Golden Coverage

LYNCHPIX

Following on from my previous post “The Studio Sessions”, this is Part II of my catch-up on the “Image Of The Week” project. The back half of June saw me take on a couple of huge projects with my old friends at McDonald’s & Blue Rubicon. The first of which was the launch of their new uniforms, designed by Red Or Dead’s Wayne Hemingway & wife Geraldine.

Our two day shoot began at McDonald’s’ flagship restaurant on the 2012 Olympic Park (more on that later!) where the uniforms are to be premiered during the event. We got a great selection of fashion-style imagery of the staff wearing the uniforms. One thing about McDonald’s is that in all the years i’ve worked with them, they’ve never hired models for this kind of thing, they’ll always use members of their own staffing team, the guys that will actually be wearing the uniforms. This is great for me as the subjects don’t typically have the usual hang-ups a professional model has (my best side, tedious overstylised poses, etc) & after the initial excitement of being photographed, are usually much easier to pose. It also means you can capture some truly honest & candid imagery of them.

We wrapped mid-afternoon & headed for nearby Westfield to put together the press edit for sending the following day, before pumping a couple of frames over to the printers. By this point, we were deep into the afternoon with the early kick-off of Part II pencilled in for the following morning in Central London, but that didn’t matter. One thing about the guys at Blue Rubicon is they don’t muck about! The following morning, I arrived at the restaurant in the Strand at stupid o’clock to be greeted by a selection of my shots from the previous session, professionally printed & displayed beautifully on easels for the expected media. Gold Star!!!

This accompanying session was with the man himself, Mr Hemingway & a selection of our ‘models’ from the previous day. We got our shots in the bag just as the first of my bretheren were arriving from the Daily Telegraph. We ran the edit on-location with a very happy Mr. Hemingway peeking over my shoulder at the shots.

The story was a huge success running wall-to-wall across the British media with our accompanying imagery right alongside it, and of course, making my “Image Of The Week”. A good few day’s work!

(LynchPix at work…)

The second project undertaken was the aforementioned flagship on the 2012 Olympic Site, the largest McDonald’s Restaurant on the planet with a seating capacity of some 1,500!

The one thing about press photography is patience! You find yourself hanging around quite a lot for subjects to arrive. On top of that, most photographers worth their salt would usually turn up early to a job. This waiting time is not so much of a problem for me these days as i’ve become a little obsessed with Instagram!

I was a little overzealous with my postings, though as the story was embargoed ’till late in the afternoon, so I got my knuckles wrapped a little bit!

Anyway, back to the job at hand…

We got on-site nice & early before my press brothers & sisters were due at 10am, so we had the run of the place for the first couple of hours. With such an expansive subject, I strapped on the trusty fisheye lens for a few frames.

We got a great selection of shots both inside & out before the place filled with media, then pumped the chosen selection out to international press.

The following day, even I was surprised at the pick-up. We got the story placed in over 800 publications worldwide!

A hugely successful fortnight working with an A1 team. At the last count a week-or-so back, the two stories combined had been picked-up & published in over 2,500 publications worldwide…

Aaaand it made my Image Of The Week!