Posts Tagged ‘Photography’

15.01.2013

Pot-ography – Artist snaps rocky roads in ‘hole’ new light

With cold weather snaps and local spending cuts, Britain is struggling to keep up with road maintenance. And while most people, including myself(!), complain often about the state of our roads, one artist is making light of this on-going issue.

Davide Luciano, a conceptual and fine-art photographer and filmmaker based in New York, has released a project entirely focused on those pesky street cavities. Inspired after his car was damaged when he ran over a pothole in his home town, Davide used real props and people to create works of art from the ‘canyon-sized’ crater[s]. To see Davide’s work, including pot holes revolutionised into a winemaker’s basket, a bowl for Spaghetti Bolognese, an oven, and a pond,  please click here.

While it may not revoke that frustration at seeing further flaws on our roads, it’s a breath of fresh air to see one person create works of art out of the problem. And although it probably won’t trigger councils to do anything about the potholes any time soon, to see them transformed into champagne buckets, a swimming pool, and wash basin, is one way to channel the frustration.

 

Post by Daisy Bambridge, Production Support @ TNR Communications

 

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26.11.2012

Everyphoto, Everywhere…

Working on the TNR photo desk we’re used to covering numerous jobs every day of the week. However it’s rare to get 11 commissions from the same client on the same day. But that’s what we found ourselves working on for the launch of Everything Everywhere 4G last month.

 

 

Formed following the merger of Orange and T-Mobile, Everything Everywhere, or EE, launched their new 4G network services on 30th Oct and we were on hand to photograph the event at their stores in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Southampton and Manchester.

We have a great team of experienced photographers based throughout the UK who we speak to regularly, but it was unusual to be working with so many of them on the same project at the same time.

All the photographers sent their images in, from site, to our office in London, where our photo editors co-ordinated the project. Here, the shots were edited and immediately forwarded to the client city by city for local activity. Meanwhile the best shots were offered to our colleagues on the main Press Association Picture Wire, with 26 shots in total being issued on the PA Wire, making them available to every national and regional newspaper and news providers in the UK. Images were used in the Daily Star, The Independent and other regional and online titles.

The team then made up DVDs of all images from each location for reference, so the client had a comprehensive record of every shot from each location.

It wasn’t all about still photos; we also shot a ‘Videocall’ of the London store launch.

 

 

A great project to have been involved in. Although inevitably so much of the media work we do is based in and around London, as part of Press Association, TNR prides itself  on its reach across the UK and Ireland. EE’s 4G launch was proof that not everything and not everywhere is inside the M25.

 

Post by Tim Kerr, Joint Managing Director @ TNR Communications

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18.05.2011

Gardening, Political Rapping and Tube Travelling: Just another two weeks at TNR

After a serendipitous meeting on a train with TNR’s managing director, Claire Southeard (an anecdote which had my friends and family reeling off National Rail ‘networking’ jokes for weeks), I was fortunate enough to find myself with two weeks of work experience at TNR in London.

As a second year at Leeds University I was used to the questions about what I was going to do out in the big wide world, but I hadn’t given any career that much thought, and if I’m honest I hadn’t given PR any thought at all – I was one of those philistines who didn’t understand the difference between PR and advertising before researching TNR before my placement! So when the opportunity presented itself to do some work experience my first reaction was that at the very least I could cross out a potential future career while adding some much needed padding to my CV. Little did I know how excited the team at TNR were going to get me about the world of PR and Media – or how much I was going to love it. Far from cross out another potential career path, they inspired me to draw a big red circle around PR.

The team gave me a great initial view of what they do by allowing me to sit in on a meeting between their New Business Consultant and one of their Directors with the Press Office of a massive UK company – during which they explained what great services they offer and why they are so effective – one of the main reasons being their links with the Press Association and thus their privileged access to the PA News, Photo and Video wire. I was also sent out on a photo shoot of  some very cute children, pictured gardening with Chris Collins, allowing me to see how a photograph can capture and promote a key idea effectively – and how to successfully plant lavender!

Television gardener Chris Collins for PlantforLife's Sensory Challenge

Television gardener Chris Collins for PlantforLife's Sensory Challenge

I was also sent out with a Press Association reporter to film an interview (and some highly entertaining dance sequences!) with the cast and crew of a new hip-hop and rap political satire musical about Nick Clegg and the last year in politics – all of which gave me a great view of what the ‘fun bits’ of working at TNR were like. In short; fantastic! Nor did the team try and hide the realities of working in PR from me; I’ve watched them trawling through Gorkana to keep up with the latest PR news and catalogued tapes, but I would hardly count those things as ‘not-fun bits’, just not quite as funny as a hip hop musical about Nick Clegg, and in all honesty that’s fairly hard to beat.

