Application for a job curating at the IKON gallery

Today I applied for a curating job at the IKON gallery in Birmingham. I don't feel I have the right experience for the job, however I have helped curate a couple of exhibitions at Plymouth College of Art & I do understand the procedure. I feel this is good experience though!

Meeting with my Uncle and his Fiancé

Today I've met with my uncle and his fiancé at their home in Kidderminster to discuss their wedding plans. Despite them telling me 'to do whatever and they will pay my expenses'. I have told them this is vitally important to the job, I want to be as professional as I would be with any potential client and it makes no difference that they are family.  They were extremely impressed with my knowledge of La Brasserie and the registry office in terms of where we could take photographs and that I had spoken to the venue holders. I had also brought along my laptop so we could discuss what types of images they wanted.  I thought this would be good idea as I do not have a wedding portfolio of my own and I wanted to know what kind of style they were looking for.

We've also discussed potentially going to a different location to do a one on one shoot with the bride and groom. My uncle mark wasn't particularly interested, but his fiancé was! So I have put it in my preliminary plan (in my WBL folder) and left it for them to discuss. In the mean time I will be typing up my plan and looking at costs for Wedding books & prints. We have discussed payment for the day and I said I didn't want to be payed for something that I have no experience for and although I do not doubt my ability, it might not be exactly what they want. Instead I asked for my expenses to be paid, for example cost for insurance and ordering their Wedding book, maybe parking. They have also insisted on paying my travel expenses from Plymouth and back again, which I thought was really nice of them and this would really help me out.

I'm now going to write up some form of  'contract' and send it to them to sign

More insurance...

Freelance insure

I got this quote today from a website with pretty much the same website as Coulson Pritchards but its giving me a quote that is £50 cheaper for the year, this would work out at £17.50, this is significantly cheaper than the other quotes so far

Public Liability and Professional Indemnity Insurances

I've been looking at Public Liability and Professional Indemnity Insurances for the date I aim to photograph the wedding. This will cover my liability for any damage I may cause to another person, or property, accidentally whilst undertaking work. This could be a simple accident such as someone falling over a tripod to being “bumped” with a long lens right through to more serious issues that could leave people scarred or disabled for life.It will also cover me for damages to the photography equipment, this is vitally important as the equipment I will be using will probably be rented from the college and is extremely expensive. Indemnity insurance will cover any failure I might have to do my job, for example, the card gets damaged loosing the pictures of the Wedding day. This will cover any claims made against me, protecting my business and providing compensation to the clients. If this scenario was to unfortunately happen, the payout would be costly as Wedding photographs are considered 'irreplaceable'.


From looking around I've only managed to find yearly cover for such things, the basic package, costing around £250 +. Obviously for one Wedding this wouldn't be cost effective. These are the companies I've been in contact with:

Towergate

Coulson Pritchard.

Another option would be one day insurance but this works out at £50 for the one day and doesn't cover me for as much, this is supplied by http://www.events-insurance.co.uk. Going by the quote from Coulson Pritchard, it works out at £260 for the YEAR so this would be approx £21.60 for one months policy (may be slightly more if theres a charge to pay monthly).

I will see what Towergate say when they get back to me.

The Registry Office

I didn't like the idea of only being to one venue, as I had more questions about the registry office and where I could photograph there. So I decided to drive down there and ask a few questions. It turns out that you can't normally photography outside the church next door and I suppose this would look a bit like a lie anyway, as their wedding won't have taken place here. The registry office does have some nice Arches of its own though, big enough to photograph a fairly substantial party of maybe 8 - 10 people. The land outside is also not bad, grass and trees with a clear skyline, this could be a romantic location for me to bare in mind. I feel a bit more relaxed now that there is somewhere to photograph at the venue.

