When Highlands and Islands Enterprise were looking for conference and events photographers to photograph their stand at a renewable energy exhibition at Glasgow’s SECC, they approached us as we have a lot of experience in this area.
There were 3 main things they wanted to capture. The first was a record of all the stands which were included in the Highlands and Islands Energy part of the exhibition area. The second was shots of delegates visiting the stands and chatting to exhibitors and the third and perhaps most important was to capture the Scottish Energy Minister visiting the exhibition.
HI Energy Stand at the SECC.
The latter could happen at any time during the morning, so I didn’t have much in the way of advance warning when this might happen but fortunately the HIE area wasn’t too large so it was possible to keep an eye out for the Minister whilst I was photographing the exhibition stands and delegates.
HIE wanted shots like these to use for it’s image library.
One of the key things when photographing an event is capture good shots of delegates talking but in such as way that you don’t capture them mid sentence or half way through a coffee, which could ruin a shot. Fortunately, I have a lot of experience of this not only from photographing events but also from photographing live theatre and opera. It’s all about capturing the right moment.
Delegates watching demonstration at exhibition stand.
In the end I had a bit of advance warning that the Energy Minister was about to appear, so I quickly took position so I could get a range of shots of him visiting the stand. It’s very important to get the lighting right in these situations. Relying on available light works well for documentary or reportage shot but for a press release you need something that stands out better. I therefore always add a little flash. Too much and the image looks harshly lit and very false but just enough gives the faces a subtle lift.
Scottish Energy Minister visiting the HIE stand at the SECC