Digital Signage by Scala
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a company in Holland who specialise in digital signage hardware and software called Scala. They were hosting their global conference in London, which coincided with an event called the NEC Showcase, an, err...showcase, for all the big players in the digital signage industry.
The Scala conference took place in Timber Lodge, a great cafe in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, which also has a function room available for private events like this. It was a beautiful day in the Olympic Park. The sun was shining with a smattering of puffy white clouds. Following an afternoon of presentations, brilliantly linked up by a Danish magic-performing compere, the conference delegates were led on a tour of the Westfield shopping centre, punctuated with stops to talk about the digital signage technology. I can safely say prior to this day I had never thought twice about screens in retail locations, but when you're conscious of it, you notice them everywhere.
The following day I spent several hours at the NEC Showcase, which was a great event held at the Lee Valley Velodrome, again in the Olympic Park. The showcase took place in the middle of the cycling track, which was cool. Visitors to the conference were allowed, if they booked in advance, to have a go on a bike riding around the track. I was a little jealous, I must admit.
Anyway, thank you to the guys at Scala for getting in touch. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the event(s).
Secret Escapes PR Portraits
Diffusion PR asked me along to one of their clients, Secret Escapes, to take photos of their executive team for use in the media.
I arrived at the Secret Escapes office in Farringdon hoping that it would be a warehouse style office with lots of exposed brickwork everywhere. It turned out the office was a fairly normal open plan office with some funky touches like beach ball lampshades.
Knowing that they wanted the Secret Escapes logo in the photos, I had assumed there would be somewhere in the office which we could easily use as a backdrop. Walking into the boardroom there was a very cool feature wall at one end with a whole load of postcard-like images tiled, one next to the other. No Secret Escapes logo, however! What they presented me with was a old, used, scruffy board mounted logo, which we blu-tacked onto the wall. It was covered in marks and was also highly reflective, which made the photos quite tricky. The whole process, as is often the case with these kinds of shoots, was a bit rushed, so I had to deal with a lot of issues in post production.
In some cases I had to remove the sign and replace it with a digital version!
You can see some of my favourite shots from the shoot below.
Getty Images Gallery
A little while ago I had some chat back and forth with a random photographer on Twitter. I looked at his portfolio and I was really impressed. Miles Willis is a freelance photographer who is part of the Getty Images Global Assignment Team, and he has made some brilliant images for an impressive range of clients.
As a result I was happy when Miles got in touch to ask if I was around one day to help out with a corporate shoot as both an assistant and a second shooter. The shoot was a full-on day of photography for Getty Images Gallery. The gallery, based in Soho on Eastcastle Street in London, is a showpiece for beautiful photographs that are part of the vast Getty Images archive. It's also a great space for events, be they private parties or business functions. It is the event space which Miles and I were tasked with photographing.
Starting early in the morning, our first task was to capture the gallery space empty, without anyone in it and with just a few people. The gallery was holding a dinner party in the evening for about 40 people, so throughout the day the space became busier and busier as tables arrived, more staff arrived and eventually guests arrived. The catering company were also keen to have their own promotional photos taken, so there was more than one client in this instance.
During the day, Miles and I did almost every different type of photography imaginable - interiors photography, exteriors photography, product photography, food photography, event photography, PR photography and Miles also did some amazing 360 panoramas. Check out the panoramas he does on his website - very cool.
Having arrived before 9am, we ended up leaving the gallery at 10.30pm. It was a long, exhausting but ultimately rewarding day. Here's a selection of the shots from the day - most of them were taken by Miles with my assistance but there are a few reportage style shots I squeezed in during the event in the evening.
Andy Tyler Photography - Ambient Light Only
Andy Tyler Photography - Ambient Light Only
Andy Tyler Photography - Ambient Light Only
Andy Tyler Photography - Ambient Light Only
Andy Tyler Photography - Ambient Light Only
Andy Tyler Photography - Ambient Light Only
Business Seminar Photography in London
I was asked along by Collas Crill Trust to the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge, London, to take some formal PR photos of some key people at a seminar that the trust was sponsoring. As they only has a small boardroom available for the seminar, there wasn't room inside for the photos, so a big thanks to the hotel staff who allowed me to set up a couple of umbrellas and lights in the relatively small hotel lobby area, which was beautifully decorated with flowers. The photos as a result were nice and colourful compared to some business seminar photography.