La Brasserie Kidderminster

I rang la Brasserie this morning and asked if I could possibly look at the space that has been hired for the Reception meal so that I can judge what I can achieve photographically. The staff member I spoke too was really friendly and helpful, he explained that the space was fairly empty at current as they move things into the room to the requirements of the event, but I could look anyway. When I go to the venue I was shown the room, I was expecting a small venue as I've been to this restaurant before, I didn't realise this venue had a back room that you can hire for events. A member of staff showed me pictures of the room and how it would be layer out on the day (the pictures that are above). The room looked nothing like these pictures so I was grateful they showed me them as it gave me a great indication of what I could do. This room is called the Wilde Suite and holds 40 people. There is a good amount of light in this room and I can't see how I'd have a problem photographing the guests at the table/speeches/cake cutting. There is no where for the photographers to be taken of the groups or bride or groom but I presume these photographs are being taken at the registry office or outside the church next to the registry office, this will have to be discussed with my uncle and his fiancé in a weeks time. 

Family Portrait Shoot - Tony Cobley

Sunday 25th Of March I went on a family portrait shoot with Tony Cobley as an assistant. This is not something than Tony does often, but advertises them as part of his commercial work and he often sells vouchers during the Christmas period, for these type of shoots. I was extremely excited to go along for this as portraiture is something that I am extremely interested in. Tony explained to me that these type of shoots were extremely rare as many people do prefer to go to a professional studio for photographs as it is less stressful for them and often has a lot more space. The shoot was to take place in the family home of the people we were going to photograph. Tony talked a lot of the way to the location about what was to be expected, which made me feel reassured. He said he aimed to get the typical family shots out the way quickly as this is what everyone wants during these kinds of shoots. He said he would be asking the family what they would be after so that he can make sure he gives them what they want but also he would try and shoot artistic, contemporary shots for the family to look at. On arrival, we met the family and began to set up the studio in the living room. We used a four light set up with a professional white paper backdrop - Tony stated that this was his typical set up for these kind of shoots and also for his portrait work (mostly for professional business portraits), as it keeps the background pristine white without shadow and also hides marks. Tony had pre-set lighting measurements that he usually starts with as it saves time, which I thought was a brilliant idea! After a few test shots of me, Tony was ready to go! It took approximately 1hour to unpack the car and set up the studio, which I thought was reasonable considering there was so much to do. We had given the family paperwork to look over as we set up, which provided them with prices of prints & frames etc. These were all extremely professional looking and I noticed Tony had also snuck his business card in there!

We were photographing two parents & two small children. Because we were photographing children, Tony warmed them up to being photographed by asking them to join in with test shoots and seeing what faces they could pull. By using this as a game they really began to enjoy being photographed, which showed in the photographs. The parents then joined in and we achieved some nice group family shots. I occasionally had to alter lights and sweep the backdrop as dirt got onto the floor. Once the children started to get bored with the games, Tony encouraged them to bring toys into the shots and pose with them, which kept the games going! The youngest boy, got bored extremely quickly so we left him to play with his toys and calm down as he was getting a little stroppy and decided to photograph the parents as they wanted photographs in their skiing gear. They also wanted photographs with their dogs, which proved tricky as the dogs didn't want to sit still, but we tried a couple of times and managed to get a couple of shots with both dogs and both children in.

After the shoot Tony did a quick edit of pictures, cutting out all of the photographs that were blurred, had people blinking in etc and then uploaded all of the photographs to his laptop. He then put the photographs into lightroom and showed them how to make a short list of their favourites. Whilst they looked through the images, we proceeded to take down the studio.

The family had been given a £200 voucher, the shoot was £100 so this left them £100 for prints and/or canvases. Tony talked to them about the prices and what they were looking for. This took a long time as they were extremely indecisive, but Tony explained that this was typical of this kind of shoot as he didn't typically give people the contact sheet, but on this occasion as they were placing a pretty large order that he would send them low resolution copies with his watermark on, for them to choose from and that he would do them a deal once they had selected what they wanted.

Here are some of the images of the day:

I really really enjoyed the day and I felt I was apart of this family afterwards, they were extremely welcoming and friendly. This is the type of business I would be interested to starting. The day was extremely tiring and despite allocating three hours for everything we easily spent an hour to an hour and a half over, as the family were so nice and we spent extra time talking through potential packages that they could have.