As well as sending me out on some very exciting shoots the team also helped me get around London and navigate the labyrinth that is the Tube – which is a truly exasperating experience for a northerner! Tim was kind enough to print me out train times and updated travel information when he sent me out on a shoot and on my first day I left the office laden with ‘tube tips’ from Fran, for example ‘always get on the very front or very back of a train’ and ‘don’t make eye contact’ – apparently striking up friendly conversation on the tube simply isn’t done. The odd (and quite frankly rude) behaviour of the other commuters on the tube only served to highlight the friendliness and warmth of the TNR team – half the enjoyment of any job seems to be who you work with, and this was definitely true of the team at TNR.

To sum up  – during my two weeks at TNR I learned a great deal; not just about the world of PR and media in general, but about useful things such as how not to fear the tube, the correct way to drink tea, that everyone loves photography (even if its just a little bit),  and so much more. The experience has been invaluable and I simply cannot thank the team enough for everything.

Post by Helen Scurr (Work Experience Intern April 2011)

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Posted in Photography, PR, Video | 1 Comment »

03.03.2011

The Hipstamatic Camera iPhone App

The Hipstamatic camera iPhone app was one of the most well reviewed & most downloaded iPhone apps of 2010.

Becoming the cool app of choice the Hipstamatic lets an iPhone camera create square Polaroid style images soaked in over saturated colours, washes, blurs and other suchlike effects. All producing a treasure trove of photos more akin to an attic shoebox of 1970′s holiday snaps than modern digital images.

A similar retro style has been utilised by bands such as Kings of Leon and The Vaccines. The Hipstamatic received arguably its biggest stamp of approval when the Damon Albarn, used the look for photos that accompanied each individual song on his Gorrillaz iPad recorded album ‘The Fall’ released as a free fan download on Christmas Day.

Even more notably the app was also used by New York Times photographer Damon Winter to document the day-to-day lives of US soldiers in northern Afghanistan. In reaching for his iPhone rather than his full professional kit Winter succeeded in producing a body of work that physically and emotionally illustrated the war in a new way. Classic square format compositions combined with Hipstamatic effects seemed to  portray a conflict and a landscape in limbo between past and present.

On a less serious note, the Hipstamatic app also comes with it’s own retro history myth. Its developers Ryan Dorshorst and Lucas Buick claiming it came about as a tribute to long lost cottage industry camera enthusiasts Bruce and Winston Dorbowski who in the early 1980′s holed up in a Wisconsin cabin developing new cheap plastic cameras with interchangeable lenses. With just 157 prototypes made they were both killed in a road accident, their legacy kept alive by a reclusive younger brother until Dorshorst and Buick came calling.

Like the Hipstamtic images themselves the story is not a little blurry but as a viral marketing ploy it’s added some entertaining hipster hoaxing that Joaquin Phoenix could learn from. The myth then took on a myth of it’s own when it was claimed that Dorshorst and Buick weren’t real either…

Either way the Hipstamatic app fits with both our incessant demand for speed, convenience and novelty with a hankering after something tangible and personal. There has always been a lingering fear amongst some photography enthusiasts that digital would destroy the nostalgia that good film photography inherently carried. If so the Histamtic app is perhaps the perfect resolution.

The Orange Dot Gallery in London brought Hipstamatic photography out of the online world by hosting a full exhibition of Hipstamatic based photos. Showcasing 157 prints (as a nod to the Dorbowski brothers story) at their Bloomsbury space.

http://hipstamaticapp.com/
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/finding-the-right-tool-to-tell-a-war-story/
 http://www.orangedotgallery.co.uk/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/hipstamatic/

Post by Tim Kerr (Head of Photography @ TNR Communications)

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15.12.2010

PR Photography and the need to Delight

I recently came across Frank Chimero’s ‘Design Nobility Pyramid’ concept via photography blog aphotoeditor.com

Chimero teaches graphic design & typography at Portland State University as well as being managing partner of Thinking for a Living.

His ‘Design Nobility Pyramid’ forms part of his frequent lectures on design, but it can be equally relevant to effective PR photography.

Chimero believes ‘delight‘ in design is success in it’s highest, truest most noble form. When innovation and clarity come together you find ‘delight‘ and that he argues is perfect design.

