Behind the scenes: Co.nnect With ‘Em All! Campaign
Norfolk commercial photographer Joe Lenton is the creative force behind our new ‘Co.nnect With ‘Em All!’ campaign that shows how Team Norfolk Chambers can help support your business. We grabbed five minutes with him and discovered a creative photographer who can help businesses communicate through their brand’s imagery.
The creative brief was challenging – create 15 ‘Magnificent 7-meets – Fantastic Four – meets Justice League – meets – ‘you know that BBC Heroes series’ – style portraits, each depicting the different skills and personalities of the Norfolk Chambers of Commerce team, that can be used as trading cards for businesses to Co.nnect with…but Joe Lenton rose to the challenge.
As a Norfolk Chambers member, Joe wants to connect with Norfolk businesses who would like to create impactful photography campaigns to communicate their brand more effectively, so what better way to support Joe than by commissioning him to take the photographs for our main campaign this year?
Hello Joe, so before we start this interview, tell us what your ‘superhero powers’ are?!
JL: Haha! Oh I’m not sure! I guess if I were to sum up what I enjoy doing and am best at then it would be working with businesses to help them communicate their key messages through their imagery. I love seeing what they are doing and help them stand out from their competition by giving their imagery a creative twist.
Well you have certainly done this with the Norfolk Chambers team’s portraits – thank you! Would you say that CGI is your signature style?
JL: I see myself as a creative communicator and being able to offer quality creative craftmanship. The CGI adds to this and supports my photography to offer businesses something different. I taught myself how to use CGI during the first lockdown and I have enjoyed experimenting with the many different ways of using this technique in my photography – particularly when shooting products. Many people think of CGI in movies or computer games, but I use it to enhance product photos or portraits. In fact, during lockdown when we couldn’t shoot on location CGI enabled me to create virtual backdrops. It also is perfect for creating product prototypes to save businesses creating them themselves. CGI can save businesses time, money and with less materials and paint used for backdrops it can help the environment too. I am still mainly an advertising photographer, but CGI has become an important tool to be able to call on.
How about the creative portrait scenes in the Norfolk Chambers campaign? How did you create the effects and work with the brief?
JL: The brief gave me quite a bit to work with and combined with the six brand colours of Norfolk Chamber there were a lot of creative elements to get my teeth into! As each of the team members needed to have their own personalities, but had to fit together as a team, I shot each one from a low angle to create that superhero vibe and used the same lighting set up to keep the feel consistent. I used quite contrasty lighting to make it feel more 3D as we see shapes more clearly when the highlights and shadows are more pronounced. In post-production, I used the Chambers’ colours to create smoke, fire, lightening and other effects, which were tailored to the roles and skills of each member of the team. For some, I also created a CGI scene to place them in before adding extra smoke and glowing highlights.
We are certainly honoured to work with you on creating our Team Norfolk Chambers avatars, especially as you have worked with some fabulous Norfolk businesses such as Booja Booja, Jordan Fitness and St Giles Gin – is there a particular sector that you want to work with?
I enjoy working with food and drink producers and manufacturers as I feel that my style of photography can make product shots more impactful. Saying that however, I enjoy the challenge of making anything look interesting, including things that people might consider mundane. Any kind of product can have the potential to look great. I’m a creative image maker at heart so in many ways the more challenging the shoot the better the creative opportunities!
Finally, to keep in with the theme of our Team Norfolk Chambers trading cards, if you had your own trading card what would it say?
Haha! I guess that I would be the ‘Creative Craftsman’ with my top skill being to help communicate through imagery. My strength would be in having the understanding and empathy to project what a business wants to communicate. My weakness would be that I’m a perfectionist. My special power would be using visual language as a powerful communication tool.
Joe Lenton is an advertising photographer and CGI artist who specialises in product photography. If your business needs great pictures from someone who really understands your business needs give him a call! www.joelenton.com 01603 516288.
Get 50% off a professional photography audit with Joe!
Norfolk Chambers Members can get a 50% discount on a professional image audit for their business by Joe Lenton. Find out more on our Member to Member benefits page here
