Burns Rowatt commercial Photography

The Fastest Sign Maker in the North East...

2011-11-21T05:25:00.001-08:00

I've lost count of the number of times I've been told thatphotography must be a great life... I'd be a very rich man if I'd keptcollecting every time I heard that... but the one thing I do cherish is theopportunity it gives to meet some amazing people... talented people... veryfunny people... and people who you'd never think had an alter ego.

Forget Clarke Kent... I'm not talking aboutsomebody who wears his pants over his clothes... but it's just reminded me I forgotto mention the "weird" people that I've also met through photography.That's an entirely different subject! No what I meant are those people you talkto, who you drink a coffee with... then they drop the bombshell and tell youtheir secret.

For a number of years I've chatted to Paul Moss, as he worked fora sign makers not far from the studio who we've occasionally used forprojects... indeed we've even bumped into each other at north east karting circuits...whilst taking part in charity events, and laughed that we know each other. WhatI didn't realise was his alter ego... "The Fastest Sign Maker in Darlington!"

You see it was only when Paul decided to start his owncompany that he bought a van, as most businesses do, and using his obviousability decided to create his own livery... and that's when I realised that Paulhas been Northern Saloon Car Champion 3 of the last 4 years. He's just missedout on the title this year by 2 points, and wants it back next year!

Former NCSS Champion Paul combines his business with hisalter ego as a professional race driver and display/stunt driver... and if youwant to see what I mean check out this award winning Ad for Audi R8 convertible,where he and his colleagues from Paul Swift Stunts are millimetre perfect on slick concrete flooring,just inches from a very expensive new car...

My interest in cars is well know to all who know me, so my apologies to Paul for wasting so much of his time talking about somethingwe both love... and which only one of us is good enough to get paid to enjoy...he's a luck so and so! To in some way recompense him for the time wasted, notto say have some fun I offered to take some images for the new website he is havingbuilt, which brought us to a windy cold Croft circuit...

After these shots were taken he suffered a serious enginefailure... I still don't know the full costs, but I guess "if he wont say,then I don't want to know" is the way you approach it... which pretty muchended hopes of championship success this year... and no I didn't touch anything!

Halloween...

2011-10-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year already, where our young girls thought's turn to... sweets, chocolate... oh and more sweets! It must be all of minutes since the subject was last mentioned by one or the other!

They have been planning their "trick or treating" for some time now... trying on the dresses they will wear and choosing which bucket (oh yes, you read that correctly) they will use to hold their stash of goodies!

Mum's choice of suitable gifts for their young friends, who may dare to call at our door, has also been under investigation... they tried to get a sample for testing purposes but Mum was wise to that "trick!"

Thankfully they have no intention of being anything other than charming and cute when they visit our neighbours... "tricks" just aren't in their mind... but make sure you have sweets to hand as the sound of a very small "Mad Midget" who doesn't get the same as her older sister ( it's just soooo not fair! ) could definitely be classed as a very nasty Halloween surprise !

Now to explain to the neighbours exactly what I was doing lying out on the front lawn...

Happy Halloween Erin and Freya

Journey to "the Land of Flatness..."

2011-10-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

What can I say I didn't invent the title, but when I heardour client ask whether we'd made it to "the land of flatness yet?"lets just say I've not been able to get it out of my head since...

Now this will not be my usual blog post, for one thing Ican't really show any pictures from the project... as my client has plans...secret plans... so if I told you they'd kill me!

However for all those who contacted me, saying that I mustbe on holiday... as my phone was suddenly giving a very European ring tone...no, sorry all those bad jokes and cruel comments were wide of the mark... I WASWORKING !

In actual fact we'd been working hard for over a week beforewe set off, checking equipment, checking equipment... and checking equipmentagain! A recent client suggested I was a little OCD about my gear... no wonder,we were travelling over 500 miles to another country so we'd best not forgetanything! However for safety sake I also took probably more than I wouldneed... which proved very useful!

Anyway we were travelling by car, as the client quicklyrealised the "excess baggage" would probably need them to have a longsit down! Customs at the port of Hull were clearly in abit of a "moody", to say the least, but when the customs officer looked inside thecar she quickly backed off... had "we packed all this yourself"indeed! Any search of the car would havekept her at work late into the night!

