At the pub with Lucy Quick

At the pub with Lucy Quick

Not all of my personal branding shoots take place in a pub, but they do take place where my clients work. That's how I tell their story: by observing their day, their activities, their events, or simply hanging around with them. That's why most of my images aren't staged; they are just a moment in time, caught forever.

So why the pub? Well, in my preparatory call with Lucy, we discussed what a day in her working life might look like. She mentioned that she was meeting her assistant at their local pub for breakfast. “Great,” I said, “I'll meet you in the pub!”. Lucy is a very personable consultant, specialising in people, change, and making people and organisations work better together. This part of her day was essentially admin and planning time. It's the sort of internal time that everybody has, only this wasn't in a corporate meeting room, which I liked.

What I love about this image is that it captures the intense planning, conversation and collaboration that I witnessed. The bottle of Bombay Sapphire isn't accidental either; it's produced locally in the area Lucy loves to call home. This image is a simple capture of their time together: light streaming through the old pub window, someone walking past outside and the business getting done inside. Simple, observational and focused on warm collaboration.

The light was a blessing and a curse, of course. As a photographer, I avoid flash and artificial light whenever possible, preferring to work with what's there. This pub was old, with low ceilings, and bright light coming through the window. That's the fun and challenge of my job; I rarely know the venue or its opportunities until I arrive! In the end, I was grateful for the lighting challenges; they made for a great set of images. You might think that in such a small, restrictive space, the opportunities for photography are few, but we still managed a variety of shots from the pub, adding to the value of the day we spent together.  

Thankfully, Lucy clearly agrees and is using an image from the same shoot as her LinkedIn profile image. This is one of the things we aim for: one shoot and a library of images we can use for many purposes.