What an exciting week that was. We were at The Photography Show 2015 at the NEC from Saturday 21st to Tuesday 24th and it was a ROARING success. This is my first opportunity to sit down and write up a review of the show from our perspective. I hope it helps you get a feel for the show if you didn’t attend yourself, or brings back warm memories if you did.
The Fujifilm stand
…or “booth” if you’re from that side of the Atlantic. We had a big stand this year – about twice the size as last year – and even still we found it packed to the rafters most of the time.
Touch and Try
Everyone wants to get their hands on the latest cameras and lenses and the Touch and Try camera bar allowed people to do just that. Our staff worked extremely hard to answers all the questions thrown at them from the show visitors.
Camera loans
We know that there’s nothing quite like using a camera to get a real feel for it so we wanted to offer people the chance to test-drive Fujifilm X-T1 cameras plus various lenses for the whole day. Our free loan service allowed people to do just that and went down a storm.
Quick Maintenance Service
And it’s not only the new customers we were helping out. We were also running a free Quick Maintenance Service which allowed people to drop off their Fujifilm cameras and lenses for a sensor clean, quick MOT and to also have the latest firmware installed.
X-Photographer Gallery
All around our stand we were showing some amazing images taken by professional photographers that use Fujifilm equipment. Take a look at the gallery below:
Fujifilm Photowalk
On Saturday evening we took to the streets of Birmingham for a Street Photowalk with Matt Hart leading the way. We met up in Victoria Square and Matt shared a few of the tips he mentioned in his talk earlier that day before setting off to try to put some of the techniques into action. It was a great experience and was fantastic to meet so many people to talk to along the way.
You can see some other blog posts about the event here:
Matt Hart’s #FujiTPSWalk blog
Mirrorlessons #FujiTPSWalk blog
Dave Young’s blog
Talks
To me, the talks are one of the parts of the show that really make it a great place for visitors. Lots of different photographers from lots of different backgrounds, all under one roof and sharing their own experiences, tips, hints and advice about the widest variety of photographic subjects. We were able to invite a few of our ambassadors to come to the show and pass on their thoughts to visitors.
Here is a bit about each of the Fujifilm X-Photographers. We also recorded the talks and will publish them soon.
Matt Hart – Street Photography
Matt was on the Streetscape stage on Saturday and Sunday. He has been a professional photographer for many years and still likes to shoot film. He runs workshops and hosts talks and training to help people become better reportage-street photographers. In his presentation, Matt gave lots of helpful advice and techniques for shooting street photography. He talked about the distinction between “Street photography” and “Street portraiture” and believes that true street photography involves images captured without the subject being aware.
Matt’s talk can be found here.
Visit Matt Hart’s website here
Bert Stephani – commercial portrait photography
Bert is a commercial portrait photographer from Belgium. He believes that photographers need to limit the barrier between them and their subjects and part of doing this is to have smaller gear. Bert gave a brief talk about his own style of photography, what he used to be like and what he tries to be like now, before then doing a live portrait shoot on stage. On Monday he was shooting the lovely Hannah from Fuji and on Tuesday the equally lovely Jeannie (also from Fuji).
From left to right, Kevin Mullins, Hannah from Fuji and me
Visit Bert Stephani’s website here
Kevin Mullins – reportage wedding photography
Kevin is a professional wedding photography from Wiltshere. His style is very much reportage. He wants to provide his clients a “guest’s eye view” of their happy day capturing images that shows the real human events that take place at every wedding. In Kevin’s talk he focused on the importance of identifying potential moments and ensuring he can be in the right place to capture them without disturbing them.
Visit Kevin Mullin’s website here
Paul Sanders – landscape photography
Paul Sanders is a professional landscape photographer from Kent. His talk is about the way he used landscape photography as a form of therapy to help deal with his own personal emotional issues. It was very deep, personal and inspirational and it’s hard for me to give it any justice here in form of a brief text description. Check back for the video which we will upload soon.
As my camera was being used to shoot the video footage, here ars some lovely images by Anthony Upton who was also at the talk.
Visit Paul Sanders’ website here
Don’t forget to follow this blog as we’ll use it to let you know when the videos of all of the talks will be online.
Until next year?
It really was a great few days and the best part is always getting the opportunity to meet so many photographers from keen enthusiasts right through to full-time working professionals. The Photography Show organisers have confirmed next year’s dates already – 19th-22nd March 2016. We hope to see you there!
This was the third year that I have attended the Show and it just gets better and better. During that time I have relinquished my Nikon gear and become a Fuji X photographer. Although the motivation was a combination of age and health the change has exceeded my expectations. It can be difficult adjusting not just to new gear but to changes in what I capture. (The E1 and E2 that I own won’t do everything that my Nikons did but they are catching up.)
A great part of the Show for me was the welcome at the Fuji stand. I left my E1 for service and took possession of aT1 for the day. That was a dangerous move. As the assistant warned I did become rather attached to it, and can’t wait to upgrade. Until then I shall avail myself of all the help which is so freely available from staff, the website and X series photographers. I had never accounted a photographic community so generous with its experience and skills and so friendly.