Geography was always an interest when I was at school, indeed I can often seem tohave the ability of a "homing pigeon"... where food is concerned!However having left the dockside in Hullwe were still moving down the Humber Estuary nearly 2 hours later... Hull may be a port but it's not close to the North Sea!

Anyway after a great night at sea... it was great becausethe sea was calm... we docked in Holland anddrove to Arnhemwithout problem... and very little traffic! A quick call to the client fromoutside in the car park was greeted with the memorable line... "so you'vemade it to the Land of Flatness then!"

Pictures... nothing much, just pallets of our gear... "yeah, we packed that all ourselves, what do you think!"... the client very kindly arranged a forklift to get all the gear up to the level we were working on... the ferry leaving Amsterdam... Oh and some beautiful woman who got herself in front of the lens, eh Claire !

To "InterNorga" inity and beyond....

2011-07-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

Ok, Ok... bad title... apologies to Buzz, Woody, Jessie and all who have to sit through / watch Toy Story at least once everyday as I do at present, but you get the principal I'm sure...

I wish I could blame the girls love of all things Toy Story for my addiction to cartoons... they are certainly wearing a grove in this set of disks... but I was raised on Tom and Jerry... the "full fat", flat iron in the face, hammer on the toes version... not the "skimmed milk" version of now... but that's another blog post for another day!

Anyway back to the world of photography...!

It's always great to be asked to contribute to the ideas which form a client's Brief and even better to be acknowledged as having something to contribute! Not always the case at present, particularly with those have come to believe that photographers are only "data capture technicians" without any artistic skills or creativity of there own... that's right you in the back row, with the purple shirt and glasses who believe that composition, lighting, perspective and colour are all just "drop down" menu's in a photo application, I mean you!

We were recently sent a really great idea, just an outline on paper but full of possibilities, for one of our more creative clients... and asked for our input. Really should have remembered to think carefully before I replied... but what the heck...

They wanted to run a teaser campaign in the run up to the launch of a new product range, timed for the largest trade fair of their year... to highlight the artistic, creative nature of a new range of... plates !

Never mentioned a sports car, supermodel or pop band did I... so why are you surprised about the brief being crockery?

Anyway we knocked a few ideas back and forward, about art galleries, abstract art (yes really, Picasso if you want to know!) and exhibitions... oh and the product will be with you tomorrow and we need this shot by the end of the week! Never said this was going to be a month in the Maldives did I...

The result was a Brief that I was really interested to shoot, that I felt I'd helped contribute to positively, and an agency and client who were really pleased with the result.

How you support all those plates and bowls, not to mention tomatoes and asparagus without visible supports... or the need for complex montage or retouching... well that's what makes us more than just data capture technician doesn't it! Wish I had a "behind the scenes" shot of the rig but lets just say that my "photographers Meccano set" came in useful, as did a couple of roles of gaffer tape! And it's fun to chase tomatoes rolling across the studio floor... certainly more fun than standing in the one that got away!

The sequence of images ran across 4 separate Ad's prior to INTERNORGA, in Hamburg Germany, the European market... and were then picked up and used again by the South African side of the business, for an event they were displaying at later in the year. I bet none of those that saw the images knows ( or cares! ) where Darlington is, or that it's in the UK but that's just the power of what we do... work with great people to create great ideas and make clients happy!

So many thanks to Louise and Ruth, at Wildfire, for the Brief and putting up with my rambling suggestions, scribbled drawings and our "wonderful test shots" which were laid out across the studio floor... and to John at CARLISLE for letting us all go with the idea... Thanks Guys!

Set Building... Or some things are just best done in a studio...

2011-05-27T02:21:00.000-07:00

Some wiser photographer than me once said "...photography is 95% preparation and 5% creativity..." We can all argue as to the correct percentage split, as it depends on what aspect of photography we are involved in, but the principal is correct. To be prepared leaves you free to concentrate on being creative with the subject you are shooting...

We get asked to tackle some complex projects at the studio and building room sets is pretty high on the list. In this case we did this job sometime ago but as part of preparations for a couple of new projects... shh don't ask, or this blog post will self destruct... we have produced a video which shows some of the basics behind the process. As you'll see preparation is the key.

We had a very specific idea of what we wanted the pictures to look like. It was agreed with the client building a set was the only way to ensure that vision would become a reality. Too often, the outcome of a photo shoot can be left to chance. Hoping the lights will fit in the room, or that the walls will be the colour you want, or that there won’t be an ugly picture on the wall.

