I recently had the pleasure of photographing one of the nicest guys I’d met in a while, entrepreneur and gentleman, Mr Stephen Fear. When you sit down to chat, you instantly know that Stephen is someone you should pay very close attention to. Stephen went from living in a small council flat with no room for an office, to become a millionaire by the time he was 20. He then repeated that millionaire bit many, many times over. If you have a spare few minutes the background of his life is pretty amazing. There’s a great 3 minute article on The Daily Express.

One of the interesting parts of his background story was that Mr Fear started his business by operating out of an old red phone box and convincing a telephone operator to be his secretary. Since Stephen had just recently been given the honour of being the British Library’s Entrepreneur in Residence, London PR experts Jargon PR organised for a red phone box to get shipped in to the British Library. Paul from Jargon PR and I arrived early and awaited the phone box’s delivery. Thankfully it was on wheels so we were able to scoot it around to a few different locations to see what worked best.

The day we shot this, the sun was absolutely glaring down. Very rare sight for London! After we’d got all of the “safe for PR use” images, I decided to use the sun to my advantage and get a couple of more interesting photos to show my client.

Here’s a quick overview of the lighting set up:

And here’s one of my favourites:

We then headed inside to the Business and IP Centre and shot a few corporate portraits for use in both online and printed media:

The Business and IP Centre is a great resource for anyone running or looking to set up a business. It’s all free and you get access to many reports you’d normally have to mortgage your house to obtain. Even better than that, having even 5 minutes access to Stephen Fear could be game changing for your business. If you would like to “Ask and Expert”, you’ll need to apply through the British Library on this link. I’d imagine that competition to see Stephen will be very tough, but you never know your luck and I whole heartedly recommend at least trying. He summed up all of the issues with running a freelance photography business in about 3 minutes, without me even opening my mouth! Tough to hear but essential if one is to survive in this economy.

Thank you to Jargon PR and of course to Stephen for his expert modelling skills and humour on the day. I had a laugh and learned quite a bit during our brief afternoon together. Can’t ask for more than that!

Cheers,
Damian