Mars is facing one of its worst case scenarios – a contaminated product which may harm customers. The company issued a worldwide recall of Mars, Snickers and Milky Way bars, after a customer found a piece of plastic inside a Snickers. Inevitably this is a big story for the media in terms of reach (everyone who loves chocolate), scale (worldwide) and implications (will people/children stop eating the chocolate bars, will Mars see big losses in sales, the future of the brand/company).
After years of directing photo shoots, the phrase ‘no-one likes their picture taken’ is never truer than trying to co-ordinate your own team’s photos. The initial problem of actually getting everyone in the office for a tight schedule, three hour shoot, on the same day, when we are either shooting, training or working with our clients, required a firm hand and some calendar juggling of the highest order. But once we were locked in, the key was for me to try and make it a positive experience. It was also an opportunity for the team to see their Photography Manager actually manage, so I wanted to impress!
Enduring media scrutiny when something goes wrong is pretty high on the list of worst nightmares for any organisation. How much worse, then, when you’re a charity – an organisation expressly set up to help people, to do good, to effortlessly occupy the moral high ground? Right now, two of the UK’s best known charities, Age UK and Help for Heroes, know exactly how that feels, following days of relentless media coverage and confirmation that they’re being investigated by the Charity Commission.
It was a cold and wet morning on the day of the shoot, as is typical during January in England. We were filming in a disused train station in Aldwych, which has been used for filming on many occasions in the past, including the final scenes from V for Vendetta! Whilst we were not there to film anything on such a grandiose scale, we had the pleasure of working with illusionist Derren Brown, who was there to promote and reveal the details of the Ghost Train Experience at Thorpe Park, which he has been working on for the past 3 years.
Our ‘Picture of the Week’ is an image from the launch of TK Maxx’s Give up Clothes for Good campaign with supermodel Daisy Lowe, it is in support of Cancer Research UK Kids and Teens. When a celebrity chooses to front a campaign in a valid and worthy way, it can often be the route to creating a visually arresting photocall. It is however, important to choose a credible and appropriate voice. TK Maxx has connected a recognisable British model to act as spokesperson and link them to everyday high street fashion shoppers. The campaign message about donating clothes to a worthy cause is elevated to a high concept photographically.