There are a million little things like this which have an effect on the outcome of the final image... something clients can often not appreciate when they suggest you shoot in the showroom or customers home! Do you cross your fingers and hope the location you are shooting happen to have colours and furniture that go with the concept you have in mind, or do you prepare all these details before hand? Guess which is less stressful...

With 12 large, heavy, expensive marble and stone fireplaces to shoot there was just no possibility of shooting these on location... either in the client's showroom which had limited space or in customer home's... which might have some very dodgy decor! The only solution was building, lighting and propping a sequence of room sets.... so out with the hammer, the screwdriver, the timber and the paint... not to mention the flooring...

Weddings, Parties, Stag Do's, Hiking Holidays and your Business Profile

2011-05-05T03:30:00.000-07:00

I was invited to speak last night to a group of local businesses at Darlington Business Club, as part of a presentation on social media. I was following Claire Mitchell of 19Marketing, the group Chair, who spoke about social media, what it meant and how it could form part of each and every business marketing plan.

I was there to share some examples of why everybody should think carefully about the images they use... particularly as a "Profile Image".

I didn't need to say much just pull a few "horrors" from that well known professional networking link site... business owners and directors using party pictures holding large drinks complete with fruit and umbrellas... the works! Then there was the commercial director of a large insurance company using his hiking holiday picture... complete with shorts! The marketing and advertising executive pictured on holiday, slumped in an airport chair looking bored, bored, bored! ( I know that feeling! ). Perhaps the one Profile Image which brought the house down was the web development director pictured acting the monkey up a tree!

You only have to think of the number of images that hit you on a given day, and how efficient you are at making subconscious assessments based on image content and style to realise the full implications. We all do it everyday... so what does your image say about you?

Perhaps as photographers we could all blame the rise of the "IPhone-O-Matic mug shot machine" but really I think it comes down to the fact that often business people don't realise the audiencesuch images will reach through any of the social media platforms.

Indeed I've heard from others that some companies are actually using employee I.D.badge photos as avatars for their Twitter folks, on Facebook pages or LinkedIn Profiles... Talk about being "penny-wise and pound-foolish!"

Having said that a quick trip to the local "omnipresent"supermarket is guaranteed to raise a smile... just look at the Customer Service Board with pictures of the Manager, Head of Vegetables, Baker etc... seriously they expect us to buy our food from them... yikes!

My part of the evening finished with an audience question on Copyright and Photography... foolish, foolish... I had to warn the audience that I had "form" on this subject and they'd best be prepared not to see family and friends for days... the last time I got into that subject myself and an interested group were the last one's in the bar and I don't think the glazed expressions were "liquid induced!" It was really interesting to see that the creatives in the room knew the score, but some of the other businesses represented didn't realise what was right and wrong.

Anyway it was a great experience, many thanks to Claire for the invitation and just to "keep this photography" below are a few portraits created for my clients...

Photography... Not expensive, it's priceless... Pt1... of many!

2011-04-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

Funny thing time, I always seem to remember things as having happened just recently when in fact they took place years ago... I know, I know it's an age thing! I've said before if I remember to bring the shopping home I've done well...

Anyway I opened the local Chamber of Commerce magazine this month, looked through the articles as I usually do and stopped... below was a shot I recognised.

I remember this shoot well, the rushed deadline (aren't they always), a late Friday afternoon appointment (always a great time for interaction and expression!) and being interested in the company's role in supporting the National Lottery ( I even put a ticket on that week, thought perhaps the gods would be kind... but no luck... typical!).

It was important to fit the layout... I had a quick look at them as I wrote this as I still have them on file... as this was part of a longer series. I struggled to suppress some nasty green fluorescents in the roof without switching off all the lights and provoking all manner of "anti-photographer" outbursts and managed to hit city rush hour traffic without trying... Friday night, trying to cross The Tyne... oh joy...

However the thing I'd forgotten was that this was 5 years ago... and the Ad is being run again!

So when earlier this week I had another client comment on the cost of photography I had to point out the value and the benefit it brings... well it does if it's mine!

The Midnight Munchies...

2011-03-14T04:31:00.001-07:00

Do you ever wake in the night... there is something lurking out there, but you can't quite describe it... you can feel it inside you... you know it's there... then it strikes you... hunger!

