So, when an agency from Stockholm asked me to do some industrial photography at an engineering works in Somerset I have to admit to having checked the email for signs of spam. And yes people did suggest that Stockholm itself would be nice to photograph. Whilst I agree with this I’m not complaining, I love shooting this kind of work.

Great Photography Briefs

The brief was detailed and extensive. I will just run that by you again in a Christopher Walken style. The brief, was detailed, and, extensive.

By detailed I mean:

  • Photographic shooting style

  • The nature of the depth of field

  • Desired photography aspect ratio (landscape or portrait)

  • Intended use of the images

  • Ideal content of the images

and by exetensive I mean:

  • Contact details in Sweden

  • Contact details in UK

  • Invoicing needs (e.g. – ref)

  • Logistics

This all helps, from the photographer’s point of view it removes doubt and aids focus. There was more to the brief but you get the idea I’m sure.

Documentary Style engineering Shots

The agency are documenting online educational resources supplied by a tooling company and wishing to record the workforce benefitting from this free resource. They didn’t want posed photography, they were looking for real-world images which I guess is why I was contacted in the first instance. It’s very easy to go into a situation such as this, hand out some lovely fresh overalls and chuck a nice set of plans over to ‘look at’ earnestly but when this happens naturally it shows, it looks natural (I think).

If possible I try not to use flash whilst documenting engineering work. Whilst it would undoubtedly make the photography easier it would almost certainly affect people’s ability to check a machine, there would be potential safety issues that my safety posts an hi-viz would struggle to deflect.

At the end of the day it’s not just about what I think; if the client’s happy I’m happy.

Thank you for the images, we are really happy with them. You can expect a call from us whenever we, or any of our colleagues, have an assignment in your area. Very professional.

Kind regards from Sweden