Profile Description
Hello, I’m Alex and I’m a photographer providing a range of creative services to businesses and individuals.
I provide commissioned photography to any business or organisation, videography, B2B training, photographic holidays, 1 day workshops for photo enthusiasts and hand made book making.
My primary service is bespoke photography for organisations of all sizes for illustrating their website, social media and marketing work.
My photography is commissioned mostly by businesses and also within the tourism sector where I’ve specialised as a landscape artist and commercial photographer for over 20 years.
Through my B2B training, I help small businesses understand how to use their kit to create compelling photography for themselves in association with various tourism bodies and local business groups.
My passion for landscape enables me to lead a series of residential photographic holidays to some wonderful destinations here and abroad where guests can learn and enjoy landscape photography with the support of myself and my colleague through our Tripod Travels photo workshops.
During lockdown I pioneered the first online hand made photo book making workshop and I’ve taught over 300 people to become book makers! My workshops involve the basics of book making, printing and Japanese stab binding.
I also provide a small scale video service for businesses that require short, professional, fully edited and affordable video with music, interviews, cutaways and sound in a dynamic production for their website and marketing work.
Finally, I serve on the board of a local charity, Whitstable Maritime and we hope to restore the last Oyster Yawl built in Whitstable to a working ship and we also promote the use of our nationally recognised Whitstable Walking Trail. These provide many opportunities for anyone creative seeking to make work inspired by the area, the boat, the trail and the history, heritage and contemporary sea/landscapes they embrace. Please speak to me if you wish to be involved!
Testimonials
C Dier, Maidstone Tourism:
‘First and foremost I enormously enjoyed working with Alex Hare. He is truly a professional photographer, not only brilliant at landscapes but also very good at working with people.
I really appreciated right at the start of our photographic project was our meetings; in reviewing the pictures that we had initially and then making decisions about what we needed for the future and how they fitted into our destination management plan, how they should and feel, alongside the messages that the images sent out to potential visitors.
I really appreciated his creativity in thinking about what we needed and how we should frame those shots. Alex enabled me to see what we could do to make these unique and at the same time run comfortably alongside our neighbours Visit Kent, so that our image messages were complimentary. It took time and different seasons to get what we needed and the right weather conditions too, so Alex was incredibly flexible in helping us to get the right pictures, at the right time of year, with the right lighting, so they look amazing.
He also had very good ideas on locations and how best to use them. Mostly we had to use non-professional models and he was great with the children too.
Alex is also very good at making sure that all the paperwork for models is in place for permissions etc.
I have enjoyed every picture ever since on a personal and professional level. When I have a budget again for photography I would without a moments hesitation ask Alex to help me do the project.’
K Hearnden, Visit Canterbury:
‘Visit Canterbury commissioned Alex to create a full library of images for our marketing work to include city and coastal landscapes and lifestyle images of people enjoying the heritage and lifestyle aspects Canterbury and Whitstable have to offer, and which also needed to resonate with our different target audiences and campaigns we run.
He successfully applied his expert knowledge of landscapes and technical skills at lighting people and indoor spaces, like the pubs and restaurants we wanted to feature, and produced strong images that not only matched our brief but were delivered both on time and on budget.
Alex was extremely professional and worked really well with all the non-professional models we used. I wouldn't hesitate to work with him again or recommend his work to others.’
Pam Foden, Visit England & Pam Foden Assocs:
‘I have worked with Alex Hare for more than seven years, initially on VisitEngland commissions including B2B photography for the accommodation and visitor attraction sector (print and online) and event photography.
Alex also supplied articles for VisitEngland’s Quality Edge magazine and ran ‘hands-on’ training courses for businesses of all sizes. His ‘people’ skills are second to none. We didn’t have a budget for professional models, but Alex could easily persuade the most reluctant operator, team member or customer to be photographed (and sign the model release form).
There was always keen competition within the VisitEngland team to join Alex on a shoot. He is good company, well-organised and quickly builds a good rapport with the host business, adapting easily to any constraints and ensuring minimal disruption for the business.
He was always an excellent ambassador for VisitEngland.
Latterly Alex has contributed to my freelance commissions for Sheffield Council (DEF project) and Coastal West Sussex (Activity/Experience photography). The businesses and clients were delighted with his work and delivery of the images post-shoot has always been prompt.
