And that's a wrap!

John Rose November 1, 2023

As the curtain goes down on our 10th year of capturing the Celebrate Voice Festival, we look back at our favourites from this year’s event. Over the decade since we started, the festival has gone from strength to strength and this year’s was the best yet.

The festival opened with the world-renowned BBC Singers (conducted by Bob Chilcott), performing in Wilton Italianate Church. The beautiful choral music filled this equally gorgeous venue with an uplifting mix of songs and melodies.

Ronnie Scott’s All Stars returned to the festival from the internationally-renowned London Jazz Club, with songstress Natalie Williams, one of the UK's most popular soul/jazz artists. People travel from around the world to visit the Soho club, but we were lucky enough to be part of this fabulous evening in our own home-town city of Salisbury.

Come and Sing HMS Pinafore, was a chance for members of the public to immerse themselves in the action, and be part of the production with the stars. A morning of rehearsals, led by Musical Director David Gostick was followed by a performance in which the public became the chorus, and put what they had learnt into action.

Comedic opera “Cosi Fan Tutte” was a riot of a show, full of fun and hi-jinx (set in a 1950s holiday camp; with a nod of inspiration from Hi-de-Hi). The trials of life, love, romance and betrayal twisted and turned to keep us enthralled to the end.

Live at the Musicals brought together Zoe Curlett, Katy Hanna, Keiron Crook and Simon Shorten direct from the glittering stages of the West End, to perform a wonderful mix of iconic and universally loved show tunes. This really was an intimate, up close and personal performance, and we LOVED it.

Comedy and Cabaret at its very best with performances by award winning and acclaimed comedians Amy Webber and Andrew Drew. Their solo shows had the audience (and us) in stitches with their individual takes on modern life and employment issues.

Always the biggest highlight of the festival for us. SEND brings local people with learning difficulties together with the professional singers, to produce and star in their own special performance. It’s just the most amazing, incredibly joyous, emotionally uplifting and inclusive celebration of our local community, and it’s the one we look forward to the most each year.

Showcasing up and coming talent, we were treated to performances by local young artists. Recommended by their schools, these truly are the stars of the future and the ones to watch. We are so looking forward to seeing how their careers progress.

One last word - if the Celebrate Voice Festival has somehow escaped your notice, please do watch out for next year’s offering. It’s well worth the visit and maybe we will see you there!

WHAT?

John Rose May 30, 2016

So we've been through my WHY!

I want to create images for businesses that help them engage with clients. I want to show their clients how good they are, how good and trustworthy they are, I want to work with forward thinking businesses that value the time, effort and passion I put into every image I create. That is my WHY!

And my HOW!

As a professional commercial photographer I have a four step approach to creating amazing images for my clients. The listening stage and the research stage being my how!

So now to my WHAT!

I have listened and researched, and have clarity on the message that is required, so we now move onto the creative stage.

The creative stage is exactly what it says on the tin, it's where I look at putting the ideas I have gathered in all the previous stages and turn them into an image design. The results of this stage depend on where and how the images will be used, and of course my clients budget. In creating the images I have to ensure I balance the cost of producing them, to the investment (ROI) my client will be making. There is absolutely no point in having an amazing campaign if it costs more to produce than they can make in bottom line profits.

I have listened, researched, created, and now I have moved to the final stage, which is the production stage. This is where the idea becomes reality, and I produce the image(s) to give the desired outcome. The outcome can of course be a myriad of things from engagement, sales, social interaction, bums on seats if they are having a conference, the list is endless. At the end of this stage the client will have an image, or images that they will be able to use freely and without further license, for as long as they are able to give the message they want them to give.

So that's it, my, WHY! HOW! WHAT! used to power John Rose Photography's client care.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this short series of posts. Now that you know a little more about John Rose Photography Limited. Please do leave a comment, I am very interested to know what you feel about this series.

If you have a question post it in the comments and I will answer it personally. If you would like to talk to me about how I can create an image to help you and your business grow, please do get in touch by clicking here or telephoning 01722 320500.

I am very passionate about what I do, and the results I present to my clients. If you know someone that would benefit from a no obligation chat with me then please do forward my details and I will be pleased to talk to them.

WHY?

John Rose May 17, 2016

It is said that people buy your 'why' not your ‘what’ or ‘how’. Now if you haven't heard this before you're probably thinking “what the hell is he on about, surely they buy what you sell?”. I used to think that too, until I watched this video.

I've watched this a few times now and to be honest, I just couldn’t find my WHY. I came up with things like:

I love doing what I do
To make money
People say I'm good at it
I like people's reaction when they see their images
Now these are all good reasons for doing it, but why would anyone care about any of them; apart from, I'm good at it I guess, but they don't know that until after I've done it.

Over the last few months it has been playing on my mind that I didn't know WHY I'm a photographer. I've attended quite a few seminars and this 'WHY' seemed to keep coming up, but I didn't know WHY. I spoke to trainers and mentors about it, and they all said that although my reasons above were good ones, none of them are going to compel clients to want to engage me.

I looked at each of the genres of photography that I undertake and listed why I thought I did them, and each time I came up with the same answers. Then one day while watching training videos (I watch lots of videos by top photographers trying to improve my techniques), I realised what my WHY was.

I want to create! Now I know that's sounds obvious for someone who's in a creative business, but I want to help businesses 'Develop their image' (my new tag line by the way). That is my WHY! I want to create images for businesses that help them engage with clients. I want to show their clients how good they are, I want to work with forward thinking businesses that value the time, effort and passion I put into every image I create.

People have always described me as a commercial photographer. I don't know why as I used to do more social photography than anything, but I now know why. I think they have been seeing my WHY when I couldn't. They have seen my passion for commercial photography and helping businesses, when I couldn't. You see I thought I was a social photographer, and don't get me wrong I love doing weddings and portraits, and I give the same care and attention to their shoots as I do to all my clients, but my passion really is commercial. OK I'm starting to ramble a bit now, but that is because every time I start to talk about finally finding my WHY I get so very excited.

Since finding my WHY and starting to relax with it, I have found a new lease of life. I will still continue to do weddings and portraits if asked, but I will limit those to couples I connect with, and who really do want ME to do it. I have limited my wedding commitments to a maximum of 10 full day weddings over the last couple of years and will reduce this further over the next couple of years to 5, but I can assure anyone engaging me to shoot their wedding that it will be an amazing experience for us all.

So to the future. I have already explained WHY but not what it means for John Rose Photography.

Well, I have already created a new commercial website, johnrose.photography which showcases some of the commercial photography I have been doing. In the next few months I will be moving premises. It's still at old Sarum and has free parking but I will now have a unit to myself. This will give me much more room as I will have the whole of the ground floor as studio space, which in turn will allow me to be more creative with how and what I shoot. It also has direct ground floor studio access which will allow for larger projects.

So the future for John Rose Photography is in the commercial world, with an occasional dip into the wedding and portrait markets. We will still shoot charity and commercial events but these will, in the main, be all inclusive pre-paid events with the images being supplied to the event organiser, or printed for guests on the night.

Our current school photography will be separated to become its own entity, although in the early days it is quite possible I will be doing a lot of the photography. As this part of the business grows I will bring in other photographers who have been trained by me to undertake the work in the same manner I always have.

Thank you for reading my ramble. Please do leave a comment, I am very interested to know what you feel about the proposed changes. If you have a question please post it in the comments and I will answer. If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you and your business create your message in images, please do get in touch.