Looking at PR photography the clients aim is ultimately to inform and persuade. We let consumers know about the product or initiative and encourage them to buy or support it.

But too often we forget that to do that, first we need to delight, or entertain, or amuse…

If it’s all information and persuasion the public won’t be interested. Great PR pictures need to delight first. That’s the most important thing and the information and persuasion will be better received as a result.

Be it our picture for the National Lottery of ballet dancers on Millennium Bridge,

National Lottery Love UK campaign. Geoff Caddick/TNR

National Lottery Love UK campaign. Geoff Caddick/TNR

a more recent shot of  Cybermen on the Underground for the Dr Who Experience,

Cybermen take command of the London Underground

Cybermen take command of the London Underground. Matt Crossick/TNR

or workmen getting the first glimpse of Wonderbra’s 3D billboard,

Wonderbra 3D Billboard. Geoff Caddick/TNR

Wonderbra 3D Billboard. Geoff Caddick/TNR

it’s the ‘delight‘ in the aesthetics, the composition, the novelty, the fun of the image that captures the viewers interest.

That is what makes us look twice at the picture, show it to our friends, twitter about it. That ‘delight‘, that enjoyment, that connection paves the way for the pictures commercial purpose to inform and persuade. But the aim to delight should always come first.

http://work.frankchimero.com/
www.aphotoeditor.com

Post by Tim Kerr (Director and Head of Photography at TNR Communications)

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15.10.2010

Triumphant International PR Campaign Takes Shape

Nikolay Bojilov from Bulgaria winner of the Triumph Inspiration Award 2010 poses with Helena Christensen and a model wearing the winning design Morphology on the catwalk at the Triumph Inspiration Award 2010 at the Old Sorting Office in central London.

Nikolay Bojilov from Bulgaria winner of the Triumph Inspiration Award 2010 poses with Helena Christensen and a model wearing the winning design Morphology on the catwalk at the Triumph Inspiration Award 2010 at the Old Sorting Office in central London.

The Triumph Inspiration Award (London, 16 September 2010) showcased original lingerie designs from 27 international fashion students each of whom won their place in the global final with a piece inspired by the theme of “Shape Sensation”. One winner and two runner-ups were announced on the night, judged by a panel of fashion royalty including Helena Christensen, Rankin and Matthew Williamson.

Top fashion PR agency, Yellowdoor and their client, Triumph appointed TNR to provide broadcast, online and photography PR support with the aim of securing global coverage of the London event.

The first challenge was to agree the logistics of producing media materials to meet the requirements of journalists in multiple countries:

  • Priorities were set for the TV and online B-Roll which, at 15 minutes, meant there was not enough space to include regionalized content for all 27 countries’ finalists.  Instead, elements were selected which made the ‘Award’ event a news story in its own right (e.g. the celebrity guests, the top three designs, the winning moment etc).
  • We also made the 27 VTs that featured the finalists (used in the live show), available to both TV and online media as downloadable video files.
  • Our photography featured all 27 designs plus key ‘news’ moments from the evening (e.g. red carpet, judges posing with the winner etc) to cater for the 27 countries’ requirements and any others for whom a fashion story of this calibre would be of interest.

Being a live show, it was vital the video and photography teams worked through every detail of the Awards schedule and floor plan with the event company in advance to ensure every angle was covered by our TV cameras and that our photographers could get a clear shot of each design.  The result was three camera teams and two photographers strategically positioned to record the catwalk event, the winning moment and to gather news collateral backstage and post-event.  This all had to be achieved while taking into consideration the needs of attending media who were positioned in press pens on the red carpet and at the end of the runway.

Ultimately, the story’s newsworthiness was dependent on the materials being made available to media in a timely way i.e. for use in news bulletins that night and the following morning.  Therefore, the next step was to lay out a shooting and editing itinerary that matched the Award programme and allowed us to push out materials within a couple of hours of the winner being announced.  This meant having two editors on site who were fed footage and stills throughout the event by a runner.

Once edited, the photographs were sent to the Press Association to be turned around for the wire that night.  The photographs were also uploaded to the Online Press Office during the night so that media outside the UK could also have direct access for immediate coverage.  Local PRs in every country were provided with details of the Online Press Office to pass on to their local media contacts.

