With not a great deal of time to organise things, I needed to get my photography gear (backdrops, printers, computer, camera etc) packaged up along with copious amounts of paper – a total of all 110kg – ready to be picked up by chauffeur(!) on Saturday morning. Whilst it was a challenge to get ready, we event photographers thrive on a challenge, and believe me: it is a challenge staying in the 5 star Jumeirah Emirates Towers!!
I was invited over here to work on the HIPA stand in the Government section of the GITEX technology week. For those that don’t know, HIPA is the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award – the most prestigious photography competition in the world. Now it’s second year, this competition has a prize fund in excess of $340,000. All of the finalists are flown over to Dubai for a week and the overall winner walks away with a whopping $120,000! Not bad for a competition that’s free to enter.
So what am I doing on the stand? Well, His Highness has kindly loaned his Orange County Chopper (the most expensive prop I’ve ever had!) and we are photographing the visitors to the stand and giving away free prints. So far, after three days, we’ve printed in excess of 900 12×8″ prints using a single printer. It is certainly causing quite a stir and is proving to be a hugely popular attraction. We have a constant stream of people wanting to have their picture taken.
I am always looking at ways to improve the service that we, as a company, offer the clients and I am a firm believer in selecting the right tool for the job. This job is the first time I have used our new green-screen process for creating the photos and I am delighted to say that it is working perfectly. Indeed, the more I use the product, the better I find it to be. The clients are certainly wowed by the results which, at the end of the day, is all that matters.
If you are organising a trade exhibition, then this can be a brilliant marketing exercise for you. Every print includes a bespoke border featuring HIPA’s logo, details and URL. There’s no reason why this couldn’t work for your company or product too. If you are interested, please get in touch!