His understanding and interpretation of each brief was excellent and the quantity and quality of images supplied from each shoot regularly exceeded our expectations.’
Interview
In my artistic work, I use my camera to explore and interpret the land and seascapes I experience. For my business photography, I solve problems with my camera that address the needs of the business. With my talks and workshops, I try to help people become better and more confident photographers themselves.
My parents are British and Australian and they met in Israel. Growing up with families on either side of the world meant I travelled a lot which gave me a sense of the opportunity for exploring the world. I grew up in Suffolk and enjoyed a safe and loving up bringing.
I didn’t really think seriously about this until I was 17, and I decided to be a Royal Marine. I think I needed to test myself outside my comfort zone but also I could see a logic to it; I liked exercise and the outdoors. But after 2 years in the Corp (which I loved) I found, during my Journalism, Film and Broadcasting degree, that photography was a vocation I was passionate about. The problem was, how to make it happen as a career, so I converted to law and practiced as a solicitor until I was 30 when I started my photography business.
I remember being chastised as an infant for not colouring inside the lines! At senior school I enjoyed the freedom art class gave me away from more prescriptive subjects like maths and even English but I didn’t find any serious interest in art until I was a Uni student.
Since age 19 I’d fallen in love with the idea of landscape photography. However, this was considered somewhat superfluous (a challenge Ansel Adams also faced during war time) and I had to learn about this genre fairly unsupported. But with much persistence and dedication to improving myself I got to a point where I could strike out on my own as a freelance, a gun for hire, if you will which suits my need for variety, independence, fresh challenges and engagement with different people well.
Following graduation, with my experience of studying war and photography the most rewarding part of my degree, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to photograph and it wasn’t combat situations. My time as a soldier was also over, that journey was done for me. However, as much as I had a passion for landscape I had no idea how to make it commercially viable and the need for income made being a photographer impossible which was frustrating in my 20’s being a lawyer. However this experience taught me some good commercial skills that enabled me to pair my passion for photography with the desire to make it a business so I accept it now as part of the creative process I had to go through.
Any opportunity to capture a subject, living or scenic, from a different, interesting perspective. The role of a photographer is, I think, to present a view of the world in a way that people can connect with it but perhaps might not have thought of it in quite that way themselves.
I like how it conveys ideas and feelings about the landscape that can engender positive feelings in people about the natural world. There’s so many challenges and negative occurrences in the world but my photography is a small space where there is joy, happiness and celebration of as many natural places as I can find and resolve into a composition for people to see, enjoy and experience through my photographs.
I’ve won prizes, worked for big brands, been published widely and commissioned to do a book on my work. But it’s not these that I find most rewarding because there is a ‘game’ being played in all of them which isn’t so fun. So for me, the most satisfying part of my work is with other photographers that are seeking feedback, support and help with their photography. The sense of fulfilment in helping someone begin to realise their own creative potential is the most powerful feeling of satisfaction I find in my work.
I’ve had people say amazing things about my work, one competition winning image was described by the editor of a national magazine as ‘the best photo of a bridge they’d ever published’! But I go back to the people I enjoy helping; it’s their reactions and comments after a talk I’ve given about photography and my work that is most rewarding and memorable. To make an impression on people that compels them to come and talk to me about my work which helps inspire them through my humble attempts at photography is most memorable for me.
The fact that it changes in emphasis from project to project. At the core, is always photography, but I’ve written guide books, photographed all sorts of interesting people, places and businesses that I’m always challenged and stimulated by new experiences through the work I do.
Salgado’s Genesis project is so inspiring for me in its ambitions and the quality of the work and I would love to be involved in anything that had a premise of helping make the world a better place at its core.
Salgado, because he’s so good his work is top level in whatever genre he works in, from social documentary to wildlife to landscape. Closer to home, I’ve always been inspired by Joe Cornish and my colleague Lizzie Shepherd has a way of manipulating the camera to create images no one else ‘sees’ quite how she does.
‘Hold Still ‘by Sally Mann. Her words pour off the page like honey over warm bread!
Surrounded by my friends and family celebrating together in between adventures exploring the worlds’ people and landscapes.
Carpe diem. It might be our last.
Seek collaboration over direct competition.
Address
15 Northwood Rd, , Whitstable, Kent, United Kingdom, CT5 2ES
Location
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