Altrincham Chamber Business Awards

The Altrincham Chamber of Commerce business awards have become a fixed point in the local business calendar.

I was asked to photograph the very first Chamber business awards back in 2012 and I’ve been asked to photograph every once since.  Quite an honour to keep being asked back and it’s also given me the opportunity to develop an archive for the Chamber of Commerce that tracks those eight years – the changes, the continuity, faces old and new.  It’s also astonishing to think how the time has flown.  I still have on a shelf at home my own award for Small Business of the Year, which I won in 2014 and which is here on the blog.  It feels like only yesterday, though the photos of me show otherwise!

Photographically speaking, my job is to follow my event photography mantra:  “make it look busy, and make everyone look like they’re having a great time’.  At this event, that’s easy to do – it felt like I could simply point the camera in any direction and it was job done.  Everything was well organised, well attended and the excitement and buzz in the room did half the work for me.  The evening follows a well established pattern:  drinks reception, introduction and mood setting by host Darren Proctor (who doesn’t love a good game of heads and tails?), dinner, and the awards.  There’s a nice flow to that, and breaking the evening down into those stages means I can get the key shots that I know represent each part.  I’ve posted a few highlights below that fall into those sections.

altrincham chamber business awards 2020 front cover of program drinks reception at the altrincham chamber business awards guests at the 2020 altrincham chamber business awards

On a personal note, as an Altrincham based business owner it’s great to attend this event each year.  While I’m there working, it’s also an opportunity to catch up with friends and business associates, and join in with celebrating their successes.  Hopefully by the autumn, social distancing will have eased and we can return to occasions like these.  And if you’re interested in learning more about the Altrincham Chamber, or entering the 2020 business awards, visit their website for details.