Today I was busy on the biggest commercial shoot I have undertaken to date, at Aspers Casino in Newcastle upon Tyne. The brief was a ‘reportage’ style shoot to produce images for marketing materials, in particular to promote a new site in Milton Keynes. With 10 models and 2 professional croupiers, the plan was simply to let them play and enjoy themselves…

I was selected on the strength of some of my travel and reportage work, and the manager particularly liked the candid and honest nature of my work from Japan. This was pleasing to hear, especially as I think it is easy to underestimate commercial clients and their expectations. Many casinos use corny ‘high-fiving’ imagery for their campaigns, and Aspers were keen to avoid this, adopting a more natural approach, real people having real times in their casino.

Overall, the results are looking good, and it was a fantastic experience. I thought that managing so many people might have been tricky, but not at all; it’s amazing how we can rise to the occasion when in professional mode. What was really pleasing about this job is that I was able to be myself and do my thing rather than try and take the kind of photos that I thought they might have wanted. May there be many more!