Every Which? Awards for over a decade
I photographed my first Which? Awards in 2015. Last night I photographed my tenth.
In a decade where almost everything else has changed, the cameras, the venues, the briefs, the formats, the audiences, the Which? Awards has stayed the most consistent line item in my calendar. That kind of relationship does not accumulate by accident.
Two years in the middle of that run, 2020 and 2021, the event did not happen. The world had other plans. The fact that the conversation picked up again in 2022, and that I have been back every year since, is the part of this story that actually matters.
What ten years at the same event teaches you
By year three, you know the room by the back of your hand, and then the CEO and venue change, so you adjust.
By year five, you know the rhythm of the event, even if it keeps changing between an evening do, and a lunchtime shindig.
By year eight, most of the team looks different, your main contact moves on, new people come in and people get promoted. The most important thing is your reputation proceeds you so much so that a five-minute conversation in the lobby replaces an hour of pre-event briefing.
You stop arriving as a vendor. You arrive as someone who already knows where to stand for the opening speech, where the chief executive is going to be, and which awards categories are going to produce the photograph the press team will actually use the next morning.
The brief never changes. Show how good the event was. Have the winners photos sent over within the hour, and the full gallery ready by morning. When everything else is continually evolving, be the thing that is reliably predictable.
A note on what this kind of relationship is worth
If you have ever had to brief a different photographer every year because the last one was fine but not enough to call back, this is what the other end of that looks like.
Ten years. Same client. Diary cleared every time the date comes round.
If you are planning something you cannot afford to get wrong, tell me about it. I will give you an honest answer about whether I am the right fit.
