UBIS, Geneva

I was contacted by Elena Panizza, head of Brain Bazaar about this job. I was very pleased to be asked, after all, it combined travel and decent renumeration, though, in truth, living in Barcelona means I am no longer sure what that is, as very few here want to spend money on work that might be professional when they can get amateurs for free. But this is not a post about the woes of being free-lance in this otherwise picturesque city.

We spent about a day and a half in Geneva at the new premises of UBIS, a Business University. Basically, the work consisted of an impromptu studio set up, for formal portraits and if time/weather permitted, some more informal shots of students being, well students.

There are countless stock library images of photos like this, but it always nicer to get your own; hopefully something less anodyne, more particular, to the client in question and in truth, if I see one more shot of bland preppie models pretending to be students, I might swap my camera for DVDs of Gossip Girl, start shopping in Ralph Lauren and then get a lobotomy, so I can enjoy the whole experience guilt free.

The people we dealt with at UBIS were really great, It was an enjoyable shoot; this is an institution that is being developed a new, so there is a freshness about their approach I like; you are not hide-bound by a too rigid a corporate ID.

I did maybe 17-odd portrait and groups shots and also some video (which was a first and gives me an excuse to learn new skills).

We did not have much luck with time being short or the weather, so we did not really get any informal images, but hopefully future trips will rectify this.