The distribution of video footage across the world is complex and makes use of multiple satellites and fibre connections to media towers similar to the BT Tower in London.  Identifying these and arranging for the necessary feeds to take place within the various time zones we were targeting was imperative.  Two feeds went out during the night allowing access for Australia and Asia for their lunchtime programmes, breakfast coverage in Europe and evening coverage in the US.

However, it was the preparation and execution of the international sell in to broadcasters and online media to inform them of the story and available video that was pivotal to the success of the overall campaign. Months of research, planning and clear communication between the teams at Yellowdoor, Triumph and TNR took place to establish areas of responsibility including;

  • How current, strong relationships with the mainstream media and trade press would be split between the different teams for the most impact and effective use of time
  • How we would need to stagger working hours to ensure all countries were contacted within their working day (this meant some very early mornings and late finishes for the TNR media relations team!)
  • How to incorporate conversations with video desks at the traditional press (e.g. newspapers) into both the online and press sell-ins.
  • Coordinating with local PR teams who were also liaising with press in their country.

The result was that the footage was picked up all over the world by major international media including both AP and Reuters (global news agencies), BBC (UK), Sky Television (Australia), RAI (Italy), Fuji TV (Japan), RTL (Germany) and CCTV (China) and many more.

The B-Roll footage for the event was also picked up by the Press Association Video wire and distributed to online media outlets in the UK including the Independent, The Evening Standard and Yahoo.

Click here to watch the A-Roll footage for the Triumph Inspiration Awards 2010

And for another viewpoint…

Fashion Bloggers viewpoint from the night:

Capulets Couture

The Style PA

Fashion Editor at large

Katie Chutzpah

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Posted in Broadcast PR, Online, Photography, PR, PR Photography, TV | 1 Comment »

12.07.2010

The Ballad of John and Yoko

Last year, there were many news pictures I saw that struck a chord with me and were thought provoking; but there was something about a particular picture I saw when I went to New York and visited the ‘John Lennon: The New York City Years’ exhibition at the city’s Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame annex (which has since closed) that really stopped me in my tracks. Like a lot of news pictures where you see individual moments after a dramatic event, you can’t help but imagine what it must have been like for these people in the seconds before, during and after.

With John Lennon, we all know about his life ‘before’ – growing up in 1950s Liverpool, The Quarrymen, the global fame of The Beatles, right up to the Anne Leibovitz picture shot hours before he was murdered.

But I think that this picture of Lennon’s blood stained glasses taken by Yoko Ono is as close as you can get to the ‘during’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1934532.stm

A picture of a blood stained pair of glasses at a Press conference announcing 'John Lennon: The New York City Years' exhibit, at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC in New York

A picture of a blood stained pair of glasses at a Press conference announcing 'John Lennon: The New York City Years' exhibit, at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC in New York

I stood and looked at this picture for a very long time. Was it because of morbid curiosity or because of the tragic way his life ended – over in seconds, a young man in the prime of his life with so much more to achieve, snuffed out during an act of madness? Maybe it was because his murder resonates with the current situation of young people killing each other, seemingly without the notion of the irreversibility and affect of their actions.  Or maybe it just personalised a very public loss and in doing so, gave it back to us in a way we didn’t expect.

Yoko Ono doesn’t always get the best press in the UK, but to be able to produce a picture like this which is as heartbreaking as it is stunning, gives us a before, during and after that perhaps no one else could.

Post by Nicola Charalambous (Account Manager – Photography for TNR Communications)

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15.04.2010

Competition launches unique opportunity for UK charities

…Free photo and video support from the Press Association consultancy, TNR Communications

A competition was launched in March 2010, offering one UK charity a unique opportunity to gain valuable media exposure through a photography and video campaign, produced for free by a specialist part of the Press Association.

Any UK registered charity with an upcoming media campaign is invited to apply for their chance to win a free photography and video consultation with the Press Association’s in-house communications agency, TNR, who will advise on the best way to gain coverage in the UK’s print and online press.   A Press Association photographer will then offer their ‘Fleet Street’ knowledge to take pictures that support the winner’s campaign, the best of which will be offered directly to the Picture Wire.  The winner will also get a ‘Videocall’ of their story filmed, edited and uploaded to the UK’s top five video streaming sites. 

With over 160,000 registered charities in England and Wales, publicity to drive campaign awareness and increase public support is in great demand.  TNR’s consultants have hands-on experience of what works and what doesn’t within the media and are in an ideal position to advise how that crucial press coverage can be achieved. 

