Dare Party As a photographer it’s hard to decide what I enjoy most. Is it seeing people fling themselves into the whole festive season with wild, wanton abandon, CEO’s doing the Runnning Man on the dancefloor or bopping to tracks by Bob Marley? Is it seeing people drink enough alcohol in celebrating their achievements to become automatic members of AA? Or is it seeing some teams bond with sincerity with a good old fashioned board meeting? Maybe it’s the look on the Secretary’s face as she decides whether she’ll accept or decline the 7^th dance offer of the night. Some companies go the whole hog; whole fancy dress, DJ sound system while others go for the quiet drink.  

Either way as photographer one of the biggest compliments I regularly receive from my clients is on my personable nature with people and highly professional attitude. Put it simply, I just love people and love to have fun. In the field of photography this means that in events I get invited to take a lot of snaps purely because I am approachable and people come up to me (even when I am setting up) and say ‘hey, can you take a snap of me and…my girlfriend/my boss/my ceo/me defacing this wall/my tattoo on my left bumcheek’ etc. Equally, because I work quickly and I’m unobtrusive I get in and out of groups quickly, taking snaps that most people don’t realise until after.

Dare Party Last week I was out covering two events and in one case they had their own ‘company issue’ photographer as well. Working the event was real fun. I am a true team player and work as such; I didn’t see them as competition as we were on the same side which was keeping the client happy as that was going to be most important at the end of the day. But I watched him and it was such a shame that despite the fact he had all the gear, he simply had no idea how to communicate with people. He also fell a little bit flat because when you are taking shots in a dark environment such as the arena of a club, you should be checking your shots back often as the lighting radically changes moment to moment. Also in contrast to popular belief you don’t ‘always’ need a flash which is great for ‘freezing action’ but terrible at sucking the life and colour out of people’s faces.

I could see the surprise on people’s faces when they were asking me ‘why didn’t the flash go off?’ and then when I showed them the image they were like ‘WOW’. Now, the use of flash is a very personal choice, but for me I like ambient light and save my flash for times when there is little other choice for example portraits of the team by the bar. Anyway, all of this meant that I got invited to take some very limited edition snaps of the CEO drinking what must have been her 12^th shot of the night which unfortunately I cannot share – personable and professional remember…

Dare Party Now the professional part means as a photographer I work very quickly. As of my last count there were over 250 usable shots for each event for just the few hours I was there which means that my rates are very competitive. The only disadvantage being that Onedrive and Dropbox really suffers when it comes to uploading them as I shoot in hi-res (4.5GB upload anyone?) so it can take time to get a link to the client. But when the client sees the shots, that’s when I get the emails of thanks and the only shame is I never get to see people’s faces when they see the shots themselves because if what they tell me is true then they effectively relive the moment which can only be an incredible thing.

Anyhow I am going to leave my blog here and get back to editing the snaps. If you want to see examples of my Event photography click on this link and if you are interested in booking me head over to the Prices section by clicking on this link.

Best wishes for now

Jnr