Preston enjoyed Caribbean weather for its 35th annual Caribbean Carnival. I was there to take some images for Viva TV who have put together an nice video piece about the carnival which can be viewed here.

I have put some of the images on Flickr which can be viewed here. If you want to see them as a slide show go here.

Restaurant[mappress

With a new hotel to promote, Sales Manager – for the Ramada Plaza, Southport – Georgia Hayes has her work cut out. With a ‘new build’ hotel like this, how do you get people around the world aware of the hotel, how it looks and how it feels to stay there? We hope to contribute in some part by making the images we have shot of the hotel viewable, down-loadable and usable – by way of a ‘Creative Commons Licence’ – to a global audience. Putting the images at high resolution on our Flickr account with Tags and Links should help anyone who is looking for images of Southport find the images and use them. If they appear in any features illustrating Southport, so much the better.

This is a new approach we are taking with our images whereby the intention is to have as many eyes looking at the clients approved images of their product as we can. In the past many photographers instincts have been to closely guard and restrict the use of images. However, for some purposes this approach may be counter productive and not always serve the clients best needs. We will not always give our copyright away but for some clients in some situations this may have major benefits. You can see a larger range of images on our account at Flickr.

If you want to find out more about how you could benefit from having images of your product or service take advantage of these techniques call us or send an email. We will be very happy to talk to tell you more.
[mappress] ]]> http://creativemixedmedia.com/new-ramada-plaza-and-new-marketing-tools/feed/ 0 http://creativemixedmedia.com/princes-trust-event/ http://creativemixedmedia.com/princes-trust-event/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:08:06 +0000 admin http://www.creativemixedmedia.com/?p=763 During the ‘Children in Need’ 2007 campaign, Martin Ainscough generously bid for the services of Aled Jones and Katie Melua for an evening of entertainment. Martin quickly offered the services of Aled and Katie to the Princes Trust who, in turn, organised a marvelous charity event in Cheshire billed as ‘An Evening with Aled and Katie’. We were booked to cover the event by Southport PR company ‘Concept Communications’. MD of Concept Communications, Margaret Tarpey wrote a great testimonial which was especially well received by us because of Margaret’s experience in the industry.

Email from Concept Communications

Katie Melua

Aled Jones performing on stage

Rachael, Judith and Martin Ainscough

Jenny McAlpine and Antony Cotton

William Roach MBE and Sarah Roach

Joanne Rowden and Sarah Jane Buckley (Holyoaks)

Katie Beckham, Margaret Tarpey and Aled Jones

Andrew Donaldson, Dean Sullivan and Jane Casson

Virtual tour movies offer some really useful features in helping people to visualise a location. A few years ago when my wife and I were looking to book a holiday cottage up on the North East coast, we were overwhelmed by the numbers of places on offer. Some had wonderful sounding locations but few images to offer any real information. The holiday cottage brochure we were trawling through mentioned its companion web site and the fact that some of the properties had ‘virtual tours’. A quick look on the internet, and we immediately decided to cut down our choice to those offering virtual tours. After that the decision making process moved on rapidly and we had the feeling that we were having a good nosey around the cottages. When we arrived on holiday, we really felt familiar with the place; the technology had done its job.

So, I have finally got around to perfecting the technique and offering this service to our clients. I know its been around a while, but I really feel that this technology helps people get a feel for a location. Its interactive, so they can look where they want. On the website of a hotel, estate agent, indeed anywhere where showing someone around a space will help bring it to life, I think it is a wonderful marketing tool. 

Click on the image below to have a look around the Northern Lights open plan office in Uclan. Hold your mouse button down whilst you drag it across the window to rotate the image. If you want to zoom in or out use the shift and control keys respectively.

If you can see the potential for your business get in contact with us. The movie requires Quicktime player to work; if you haven’t got it installed on your machine you really should have. It’s really easy to instal and can be downloaded by clicking here or clicking on the download button at the end of this post.

To rove around the images, hold your left mouse button down and move it across the image left or right. Use the shift and control keys to zoom in and out respectively.

Below is the 4th Floor corridor of the Media Factory, Uclan, Preston

SDC’s Production of ‘Party To Murder’, originally uploaded by Creative Mixed Media.

I have now added my selection of images from ‘Party To Murder’ which was staged in April this year. This is part of an ongoing project to make as many of the images that I have taken at The Little Theatre in Southport available to the cast. If you are part of SDC and want to view or download any of the images contact me at creativemixedmedia@mac.com or add a comment. If you want to know more about this please read my earlier post. – Neil Hickson

To see what is available so far click here.

It must be about 6-7 years now that I have acted as photographer for the Southport Dramatic Club who run The Little Theatre in Southport. Over this time I have built up a huge collection of images. Some are taken during the dress rehearsal ‘live’ performance, some are staged as photo opportunities and the rest are head and shoulder portraits; ‘mug shots’ as the actors like to refer to them. These images are usually shot on the dress rehearsal night. I then process the images, email a selection off to the printer (Mitchell and Wright in Southport), email a selection over to the local newspapers and the SDC’s web site. Finally, a selection is made to print out for Front of House display and for the advertising board in the street.

I have occasionally been asked for copies of images but most people don’t get chance to see what I have shot. Anyway, I am now proposing to let people have electronic copies of the images for their own personal use, for free. The images will be accessible and downloadable from pages on my web site.

Images are at full resolution, big enough to use as personal promotion material for those who have professional aspirations or alternatively, to have a print made for your aunty Mabel. Although you can have them for your own use we don’t want to give up our copyright of the images altogether; I strongly believe that Photographers who give away their copyright don’t value their own work. I would like to share these images with you and yours. It’s a way that I can give extra value to the theatre, spread a little happiness and let more people see my work.

With so many images I won’t be able to release everything all at once so I am going to work backwards (more or less) putting images on as and when I get the chance. All future shows will be available a short time after the show starts. Some shows were shot on film and my archiving methods were not ‘perfect’ in those day’s so I won’t be able to make everything I have ever done available.

That is the proposal and I would like to hear what you think about it. The images from the Full Monty, staged back in May are there now on a web page on my site. If you want download any of them just email me and I will come back to you with a password. This is a ‘manual’ system so please be patient when awaiting your password.

To see what is available so far click here.

Creative Mixed Media and we are based in Preston, Lancashire.

We incorporate photography, illustration, video production and motion graphics to produce content for web, print and traditional broadcast.

We launched Creative Mixed Media to serve the growing market for ‘New Media’ and ‘Multi-Media’ production. These are areas that we believe offer lots of new and exciting opportunities. We have the knowledge, tools and experience to produce content for the web, printed media, podcasts and broadcasts. We have a track record for producing top quality content and we enjoy working closely with our clients to communicate their ideas, illustrate their products and tell their stories.

To bring our clients ideas and messages to life we use a range of industry standard equipment and software. Using the Macintosh Platform we have all the tools necessary to shoot high resolution digital images.

Please take the time to have a look through some of the photographs in our portfolio. We cover a whole range of subject matter; portraits, interiors, architecture, products, food, events, documentary and landscapes. The majority of our photographs are commisioned for magazines and as marketing tools for business.

Video is shot in SD or HD with a full range of skills and tools for editing, providing motion graphics, recording audio tracks and composing backing music. Throughout the whole creative process maximum attention is paid to retaining complete flexibility for repurposing content for different uses giving the client maximum value.

We have recently put some of our video projects onto our own YouTube channel. Click onto the video menu to check out the channel. It seems an ideal way of getting more people to view our work.

Please feel free to give us a call if you want help with marketing your business. Contact