MAD Bradford is a monthly event bringing together employees, business owners and university/college staff involved or interested in creating media, using new development/production tools, and various ways of working in the media and digital industry.

This months keynote speaker was Tom Woolley, Curator of New Media at the National Media Museum discussing “Life Online”, their upcoming permanent gallery about the internet.

The keynote then lead into Open Spaces collaborative discussions with break-out rooms available for smaller groups to go off on tangent discussions.

This event was held at the Gumption Centre in Bradford city centre.  This is unlike any event I have ever been to I loved how informal the group was and it’s a great place to get all your geek questions answered.

I roped a couple of people to be my victims models for the day.  One of them just happened to be Nathan Phillips of the GB bouldering team who made everything look so easy.  The other victims models that assisted me were Callum Juggler and William Smith.  Every time I go to Rokt it takes me back to my years spent in skateparks, such a great atmosphere and full of really nice folk. Thanks to everyone that helped out and I am looking forward to my next visit (hopefully when it’s a little quieter).

Rokt is a really exciting new business in Brighouse, get involved and show them some Facebook love.

Afterwards Lidia asked if I could photograph her chefs while I was there.  I walked in to set up some lighting and realised they had nothing on apart from their aprons!  I was also asked to photograph the head chef, thankfully he kept his clothes on!

I really enjoyed the event, despite struggling to follow what was happening half the time – the girls were certainly having a great time and there was a good atmosphere from the noisy crowd.  There were loads of bumps and crashes but this is all part of the bout.  The Hot Wheels girls won convincingly with a score of  189 – 95.  It’s one of the most interesting events I have photographed for a long time.  I am in the middle of making some arrangements to do some WOW shots with the team (sportraits stylee) so I am looking forward to that.

If you get the opportunity come along to one of the bouts, it’s fabulous fun for all the family.

In the last post about public relations photography I mentioned that in my opinion a shot should either: tell a story, be fun or striking.  For this shot I used the telling a story but also striking.  I laid on the floor and shot with a wide angle lens.  I knew it wasn’t going to be the most flattering of looks but this was about drama and making my subjects look powerful.   I am pretty sure this image will help sell the story.

More often than not when shooting P.R time is of the essence as it’s usually busy people who don’t like getting cold!  If I can do my job with minimum time and fuss and deliver great results it keeps all parties happy.

This picture tells the story.  It illustrates the organiser and key partners involved and also the venue

A little bit of fun.  I am sure newspapers could make a catchy headline for this shot – “Danny whips Calderdale into shape” etc.

And finally a quick shot of Danny looking like a smurf.  This was all over Twitter within minutes of the shoot!

Paul McGee (the S.U.M.O guy) was up next and he is someone that I really wanted to see speak as I read one of his books last year “Self Confidence” and it had a massive impact on my personal development.  It was great to see him ‘live’ and he continued to talk about using different steps on the ladder to achieve your vision.

Phil Hesketh was the final speaker who spoke about using the people around you and forming a cabal.  He helped illustrate this with amusing antidotes from a trip to Australia and lots of theory.

Also in my brief I needed to get a shot of the three speakers on their stools (a bit like a motivational West Life!).  Once again the timings were very tight but I managed to set up a couple of lights in a different room to get the shot.

I would love the opportunity to work with these international speakers again and it was an added bonus to be allowed to sit down and listen as well.

Left to right – Paul McGee, Steve McDermott and Phil Hesketh

I went along to photograph the pantomime “Aladdin” performed by Starlight.  Lot’s of children and families were there so I got the opportunity to photograph the whole event and took loads of candid shots of the kids enjoying themselves.  Before the pantomime started the Lowerhouses school signing choir gave a great performance with some of their favourite songs.  Following this the Starlight Christmas of Happiness performed their rendition of Aladdin after which the actors posed for lots of pictures with the kids and chatted to each individual child and family.

Halifax Courier used one of my pictures in their article seen here

Due to the nature of the pictures I cannot publish them on my blog, however I did get a really nice card which showed their appreciation.