Let us start by wishing all a very Happy New Year as we look forward to what we hope will be a season filled with sunshine and fair winds! We feel very fortunate to already have a large number of clients booked up for repeat events in 2020 and are putting out proposals at an encouraging rate that fills us with optimism!
The New Year in our offices tends to start with a visit from one of our favourite marine photographers, Paul Wyeth. With his annual calendar in hand, we always look forward to seeing his 12 favourite images of the past season and hearing about some of his more unusual assignments. Paul can mostly be seen on The Solent in his small blue Rib with one hand on the steering wheel and the other grasping a frantically clicking camera, though it’s often more a case of ‘have camera, will travel’. The Caribbean calls each year as Paul steps into his role as official photographer to Antigua Sailing Week, and ‘boat tests’, product shoots and various other yachting shows and events mean that Paul is rarely in one place for too long.
With the advent of drones, literally a whole new angle has been added to marine photography. Several of our events over the past couple of years have requested aerial images and Paul has delivered amazing shots that would only have been possible using a helicopter in the past.
Flying an expensive drone over open water (they don’t float!) and landing it safely back in a small Rib takes nerves of steel and a fair amount of skill (and clean underpants on the odd occasion when the chop gets up we would think!). One client recently told us that images from their Rib Treasure Hunt day were distributed to staff that attended and one amazing drone image now features as the screensaver on most of the computers in their office.
The addition of professional photography to our events never fails to disappoint. We can all get great snaps from our mobile devices, but that breathtaking framed picture that features on the boardroom wall can only come from the best equipment and years of experience in capturing the power and excitement in vivid colour.
Whilst we all have calendars on our phones these days, here we look at the colourful calendar on the wall every now and again on a cold rainy day and remind ourselves that summer is just around the corner and the wind will fill our sails again before we know it. If you want to get yours, there are still a few available on his website.
Paul’s currently taking a break for a couple of weeks, trekking in Nepal before the 2020 season kicks off. We look forward to seeing some great ‘holiday snaps’ and to seeing him and his camera on the water over the coming season.
