The beautiful Port Gaverne
During my break from university in the summer I was lucky enough to do some work with a media company in my beautiful home county, Cornwall. This is an account of a “Day in Life at Placement”, which asks for an average day at the company. I don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing but every day was different and I don’t think “average” came into play while I was there!
Every other Wednesday, Hailer dedicates the whole day to an outdoor activities company operating out of Port Gaverne, North Cornwall. The weather had been gloriously sunny and the conditions on the water were set to be perfect for the day. Which meant it was an ideal opportunity to take advantage and get as many photographs as we could to use for future marketing. Especially because the business shuts down for the winter season, but banking enough images to see them through and gain custom throughout the winter is essential for a busy summer next year.
Mat getting photographs from water level
I arrived at 10am into Port Gaverne at 10am where I found my boss Mat already in situ taking photographs of a stand up paddle board group heading out. He talked me through what was going to happen during the day before heading down to the shack where the business runs from.
I was introduced to the team and given an explanation of what they do and what type of images they were looking for to include on the website and for their social media. I set up my camera equipment for on land photography, while Mat set up his camera in its water housing to be taken into the water. Above is a photograph I took of him in action. We then set out to take our photographs with the aim to take as many action shots and to photograph each activity as they worked their way from the beach, out to sea and around the cliffs.
Coasteering group, an example of the photographs I was taking
We stopped for lunch early afternoon and set up camping chairs on the beach while everyone had a pasty and chatted about the day. This was really interesting to meet everyone from our client team as they all have extensive experience from all over the world in outdoor activities and how the business came to be.
After having a break from work and cooling off in the sea, we went back into our positions to carry on taking photographs. Mat and I would meet up at regular intervals so he could ensure I was on the right track and I received positive feedback on the images I had taken. By the end of the afternoon, I had taken around 450 photographs.
Mat deciding where to go next to get photographs
We then headed back to the shack and went through the photographs and selected ones to edit and post immediately. We ran them through photoshop to subtly edit them to then post on the business’ Instagram and Facebook. While doing this, we also had the approval from our client on which ones they preferred and wanted to see posted on the day.
The day was wrapped up by around 5pm and we had arranged another out-of-office day for two weeks' time and it was time to go home.
Reflecting on this now makes me realise how lucky I was to go out of office on a beautiful summer day and take photographs (for my job) thats living the dream right!?
Below is one of the finished photographs featured on their social media taken by me!
All images featured in this blog post were taken by me as part of my log book for my university degree.