Me, I sleep through most things... a 2 year old with a keen desire to communicate her love for her parents at the top of her lungs doesn't wake me... though an elbow in the ribs apparently works!

However if I were to wake I imagine that in my semi conscious state, with difficulty in forming coherent thoughts... no change there I hear some cry... then I might be very impressed to open the bedside drawer to find a selection of suitable chocolate confectionary.

Sadly this will never happen to me... living in a house with 3 females prevents any chance of chocolate making it to it's "sell by date"... but I know a hotel that will cater for those midnight munchies...

After 5 years, almost exactly to the day, we returned recently to the Wensleydale Heifer, near West Witton in Wensleydale, to create new imagery of the additional new rooms and latest menu dishes.

The new rooms all have individual themes, as did the original rooms created when the Heifer opened, now including "the Chocolate Room" where the bedside drawers, cupboards, framed prints, bathroom murals and decor all pay tribute to chocolate... sweet dreams!

We had so much fun, working once again with David, Lewis, Chris and the rest of the team there that I'll post again... more tk...

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T07:05:00.000-08:00

It's that time again... hope you haven't forgotten that "special someone".... I know, I know they really should know how you feel about them... roses are for wimps, secret declarations of love are for "chickens"... so go on do something really different whilst you still have the chance...before you land in the dog house don't stop at the petrol station for flowers, I have a better solution... check out Claire's Blog and contact her at the studio for further details...

Just call me Jonathon...

2011-02-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

I must be honest, very rarely do commercial clients turn up at the studio “on spec”… indeed such a “well kept secret” are we that often clients require the services of our in-house “traffic controllers” just to find the car park!

So when sculptor Michael Kutz opened the door and walked in, carrying a large cardboard box, he was lucky not to get treated like the other parcel couriers… which we almost thought he was! That he’d driven down from his studio in The Dales on the off-chance that we’d be around… well he’s an artist!

I have to say that that the contents of the box were amazing… Michael creates dramatic, stylised but very animated sculptures of animals… real and imaginery… from metal… and somehow brings them to life. After that first visit we agreed that in the future we’d make arrangements to guarantee he didn’t waste a journey. Which is what gets us to his later visit, another cardboard box… much larger this time…

This was a beautiful sculpture, designed in The Dales, but cast by master craftsmen in Thailand, of what I called a sea monster. As we were just about to start another project this sculpture sat quietly in the studio for a few days, whilst I wondered how I’d light something which seemed to reflect the entire studio!

Needless to say I quickly christened it “Nessie”… you can take the boy out of Scotland, but not the ancestry out of the boy… which we thought was quite appropriate given the rising, curling swirls of it’s body… it appeared to be leaping out of the water…

So when Michael returned to collect his beautiful work and review the images we’d created I had to mention his new name… but Michael had beaten us to it… apparently he’s called Jonathon!

2011-01-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

Hi, Welcome to 2011...

Where did 2010 go... did anybody see where it went...? Well it's been and gone now so I wonder what 2011 has in store?

I really appreciate the support we get from clients, suppliers and friends...some are even now all 3, which is amazing... Thank You All.

New Year's Resolutions... made a few, broke most already, but there is only one that matters "I must post to this BLOG"... there are things from last year that I've yet to post... post processing and client releases can be more time consuming than is often appreciated... and new things happening... but I can't say what... just yet!

Anyway... here we go...

2010-08-02T09:07:00.000-07:00

“In memory of…”

Why do I take photographs… why do I put myself through the mental torture… because I get to go where others can’t, talk to people who I’d never get to meet without a camera in my hand and get to indulge my curiosity…

So there I was standing in a “tin hut” with a stillness and a quiet calm that defied understanding… not that it looked much from the outside, but this tin hut had a story to tell.

Apparently it originally lived on a shipyard on the banks of the Tyne, a mission chapel and a social club for the workers. When it’s days there were over it was dismantled and rebuilt in a suburb of a small North East town, as a church and community centre.

The walls were still lined with horsehair insulation, beneath the “modern” tin panels… perhaps that’s what made it so still and calm inside, amidst the memories of countless church services, children’s excited laughter, Saturday afternoon jumble sales…

But for a few short hours I had the small hall all to myself, just me, a camera, a tripod and the still silence… oh and the bright, but cloudy sky that through those windows gave a glorious simple light that seemed to match the mood…

And the Winner is...

