fantastic recruitment agency based in Leicester but with offices in Northampton, Manchester, Coventry, Uxbridge, Germany and Poland!

Fast forward to March 2022 and I get a call from Amanda from Industria about taking staff headshots of all of the senior recruiters in the UK offices in preparation for their new website.

After a few dates were passed around, the Leicester office was booked in. 24 people were photographed in a 2 hour session. A couple of weeks later Coventry was photographed, then Northampton, then Leicester again (as a few people were away and some people from the Birmingham office came over), then Uxbridge and finally Manchester. Phew!!

All in all over 50 people got ‘shot in the face’ by me, and we kept the look consistent in all the different locations.

Here are a few shots from all locations

Leicester Event Photography

Industria also celebrated their 20th year in Business, and I was asked to photograph the party at the Marriott Hotel here in Leicester. This was an incredible night, with lots of photos and stories from the early days of Michale Walker setting up the business. I honestly found that presentation about the company so interesting! The thing that really struck me was the culture, all of the staff genuinely enjoy working for Industria.

It just proved that if you have a great idea, determination and good people around you.. you can achieve anything. 

This year they hit the £50 Million Pound turnover, which is incredible, well done Industria! 

Here are a few photos from the party.

ArtReach Liberty UK Festival Corby

Leicester Festival Event Photographer

Just before the UK lockdown I was re-introduced to my old friend, and singer of one of my favourite bands I was in at college ‘Gary Cicinskas’.

1993 College Rock Concert, Gary in the middle, myself on the right.

Gary now works for ArtReach, a great company that helps fund and put on great art festivals around the UK.

The event I shot in Feb 2020 was the handing over of a cheque for funding from the European Arts Council, presented by the Mayor of Leicester, Sir Peter Soulsby.

The event was a success, Gary liked my work, and indeed offered me a couple of other shoots.. for Arts Festivals around the East Midlands.

Sadly COVID had other plans and all festivals were either cancelled or postponed.

On the 19th February 2022, Corby held a Liberty Festival. This included various crafts around the town centre, disco litter pickers, Virtual Reality and 4 amazing performances at the Cube Theatre.

My job during the day was to capture the atmosphere of activities, show the general public enjoying the festival.

Check out the gallery below for some images of the day, there are also links to the videos below.

Festival highlight video

Pete Martin Photography on BBC One

Did I ever think I would be on BBC One??

Leicester Portrait Photographer on National Television, BBC ONE.

Towards the end of January 2022, Sukh Kaur (from Matched by Sukh Kaur https://www.matcheduk.com ) approached me regarding a BBC One Documentary that she was being featured in.

The documentary, ‘A Believers Guide To’ was about Sikh dating services, and Sukh is amazing at this!

Having previously worked with Sukh on her branding photos, Of course I said YES!

It was my job to be filmed taking photo’s of Kiran, who was looking for a life partner. These photos would be used for not only the BBC Documentary, but also all marketing, and of course… Kiran’s dating profile!

No Pressure then!

The shoot went fine, Sukh and Kiran got on so well, like they had known each other for years!!

The two lady camera crew were also brilliant at directing the shots, and then staying well enough back to let myself and Kiran get on with the photoshoot.

Behind the Scenes, Thanks Sukh!

Personally, I think the photos turned out great. It’s been amazing to see them being used in all sorts of marketing. Take a look at a short video clip below, and some more images from the shoot in the gallery a bit further down.

Here is the link to the full eposide on BBC iPlayer A Believers Guite To