Lidl Marquee Portraits at the Royal Highland Show
Last month, I had the chance to attend the Lidl marquee at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh. It was an incredibly proud moment for me. The Lidl marquee was adorned with many of my portraits, inside and out and larger than life, from the Best of Scotland campaign I had shot for them over the last year. So many square meters of my work all in one place! It gave me a similar feeling to seeing my first published picture on the cover of the Ealing Gazette in 1991!
These photos were shot on the Sony Alpha A7 III and even at twice life-size, the photos retained their brilliance and clarity. I was truly blown away!
Lidl Marquee at the Royal Highland Show Edinburgh
At the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, many of the large supermarkets make their presence felt by hosting a large marquee to show off their products. They often hand out food samples and schedule presentations by experts such as sommeliers giving talks on wine tasting and so forth.
This year, the sample stations where the food samples were given out had large portraits of the maker or food producer behind each sample. This gave the customers and patrons of the marquee a real connection to the human side behind the food and the passion and expertise that went into producing it.
My favourite photo, which had been blown up to a massive size, was Andy, the fish farm manager. Earlier in the year, I photographed him holding a huge, beautiful salmon whilst standing amongst the seaweed at Kinlochleven, with a dramatic highland landscape and foreboding sky to his back. It was one of my most cherished photos of the entire campaign!
As a professional photographer, it’s always exciting to see your work published. When I worked in the newspaper industry, one of my morning rituals was to scan all the papers to see who had used my work that day. Over the years I’ve built up a great record of my tear sheets and, as of late, the pictures I see the most are the ones used in company marketing materials, brochures and advertising campaigns. Most of my tear sheets are small and rarely bigger than a magazine cover. But to see my work bigger than the side of a bus certainly gave me a great buzz and made me even more proud of this body of work I’ve done for the Lidl campaign.
I’d like to give a huge thanks to everyone in the advertising department at Lidl for giving me the chance to explore so much of the Scottish countryside in pursuit of these beautiful portraits. I’d also like to thank all the food producers who invited me onto their farms and into their shops to take these amazing photos. You are truly a part of the lifeblood of Scotland. I’m personally grateful for everything you do to keep alive the passion, skills and traditions that give Scottish produce its amazing reputation for flavour and quality around the world.
Advertising and Marketing Campaigns – Epic Scotland Photography
If you’re looking to start an advertising or marketing campaign, whether you have portrait photography in mind or you are starting from scratch, let’s get in touch! I’ve gotten so much enjoyment from my marketing campaign photography in the past, and I’d love to share that joy with you and your organization. Here’s to many more exciting campaigns to come!