2009-07-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Anybody who knows me well know’s I’m just a big kid at heart… and I like “big boys toys”… indeed whilst writing this I’ve had one eye on Colt Trickle and his "Days of Thunder"… I could sit and watch the opening sequence of Top Gun all day… cheesy, but Ridley Scott did it best and he was first…

So of course I saw a “tank cleaner” by the side of the motorway one afternoon, the water and steam backlit by the setting sun and I could here that soundtrack… O. Winston Link would have felt right at home with the scene… just wished I wasn’t in the outside lane headed somewhere else…

So a year later, we are standing in the transport yard of another large tanker fleet, myself and my assistant, fluorescent vests our “body armour” against the shiny, smoke breathing monsters of the road…

“Our tanker” pulls into the tank cleaner, the driver jumps out but the engine is still running…
” because we never stop the engine, the trucks only here for 15 minutes so we can clean the tank and change drivers!”

And the world stopped, like I’d dropped through the shiny surface of my well laid plans into the ice cold reality… Oh my mother wouldn’t have liked the words I used…

So my mental plan to light the whole scene with mono heads went out the window… more like crashed through the window like a movie bar brawl gone wrong…

Where to go but into the depth of my memory, back to a day long ago and a lecturer waving a hot light around in the grand rooms of a stately house… using a small light source… and to a hotel boiler room and Len Dance, a small very dapper East End London boy and his hand held Metz flashguns…

That’s the joy of the digital world we live in now, what was once too costly to contemplate is now possible, so to contemplate not doing it is not an option…

So we lit this shot with one Metz on a VAL… voice activated light stand… an acronym invented by others for a frantic photographer and a verbally abused assistant controlled through a mixture of shouted commands and frantic hand waving to direct the light onto parts of the image as each “plate” was shot separately to be comped together later. I can even remember staring at the little 1.5” wide screen on the camera and watching each frame appear… good grief that was only 3 years ago and my phone now has a bigger screen!

But on a night in the Newcastle Hilton Hotel Claire and I took our seats at a front row table of the British Professional Photographers Awards… but I don’t do subtle hints… ask Claire!

And the winner is, "local photographer"… so I find myself standing on the stage, certificate and winners paperweight in hand, but talking to the compare Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet… too surprised to look at the 300 people applauding my back !

At the table next to me… Len Dance… had to tell him he was responsible for my success… I can still remember his demonstration 15 years later… just wish I’d remembered to bring the milk home today!

Do we do this thing we do for awards… I for one would never sleep… do we do it for the recognition… or do we do it for that little voice in our heads which screams “this is the shot, you saw this before, SHOOT IT!”

But as I stood on the hotel balcony, looking at the Quayside lights and the paperweight in my hand I had to phone my parents and tell them there boy was “Commercial Photographer of the Year”…

One day a year like this will see me right...

2009-07-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember song titles… it’s just not something I can do, I can’t usually remember where I put the car keys most days!

But I can remember how I lit individual pictures, who was there in the studio or on location, what I did to make the image happen… but remebering the names of musicians or bands I like… hell freezing over will happen first!

But I remember every word of this song, by the band Elbow, if you really want to know… I remember the road I was driving along, I remember the sunshine, the clear blue sky… and I remember the date Friday 6th March… the day my daughter Freya was born.

So indulge me, as a new father, that the first image on this blog is not some client’s project but my daughter… Freya India Burns Rowatt… and taken by her mother Claire.

So… where do I begin?

2009-06-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

It’s been sometime coming but finally we’ve jumped in and launched this new website. The sensation right now is pretty much the same as when I pick up the camera in the studio or on location. What is this all about? Where do I begin?

That of course is just the beginning of all the questions that then crowd my brain at the start of any new project…usually not so politely pushing for space, limited processing power…

But I now have a blog to bleather away on, as my dear scottish granny would have said. Hope to be amusing…unlikely, informative… possibly and occasionally even relevant. So from now on you’ll be able to see sneak previews of my shoots, and some of the background behind what I do to create those images.

I hope you enjoy the blog and looking at the fantastic images. If you have something to say great, leave a message, or just enjoy looking through the blog…

So here goes…