The opportunity to photograph the inside of an exceptionally large bendy bus does not present itself that often. Even less often comes the opportunity to photograph one that has an interior built to represent the inside of a home, the suburban street it’s on and the interior of a car. Kitchen, lounge, road, level crossing, car seats and steering wheels all inside a bus so long that it’s hard to imagine how it ever made its way to the Harpenden House Hotel.
The bus is the brainchild of the folks at Liverpool Victoria and the aim is to travel the country helping to educate young children on various safety issues that exist both in the home and on the streets.
A few weeks back it was the turn of the children of St. Dominic’s School, Harpenden who were taken through the bus and shown, room by room, all the things that they should be wary of. From poorly insulated wires, boiling pans, matches, medicines and chemicals through to clothes drying in front of lounge fires and various roadside hazards. The bus and its contents represented a pretty impressive portfolio of accidents just waiting to happen, all in a perfectly safe and secure environment I might add.
From a photographic perspective the shoot represented a number of challenges. Firstly the range of ambient lighting was pretty much full spectrum. From a very bright and contrasty exterior to a sequence of interior rooms that went from fairly bright to virtually completely dark. There were also a number of TV screens and a projector screen that needed capturing along with the ambient lighting etc.
Secondly the cramped conditions inside the bus made for an interesting time when trying to get the right composition. The kids were brilliant however and the LV= guide was exception (I wish I’d got his name) and by the end of the tour we’d managed to get what we were looking for.
We all had a great time, particularly the children. Fun AND educational ….. and a very, very long bus.
On Tuesday I had the great pleasure of joining the chefs of Quantum Care for a day of nutrition training at the Fairway Tavern in Welwyn Garden City. I was impressed with the commitment and knowledge shown on the day and left feeling a little bashful about my own dietary habits. Note to self: more vegetation please.
Of course there was plenty of food on show and here is a small selection of the shots of that particular subject matter:
It’s a very odd feeling, being just about the only person in the Hatfield Galleria, but that’s where I found myself on an early Monday morning. I’d recently received a phone call from the Galleria’s PR firm looking to book a photographer to shoot the complex both internally and externally and I was extremely pleased to secure the assignment. The Galleria is an excellent project and extremely interesting in interior photography terms with many features that demand attention and some quite interesting lighting conditions.
The brief I was given was quite detailed and included the requirement to shoot specific store fronts both with and without shoppers present and to include a fairly comprehensive capture of the Galleria’s branding.
To say I had a blast would be an understatement. I did get a number of funny looks (it’s hard to be discreet lugging around the kind of equipment I had with me) but nothing I wasn’t used to. I even got in to a quite detailed conversation about the gray card and what it was for from a puzzled member of the public.
The whole assignment went swimmingly and I burnt the candle at both ends to ensure that images were processed and available for the PR firm’s close deadline.
I had the great pleasure of photographing a magnificent elderly residential facility recently. Anjulita Court, in Bedford, is a brand new cutting edge project with an interior that must surely be one of the most modern and inviting in the country. Vaulted wooden ceilings, acres of glass and gently curved corridors matched by a lovely indoor swimming pool and a cinema.
The shoot took a day but I could have spent far longer there, trying out different compositions and lenses and just looking for different images. The staff were all lovely and extremely helpful, particularly Karen and John, not to mention the chef who graciously agreed to pose in his kitchen.
Another great project from the people at MHA.
I’ve just completed a product photography assignment for a local Harpenden company looking to re-brand their product range. The brief was to shoot on white at the companies HQ which is where the products were stored so I took along my mobile studio and set up a white infinity curve and a couple of studio strobes.
One interesting thing about this particular shoot was the requirement to brand some of the products with new product logos after the shots were taken. That meant a bit of post production work in the digital studio with all the perspective issues that this kind of thing can raise.
Another issue was that some of the products needed powering up so that the screen displays could be depicted. This required a bit of rigging with wires poking out here and there and these needed removing digitally from the photographs with a bit of reconstruction of various product sections.
It was a great shoot for a great local firm with a lot of discussion and experimentation during the shoot. It’s remarkable how rigid wires develop a life of their own when all you ask them to do is sit still and keep quiet.
I met the most amazing individual on assignment for one of my corporate clients a short while ago. The client wanted some imagery to help them market a new elderly care initiative in one of their homes which required some well lit interior shots of a resident using various pieces of equipment under guidance from a care worker. On the shoot there’s generally a little dead time where people are generally milling around while portable lighting is either being set up or taken down. It was during this time that I struck up a conversation with one of the models, Reg.
Reg, it turns out, is a World War 2 veteran and I was enthralled with his story … a story of early capture in the Mediterranean, 4 years of POW camps, learning to survive, to duck-and-dive, to live on one’s wits and a few brief instructions on how to deal with an unbalanced Polish soldier wielding a bayonet.
He talked and I listened, completely enthralled with his tale. A wonderful man that we all owe a great deal to and I for one took a great deal more away from that assignment than a few flash cards of imagery.
Last week we covered the annual care award ceremony for Gold Care Homes, one of our corporate clients who run a number quality care facilities in the south east of England.
The awards were held at the Bush Hall hotel in Mill Green, Hatfield which was an excellent venue for the ceremony, particularly the dining area which sported a magnificently adorned marquee roof.
There were lots of happy, smiling faces and quite a few award presentations in recognition of the excellent work put in over the year by a number of the carers at Gold Care.
We’ve done quite a bit of work over the past year for Gold Care ranging from interior photography for all of their facilities to event work like this.
We’ve even covered the good work done by their chefs.
We always strive to delivery great imagery and an excellent service to our clients here at MakingImages and it’s always nice when that commitment is recognized by our clients. Last week we were delighted to received a testimonial from MHA, a commercial client that we have worked very closely with over the last six months, delivering imagery for their prestigious property portfolio.
Louise Owen-McGee, MHA’s Creative Services Manager, writes:
“MHA’s position as one of the UK’s leading care providers for older people has been established over 65 years of imaginative commitment and innovation. As an independent charity we are always looking to work with people who have an empathy for our values and an understanding of the aspirations of older people. John Joannides offers both of these qualities, as a specialist care interior photographer. His work is of the highest calibre, evidencing great attention to detail and commitment to delivering work that’s bang on brief every time. His imagery has enabled MHA to better reflect the choice and quality of its services by visually depicting the support, comfort and possibilities that MHA’s accommodation offers.”
MHA have been a delight to work with and their commitment to quality creative imagery and a quality product offering shines through. We’re very grateful to Louise for her kind words.
We’ve added a new interior gallery to the interiors section of the MakingImages web site. Many of the images contained in the gallery were taken during our recent Auchlochan assignment.
PRESS RELEASE: MakingImages completes 27th Care Home Interior Shoot
 |
We’re pleased to announce the completion of our 27th elderly care home interior shoot, the last in a sequence of homes on contract for a major healthcare provider. The contract took us to homes right across Hertfordshire on a strong schedule of shooting, delivering imagery to the client throughout the shoot process.
“When working within the care home market we keep in mind that the properties are not just a place of work. They are primarily the homes of the people who live in them so the whole process needs to be approached with a high level of sensitivity and understanding. Shoots should be planned to cause the minimal amount of disruption which is why we always work closely with home managers, ensuring that rooms are available for shooting when resident demand is at a minimum.” |
MakingImages continues to work within the care home industry, providing quality imagery to healthcare professionals and their clients within the UK.
Contact details:
MakingImages – Photography by John Joannides
t: 07976 651133
e: john@makingimages.co.uk