Commercial Photography at Cheshire Reindeer Lodge

A Christmas themed commercial shoot…in August! 

Manchester based Christmas jumper company, CrimboFeaks approached me back in early August of this year as they needed some shots for this year’s new range of Christmas jumpers. The brief was to shoot some promotional images at Cheshire Reindeer Lodge and had to include images of the reindeer that live on the farm. Erica, who owns CrimboFreaks had already approached the reindeer farm who had agreed for us to mingle with the animals for the day.

Commercial photography can be very challenging and this particular job was no different seeing as I was tasked with capturing Christmas themed images in the middle of a sunny day in August! It was warm, and the weather on the day of the shoot was forecast to be sunny intervals; so how did I provide my client with images that could be used to promote a Christmas jumper range? Well, a little digital tomfoolery in Photoshop was necessary to get the desired look; my client wanted the images from the shoot to be “Christmassy”, “wintery” with a little bit of a “vintage” feel to them.

I needed a way of creating a “winter wonderland” vibe and initially I toyed with the idea of hiring a snow machine but decided this would be messy, time consuming, expensive for my client and potentially hazardous to the animals. After a bit of research I stumbled across a company called Pure Photoshop Actions who sell a variety of Photoshop pre-set templates including one specifically designed to replicate a winter scene.  Despite popular opinion, Photoshop cannot work miracles but it does offer many creative options; and in this case the Photoshop action worked an absolute treat and created the necessary winter vibe. I was very pleased with the results (and so was my client!). Below are some of the images used in the CrimboFreaks Christmas social media campaign.

The reindeer were amazing, they were incredibly placid and would happily eat from the palm of your hand. The staff at the lodge were wonderful and so knowledgeable about the animals, you could tell that the reindeer were very contented. The lodge is open all year round and they welcome large parties of children from November on-wards in the run up to Christmas when they have a visit from Santa. I’d definitely recommend a visit.

So there you go, a little insight into the potential challenges involved in a commercial photography shoot. Professional quality imagery can really make a difference to your business, get in touch here if you want a chat about what I can do for you and your business.