Event photography at Manchester Hall | Making a feature of the venue

Two things that I enjoy photographing are events (of all kinds) and building interiors.  The latter appeals because it’s the polar opposite of what I spend so much time doing i.e. there are usually no people in the shot!  And shooting people is what I do for over three quarters of the time.  But sometimes it’s fun to try to bring the two disciplines together, to see if they can be combined in one commission.

Last autumn I was asked to attend a construction industry event at Manchester Hall in central Manchester.  The event was the first time that Building Magazine had ventured North, and they wanted a good record of the day.  Now, if you’ve never visited Manchester Hall, let me tell you that it’s a lovely building.  A former Masonic Lodge, the building is a typical grand Victorian civic building with all the features and grandeur that that conjures up …… and certainly a long, long way from the kind of soulless conference rooms that so many events take place in.  So it seemed only right to try to utilise the building in the photos that I was creating.  This is only a tiny part of the full coverage (the majority is of the speakers, audience and discussion panels, of course), but it was great to try to create some images of a daytime event where the emphasis was on the location rather than the people involved.

Of course, I’ve plenty of shots of the speakers presenting – looking animated and knowledgeable – and the audience interested and amused; but there are plenty of shots like that all over this website from other events.  Just take a look at that room though – isn’t it great?  Wouldn’t you love to be sitting there in all that splendour?

I think that the location can really make a good event great.  A place that takes the breath away when you arrive makes you appreciate all the more what you’ve turned up to hear.  On this occasion I wanted to do the building of Manchester hall justice – hopefully I’ve achieved that.  From a PR perspective too, showing such an impressive venue off says a lot about your organisation, the values that you believe in and the standard of event that you lay on.

Have you got an event coming up in an unusual location?  Or somewhere that you’d really like to show off in the photographic record of the day?  Then please get in touch.