Bailey Cooper Photography's Blog

Award winning photos to inspire, delight and excite.

Flexible friends

During the summer holidays (remember them?) we carried out a commercial photography shoot in the beautiful surroundings of the Recital Room at Bootham School, York.  
Our brief was to provide stylish photographs for the school’s resident artist and art teacher Rachel Antill. As well as being a celebrated artist, Rachel is also an amazing yoga teacher and is in the process of publishing a book about this age old practice.
It’s not aimed at the technical ‘how to do yoga’ market as there are plenty of those around already. Of course these areas will be covered in Rachel’s book, but alongside the yoga instructions will be spiritual and dietary suggestions which could help us all to lead better lives. (For those of you wondering... Kate takes part in the Yoga classes but Paul finds opening wine bottles provides all the spiritual and physical exercise he needs).
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Keeping it "Local"

Although we get to work for some large blue chip clients all over the UK, it's always nice to 'keep it local'.

And this month, two of our long standing local clients have helped us to win some awards:

Paul spends a lot of time involved in judging photographic qualifications and competitions, but this year he decided that he should step outside his comfort zone and once again enter the Yorkshire Master Photographer's Awards.

The competition was judged anonymously, and we're delighted to announce that Paul won the Commercial/Advertising Photographer of the Year award AND had his work Highly Commended in the Fashion category!

What makes this win even better is the fact that both images were shot for long standing 'local' clients - UK Juicers, and Blue Hairdressing - two businesses that appreciate the power of creative imagery to market their own products and services.

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www.baileycooper.co.uk

www.ukjuicers.com

www.bluehairdressing.co.uk

To see how we could create award winning commercial product photographs or stylish people photographs in York for you please visit our website or call 01904 416684.

How many megapixels is enough?

Kate was recently given an opportunity to test the latest 60 mega pixel  camera (yes, SIXTY), from Hasselblad (just in case you haven't heard of them, Hasselblad are world leaders in camera design and have been at the top of their game for decades - they are the camera manufacturer preferred by NASA and responsible for putting cameras on the moon).
 
Anyway, with Paul in need of a new profile photo, and Darron Hartas (The Master Photographer’s Association marketing guru) also offering to model, Kate cracked open a lurid pink background and got to work!
 
Apart from being the most incredibly sharp and detailed photos that we’ve ever seen from a digital camera (scarily detailed in fact), they illustrate the importance of having a corporate profile photo that matches your personality. This style might not be right for the legal or accountancy professions, but as Paul and Darron both work in creative industries they kind of “fit”.
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Do you need a new profile photo?  Click here

Girl Power

Today (5th April 2011), Kate delivered a presentation to members of the York WIRE (Women In Rural Enterprise) group at their monthly meeting. It's not often that Kate gets to present her work to non-photographers, as most of our seminars are delivered to other pro-shooters through the British Institute of Professional Photography and Master Photographer's Association. So, as well as offering a great showcase for some of Kate's favourite images, the event proved to be a refreshing change to Bailey Cooper Photography's usual seminar audiences.

WIRE was founded in 1996 and now lobbies at national level to keep rural businesses at the forefront of politics. On a local level, it's a great way for women in business to network and stay in touch with each other on a monthly basis.

Kate ended her presentation with a short AV of her favourite images which can be viewed on YouTube (link below)  

We're not usually the subjects!

We normally prefer to stay behind the camera... it's best that way.... but one of Kate's shots (of Paul) has just made it through to the final of a competition run by Liberty.

Now the problem is this: The winner will be decided by the number of Liberty fans who 'like' the photo. So, despite Paul's embarrassment, we really need all our lovely friends to 'like' the photo in the Liberty Facebook album before the deadline at lunchtime on the 28th. We'd be eternally grateful!

Thanks (from Kate... Paul's not so sure.)

PS You need to 'Like' Liberty first... and then 'Like' the photo in the album.

Here's the link to Liberty...

And here's the link to the pic...

UPDATE:  WE WON!  Many thanks to all our lovely friends who voted for us (and even asked their friends to as well). It just goes to show that the power of social networking can be harnessed. As soon as the bike arrives we'll publish some photos. 

Shoot something Funny for Money! It's Comic Relief Day.

We thought long and hard about it... but decided that none of our customers would want to look 'funny', so we had to turn the camera on ourselves!
It's comic relief day and so we're doing our bit for charity: Apart from buying four T-shirts, two bags, and a comic relief branded Liberty scarf (for Kate... honest), we're also donating 20% of today's reprint order value to Comic Relief. With so many nasty things happening around the world at the moment, it's nice to do something funny AND raise valuable funds.

(Apologies to all our customers visiting the studio today... Paul is wearing the red nose!)

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Forget Orange... The Future is Blue

One of our wonderfully stylish clients has just received some great news about their work... Blue Hairdressing in York have been shortlisted in the regional finals of the L'Oreal Colour Trophy this year! 

We couldn't be happier for them, especially as the initial judging is carried out using photos that were produced by Bailey Cooper Photography.

This latest triumph is just one in a long line of awards that Blue have picked up over the last few years. We've had the pleasure of many shoots at their York based salon and always look forward to working with the Blue team. In fact, they are as passionate about hair as we are about photography.

So, well done to Blue, and good luck at the regional finals!

Here's a sample of the styles produced by the Blue team:

www.bluehairdressing.co.uk

www.baileycooper.co.uk

 

Good enough to eat.

We're at the end of a two day visit to the annual trade photographic
show, imaginatively titled 'Focus', which is held each year at the
NEC. Whilst the thought of forty eight hours trapped inside the air
conditioned shell of the NEC is not particularly appealing, it is a
great way to network, catch up with some old friends, and generally
immerse ourselves in all things photographic.
This year we were invited by the Master Photographer's Association
(MPA) to help out with their judging of photographic qualifications -
an honour which we thoroughly enjoy. In addition to this, the MPA also
asked us to present a couple of short seminars entitled "The Art of
Food Photography". Putting together the slides for this beforehand
made us realise just how much we actually enjoy shooting photographs
of food!  We assembled some of our favourite shots into a short video
for our seminar at Focus, which can now be viewed below. Hope it makes
you hungry!

The Art of Food Photography 

Bailey Cooper Photography


www.baileycooper.co.uk

Call in the experts

Last week we got the chance to photograph some lovely cupcakes that are made just around the corner from our studio. 

Jo Welch, who runs Jo's Cupcakes 'n' Bakes has been delighting her customers with beautiful creations for quite a while but our paths had never crossed until recently. 
Now I'm sure Jo won't mind us saying this, but she didn't really see a need for professional photography when it came to her business promotion. And likewise, we didn't see the need for professionally made cupcakes.  How wrong we both were!
Jo popped round to our studio with a box of cupcakes and we spent an hour photographing her wonderful creations. I think it's fair to say that Jo was pleased with the results as they were a big step up from her own efforts (which we're not knocking - she'd done really well). However, the real revelation for us was when we got to taste her cupcakes: Let's just say that they were a lot better than the baking that comes out of our oven!  
Which really proved for both of us that if you want a job doing well (photography, or baking) you really need to call in the experts!