MIKE SWIFT
Former Chief Photographer at Newsquest and Professional Smartphone Photographer
A Professional Photographer who was made redundant in 2019 by a large newspaper group after 30 years working as a Photographer, Photojournalist and Chief Photographer. However I was very aware many years earlier that the writing was on the wall for press photographers with the advent of the smartphone camera.
I have taken up the challenge of these new devices and I am now an award winning Professional Smartphone Photographer. I use the skills of both a former professional and an expert smartphone camera operator to train groups of people in how to use their devices to make fantastic images and to shoot fully edited short videos.
I am a street and portrait photographer nowadays and use the smartphone camera to earn a living. I can't turn everyone into an award winning photographer with a smartphone camera, but I can install confidence and teach people to appreciate what their device is capable of. This encourages them to take on new challenges. With these skills in a business environment, the business benefits from the skills developed by having media aware employees capable of promoting the business where opportunities arise by having their eyes and ears open to events that will promote the company.
Training up to 20 people at a time brings team working ethics into practice and allows people to let their hair down while learning valuable skills that they can use in both their business and private lives.
Course available are:
Basic Smartphone Photography - Students learn how to handle the smartphone camera, learn some fundamental photographic techniques and how to create vibrant, lively images. Eventually they will be creating images with a 'wow' factor. This is an interactive course with people working and photographing together in small teams - Two hour group course
The One Minute Feature Film. This teaches people the basics of how to construct an intuitive video that is as watchable at the end as it was at the beginning. Losing people after the first 15 seconds is where most short videos fall down. At the end of the course students should be able to plan, film, record sound, cutaways, source backing music, arrange intros and outros, record video interviews and create voiceovers. Then how to edit it all down to an engaging 1 to 1 and a half minute final edited video - Two hour group course
The Press Release package. Here the class will learn how to take 3 images for a press release and create a short edited video for use with a press release. They will also learn how to write a 300 word story for media so that is does not need to be rewritten later by a journalist. At the end they should be able to produce these 3 elements and be able to send them as a package to a media organisation. This package greatly increases the chance of getting the media published as it arrives in a desired format and all together to one person on one email - Full day team building course