Commercial property photography in Leicester.

Photographs for a property brochure, in and around St George’s Tower in Leicester.

As specialist commercial property and architectural photographers, we were recently asked to photograph a large Leicester building, for a commercial property brochure.

Requirements included internal and external photographs that could be used to illustrate a property brochure being created for the entire site.

Keith has written this overview of our work, including some of the photographs we supplied our client, shortly after completing the project.

Hopefully it gives a feel for what we do – please do call us if we can help, since we offer this service covering much of the UK.

The Blue Tower

The ‘Blue Tower’ is a bit of a landmark building in the city of Leicester.

It’s one of those buildings that people love and hate, with its distinctive blue paint job and prominent position overlooking the city centre.

It’s no longer the bright blue it was originally painted a few years ago, but coming out of Leicester railway station it’s difficult to miss.

>>Jump to Gallery of photos

Our brief for photography

The tower, and the large building associated with it are the home to a number of businesses and organisations, along with a hotel, gym and restaurant.

Our brief was to show a wide range of views of the location and its context that could be used for the brochure.

The range of businesses and residential property means that even with full access, some care is needed in what is shown in promotional materials. It’s one reason there is only a sample here of all the photographs supplied.

Types of photos

Our photos are used for many different aspects of a typical brochure, so there’s always a variety of shots in different orientations, and supplied at a high enough resolution (over 8 thousand pixels wide if need be) to allow for cropping of detail.

A general location shot could just show part of the building for example.

We can also provide some photos of the wider area, as needed – in this case our entire Photographs of Leicester collection was available, but at other locations a collection of local features and landmark locations can be included.

Note that all photos are in a gallery at the end of this article

Alternatively, this wide shot show Leicester railway station and car park, illustrating transport links important for some commercial clients.

A closer shot, emphasising the car park.

Some angles looking at the building will feel a bit more dynamic.

The final image choices are for the client and brochure designer – it’s something we ask about before going out…

Some might prefer this more rectilinear view (from the roof of the building in the shot above).

Moving to the front of the building, there is a hotel.

This shot illustrates another consideration – do you need people in the shot?

There are various approaches to this – longer exposures can blur movement, whilst multiple shots from the same point allow the number of people visible to be varied through compositing.

Moving round allows the whole building to be captured in one shot.

In the same way that numbers of people can be changed, multiple shots can allow for traffic to be removed if need be.

Building detail, including signs, can give additional location information, such as hotels and amenities.

or a cropped view…

Inside the building, there’s the hotel lobby

and bar.

The entrance to offices is further round the building.

A wider view of the interior.

On into the main office areas.

Whilst full coverage of offices can depend on getting appropriate access, we’re used to carrying out photography in commercial environments where sensitive information might be on display.

We can include the less showy but essential parts of the building too, such as corridors, lifts and services.

You arrange the access and we’ll get the photos.

Above the offices are a number of residential apartments.

Once again, we will liaise with property management and building services to get the shots needed.

A different view looking down from the main tower.

Hopefully this short collection gives a feel for the range of photos we can supply for a brief like this.

Keith has also written a short article with very high resolution image taken from the 19th floor looking over Leicester city centre that you can pan and zoom. It has enough resolution to read car number plates

The gallery below includes larger versions of the photos above, along with a few more examples of the building and local area.

Gallery