Commercial photography location photoshoot for Direct Line Marketing

Commercial photography for Direct Line

The project involved capturing a wide range of high-quality action shots of Direct Line’s newly re-branded response vehicles near Birmingham. The intention was to use these images for press releases and share on social media posts. Designed for hard-to-reach locations during extreme weather conditions, their response vehicle fleet ensures efficient operations.

They can assist in challenging situations, like car breakdowns in difficult areas. The fleet ensures reliable help in remote and harsh environments.

After further discussion over Zoom, a search was made for a better location photography shoot which would appear more realistically flooded. This led to a search for fords in the northwest. The most unusual website dedicated to fords was discovered, located on mainland England. A ford is a watercourse which runs over the surface of a road. It was perfect to be able to mimic flooded conditions.

The second proposed location photoshoot was the ford at Clee St Margaret, located in the Shropshire Hills AONB.

Paul raised a concern that the watercourse was quite narrow. It left little room for manoeuvre from a compositional point of view. Following on from another Zoom call, everyone opted for the ford at Tissington, in the southern most part of the Peak District.

After unanimously agreeing that a recce was necessary, Paul met up with the Area Manager, Neil. First, they scoped out the ford itself, and then they proceeded to explore the beautiful village of Tissington. There was the opportunity for some customer service photography in the village. A productive day left us with a number of possibilities shared with the team at DL.

One hurdle to overcome was the small fact that Tissington isn’t public land. Consequently, DL reached out to Tissington Estate for permission, which was, thankfully, forthcoming.

The refined photoshoot brief was

In/around the ford

• Vehicles driving through the ford (made to look like a flooded road where possible) showing the branding, front, side, back – close and from a distance
• Vehicle stuck in the water with a DL/CHU van behind helping the ‘customer’ – potentially with the ‘customer’ and DLG PIA out of their vehicles showing us helping the customer and with the ‘customer’ waiting for us as we pull up through the water – up close and from a distance
• One where the branding is less clear. Used for PR purposes as the media don’t like to always include heavily branded images.

In the local area

• Vehicles parallel parked in the street – close up and at a distance
• Vehicles driving down a residential street – close up and at a distance
• PIA in branded jackets, folders, umbrellas if raining knocking on someone’s door (get permission first)
• PIA in branded jackets, folders, umbrellas if raining speaking to ‘customer’ at the front door (get permission first)
• Also one where the branding is less clear. Used for PR purposes as the media don’t like to always include heavily branded images.

Paul does love location photography – even if you are at the will of the elements. However, the day itself brought the perfect weather conditions because we did not want sun and blue skies!

Paul, as a creative director of Think, finds nothing more frustrating than coming across a shot that they cannot achieve due to a lack of equipment. Therefore, he always ensure preparedness for any eventuality during the shoot.

As always, he ensured preparedness for any eventuality during the shoot, despite having completed the recce. Paul turned up with 3 camera bodies, 5 lenses and 3 portable flashes to tackle any challenges that might arise.

A Challenging Yet Rewarding Photoshoot

They needed an early start,  capturing the main photographs of the vehicles, powering through the Ford. Working to the recce plan, Paul did a number of angles. One inclusion was where the cars were hurtling straight at him. With these in the bag, they got to work photographing the model with a team from DirectLine for the customer service photographs. They conducted some of the shots at the ford before relocating to the village. There, several residents kindly allowed them to use their doorsteps for the ‘door to door’ images. All done under Covid-19 rules.

The day off finished off with a brew and some lovely cake from the coffee shop at Tissington Hall.

Simon Henrick, Head of News and Issues said, “I am absolutely delighted with the images we were able to get with Paul. He certainly goes the extra mile and doesn’t mind getting wet or dirty for the right angle or composition.”

They carried out post-production over the next day to meet their deadline. Having taken well over 400 images, it takes a good few hours to select which ones make it to the selection for editing. Paul does all his post production adjustments in Capture One and always make sure to provide low resolution and high resolution images. They shared the images via their preferred platform.