Last night I photographed the Hornsby House Summer Ball. It was a fundraising event supporting two charities, The Myotubular Trust and The Jennifer trust.

It was a masked ball and all of the guests arrived wearing masks, some as unconventional as Darth Vader’s headress and a world war II gasmask. It was a clear warm evening and the guests were able to have drinks outside until they went in to the marquee for dinner. A promise auction took place later in the evening raising further funds for both charities.

For more information on Event and Party photography go to: http://www.eventphotographylondon.uk.com/events/home/
The photographs will be up on my site by Monday afternoon.

We had a busy weekend. We photographed three corporate events in London, a christening, four portrait sessions, and ran our stall on Northcote Road.

The corporate events were good fun. Novotel, the hotel group, hosted a fancy dress party for its staff. It was actually their Christmas party. They are so busy during December that there isn’t time to throw a party for the staff so they all dress up and have their end of year blow out in January.
My assistant, Jimmy and I set up a portrait studio in the ballroom where the party was held to photograph the guests in their fancy dress. While Jimmy photographed the guests I produced 7″x5″ prints for them which they were able to pick up shortly after the photographs were taken. This was a huge hit and is always very popular. So much so that they asked us to stay for another hour.

Producing prints on the night and staging ‘real time’ slideshows is great for the guests as they don’t have to wait to see the results. Also from the host’s point of view, particularly if is is a staff or corporate event it is a great opportuninty to give something fun away. There is also an opportunity to associate your brand or corporate image with the fun event by printing your logo discretely somewhere on the photo, all good stuff for you, your staff, and your clients.

We also photographed Stacy Solomon, the X factor contestant at an event this weekend. I have to admit I didn’t know who she was as I’ve only watched X factor a few times but my eight year old daughter thinks she’s the greatest and I managed to get an autograph for her.

We can generally produce finished photographs from an event between 24 and 48hrs which means that you can use the images to your advantage while the event is still fresh in everyone’s minds. We generally produce two sets of images supplied on DVD; a high res set for prints, and a low res set for web and email use. Go to our events and party photography page for more details.

It’s difficult enough buying presents for people you know well, let alone entire families and people whose tastes you haven’t yet pinned down or don’t share in their taste in art or photography.

At my stall in Northcote Road we see the agonising over ‘what to get you know who’ first hand. It might have been decided that a framed or mounted photograph is the ideal present for ‘you know who’ but will ‘you know who’ like the image you’ve chosen.
The relief is palpable sometimes when a gift voucher may be the answer. OK, its not the ideal solution as you would much prefer to give ‘you know who’ something to unwrap rather than a voucher but ultimately ‘you know who’ will get exactly what they want rather than a near miss.

We can send you your gift voucher through the mail or by email. You can see the selection by going to the following page;
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/vouchers.php

You can use the voucher to purchase or put towards any of the framed and mounted prints we have on offer as well as any of the services we offer.
Below is a list of links to the relevant pages. To buy a voucher just go back to the voucher link above.

Portrait photography;
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/porgallery.php

Event photography;
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/eapgallery.php

Wedding photography;
http://www.weddingphotographerslondon.uk.com/portfolio/

London photographs, Black & White
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

London Photographs, Colour
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

London Panoramic photographs
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

New York photographs Black & White
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

New York photographs Colour
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

Paris Photographs Colour
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

Paris photographs Black & White
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

Prague Photographs Black & White
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

Prague photographs Colour
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

Sydney Photographs Colour
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

Sydney photographs Black & White
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

New Zealand Photographs Colour
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

New Zealand Photographs Black & White
http://www.photoarte.co.uk/galleries_index.php

The world of Party, Event and Corporate photography has been a very strange place to be in over the last year. I know many photographers whose businesses fell off a cliff last September as the corporates particularly cancelled their bookings and slashed all spending related to client and staff entertainment. Everybody in the event and corporate entertainment has had a pretty unremarkable year. But it seems bonuses are back, corporate entertainment without excess is now ok, and the total freeze on spending money on fun is starting to thaw.

So, thanks goodness for that!

This December for me looks good for Party and Event photography, bookings are starting to roll in and the ‘real time’ slide shows we do are very popular this year. We set up a large screen and continually feed the latest photographs onto the screen, very amusing for the guests as they see the party come alive on the screen. It takes two photographers to do this well, one to take the photographs and another to feed the selected images into a laptop and onto the screen. They are great fun and a great way to impress your friends and clients.

Supplying prints instantly, well more or less instantly, is another popular service we provide at events and parties. Last year we covered a party held at Selfridges for Tatler magazine and as the guests arrived we photographed them. We then superimposed a Tatler front cover onto the photograph we’d taken. They absolutely loved it and when the prints were produced and laid out for all to see it was the highlight of the evening for some.