Multimedia content can have a substantial impact on PR coverage. However, on many occasions, charities simply do not have the budget for it.  The charity competition aims to give something back to the UK’s charity sector, with the gift of a £2,500 package of PR services aimed at increasing the chances of exposure for one worthy PR campaign.

TNR’s Managing Director, Claire Southeard, said “We are very proud to initiate this competition and hope we can offer some much needed support and guidance to a very worthy cause.  We have spent a long time building up our experience and knowledge of what works in broadcast, photography and online and are delighted to have found this opportunity to share the benefit of that expertise with a UK charity.”

Charities are invited to apply for the competition through a dedicated page on the TNR website where they can enter details of their chosen campaign and describe how winning this competition could benefit their organisation. The campaign must be scheduled to take place before the end of June 2010 and the deadline for submissions is Friday 16th April.  A judging panel will choose five finalists, from which one winner will be announced on Friday 23rd April.

Related Articles:

http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/993821/Week-Charities/

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/992653/Free-communications-support-charities-won/

http://www.consortcharity.com/news-details.aspx?newsID=27997

http://www.ccwa.org.uk/v2/index.php?section_list=News&subsection=CCWA_top_stories&content=2118

http://www.fundingcentral.org.uk/SchemeList.aspx?NB=2&RT=2&BK=4&ST=0&WCU=CBC=View,DSCODE=OTSSCMLIVE,SCHEMEID=248-S34853

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12.04.2010

Visionary Icons – Nat Finkelstein and Andy Warhol

From One Extreme to another

Working at TNR Communications, on the photography side of things, often requires a bit of ‘research’ to encourage creativity and even provide material for our blog. So the other day I went to the Nat Finkelstein exhibition From One Extreme to the Other, at Idea Generation  – a PR company based in east London that also doubles as a gallery.

Nat Finkelstein – who passed away towards the end of last year – became a regular face at the Factory, Andy Warhol’s studio in New York, during the mid to late 1960s.  He wasn’t one of the drug influenced artists who decorated the Factory in tin foil, or one of the boys hanging around hoping to be a superstar in the next Warhol production – film or otherwise, but a photojournalist interested in capturing the zeitgeist.

The Factory was a magnet for the weird and wonderful.  Stars of film and music would drop by to observe and perhaps even participate in the decadent, uninhibited scenes that the studio was famous for.  One of the stars that regularly dropped by during this period was Bob Dylan. Warhol already had the cooler than cool Lou Reed in his stable, so he probably wasn’t interested in enticing Dylan to join the resident kooks. However, he liked him enough to give him one of his Double Elvis paintings:

Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan at The Factory 1966

Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan at The Factory 1966

The resulting photo is one of my favourites from the collection, for many reasons. Firstly, because Finkelstein had intuitively captured three icons whose longevity, status and relevance in the future had yet to be decided. I also like the way that the painting is captured between Warhol and Dylan illustrating the transaction, and the way that they are standing gives the shot a kind of symmetry.  Black and white photography always adds an element of drama and intrigue, so this shot might not have been as iconic or as striking had it been in colour.  This shot is just a moment in time, and as Finkelstein said himself “When all is said and done, when everything is gone, the photograph is what’s going to remain. The photographer is the producer of history.”

As the story goes, although Dylan professed to being inspired by Elvis, he later exchanged the painting with his manager Albert Grossman for a sofa, of all things.  Clearly Dylan isn’t the visionary Warhol and Finkelstein were.  I wonder if there is a shot of that transaction…

Post by Nicola Charalambous (Production Manager for TNR Communications)

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01.03.2010

Hamburger Eyes

I stumbled across this fantastic short video by Australian film-maker Nick Fogarty of the photographers collective behind the San Francisco photo magazine ‘Hamburger Eyes’

Hamburger Eyes

Click on the image to watch the Hamburger Eyes short film

Hamburger Eyes started off as a Xeroxed handout by brothers David & Ray Potes in 2001. It’s now a much slicker, stylish operation but it still provides a very off the wall look at what an urban photo journal can be. There’s obvious nods to the classic social documentary work of people like Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, Larry Clark, but with a fresh twist, a West coast hipster cool, and more importantly a lot of fun.

“I’m not even a photographer, I’m a painting contractor who has a camera and takes pictures” says member Stefan Simikich.

I think he underestimates himself. What he and his friends create for themselves and document for others is fantastic and Fogerty has captured that perfectly.

Go to the Nick Fogarty website to view his entire portfolio of work from around the world.

Post by Tim Kerr (Director and Head of Photography for TNR Communications)

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