A New Fun Approach to Marketing nickiBreeze Photography

The other weekend JP and I decided to take chocolate monster on a long walk, down the river at Oldbury-on-Seven. We desperately needed to tire him out as he thinks it's ok to attack poor old Tilly, attempting to goad her into playing with him, when all she wants to do is sleep!

He also decided to be in Chloe's picture!

It was a beautiful day so we thought we'd take the cameras out with us, get some nice landscape shots. Although, as mentioned in previous posts, the combinations of chocolate monster and cameras is not always wise. The last time being when I was on a walk with my friend Emily, her son Sam and dog Chloe (also known as Dexters girlfriend!). Whilst I was taking pictures of Emily and Sam, Dexter was playing tug of war with my jumper, which was securely fastened to my waist! Suffice to say, I ended up on the floor, holding my camera in the air for safety - funny for Emily and Sam, not so funny for me! So I wasn't holding out much hope for our Oldbury-on-Severn walk/photo opportunity.

It was a lovely sunny, dare I say even warm, day to go on this very picturesque river walk. With the combination of water and long grass chocolate monster was having a whale of a time. I took some lovely pictures of the docked sailing boats with the gorgeous landscape in the background - it was all very new age Jane Austen. When we got to the most open part of our walk, where the river meets the estuary, there was a group of young 20 somethings taking it in turns to take a picture of the group, whilst happily chatting, enjoying the scenery and gorgeous weather. Well, anyone that knows me, will know that I can't just stand there knowing that they were getting lots of pictures with one person missing each time rather than one great picture of them all. So, true to form, I offered to take a shot (or two) of them altogether with their 'point and click' compact camera.

The view at Oldbury-on-Severn

As they were admiring chocolate monster and his stick antics, trying to get him to go to them for a fuss (which he never does with strangers - hard to believe he's really a labrador!), they started to notice the size of our cameras, to which JP commented "well yes, she is a professional photographer" (I couldn't be covert if I wanted to!). After taking in the surroundings (grass field with a large step in the middle and blue skies) and seeing how incredibly trendy and fun this youthful group were, I had a photo opportunity light bulb moment!

After persuading them that I wasn't going to charge them for modelling for me, they agreed that it would be a bit of fun and why not?!

So, what did I want them to do? Jump off the step so I could get a fun shot of them all in mid-air, of course!

After the first time, they really got into it and decided themselves to do a running jump, which was great as it gave them much more airtime. After the running jump, it was time to hand over some business cards and leave them buzzing from the experience - so much fun for all of us! Even chocolate monster was running around like he'd just eaten a tonne of skittles, buzzing off seeing them all running around. My only regret was not getting them to do it one more time so I could change position to get a better result. So, if you're reading this guys and girls from Oldbury-on-Severn - do over next time you're out for a sunny walk??

Here is the colour version.....

To conclude, my new FUN approach to marketing.....get the general public to model for me doing something fun and just a little bit random!

I prefer the black and white version though!

And, chocolate monster was on his best behaviour with the cameras out, even took some time out of his busy stick playing schedule to pose for me!

Poser mode - Like butter wouldn't melt!