Leeds Hospitals Charity do fantastic work supporting Leeds Teaching Hospitals to make a real difference for patients, families and staff.

Due to my son’s cystic fibrosis, as a family we have a closer relationship with our local hospitals than most. So when I was asked to shoot campaign photography to promote legacy giving and support the charity I jumped at the chance.

Capturing the message of ‘Keeping hope alive’

This specific campaign focussed on the theme ‘Keeping hope alive’ and aimed to encourage people to leave a gift to the charity in their will to support their ongoing work. Three specific case studies were identified that demonstrated developments to treatments and care for patients and families.

The first step in any photography project that supports a specific campaign is to understand the purpose, message and delivery requirements. The brief here was quite loose so I liaised closely with both Leeds Hospitals Charity and the advertising agency Pebblebeach to get a firm understanding of their requirements.

This campaign was a perfect fit for my style of photography – I specialise in natural, relaxed images with a strong human focus. I was briefed with capturing the personality of each subject to demonstrate how their quality of life had been improved thanks to the work of the charity and the hospital care.

Ultimately the images had to demonstrate one key message – Hope.

Shooting campaign photography for specific channels

As well as shooting photography to support the core message of the campaign it was critical that I kept in mind the specific channels that the campaign would be delivered on. In this instance the images were to be used not just on the website, social media and printed literature, but also bus stops, buses and 48-sheet billboards.

The specific creative was still in development so the key was to ensure a range of images with different orientations, composition and editorial space to allow Pebblebeach maximum flexibility in creating the campaigns.

Campaign Photography Shoot – Merton

For the first shoot I met Merton, a cancer patient, at the state of the art clinical research facility at St James’ Hospital in Leeds. We had limited time with Merton in a side room before his treatment started.

My focus here was on capturing Merton as an individual, as well as interactions with Doctors and Nurses to focus on the personal care received.

Campaign Photography Shoot – Oona

For shoot two I travelled to visit Oona and her mum at their home. Oona’s life, and future, was saved by a kidney transplant at Leeds Children’s Hospital. For the shoot with Merton I’d set up studio lights in a side room in controlled conditions but with Oona being so young I didn’t believe a formal setup like that would be as effective. I wanted to capture the fact that she’d been gifted a ‘normal’ life so for this shoot I worked much more as I would with a regular family session.

I allowed Oona complete freedom to go and do whatever she wanted and concentrated on capturing her having fun as naturally as I could. We played inside and outside. I’m used to working with children and allowed myself to adapt to what Oona wanted to do to capture the most authentic images I could.

Campaign Photography Shoot – Rufus

The third shoot was really close to my heart as four month old Rufus has cystic fibrosis. Again I visited Rufus and his family at their home. Because Rufus is so young and less mobile, we were able to set up more formal lighting for a slightly more structured session.

My focus for this shoot was to capture not just Rufus, but his parents and his big brother as a family.

The Final Campaign Artwork

It’s always great to see images out in the wild, but more so when it’s a cause that’s so close to your heart.

The images from this campaign can now be seen across the Leeds Hospitals Charity website and in their legacy giving brochure as well as in campaigns across their various social media channels.

If you’re in the Leeds area you may also see the campaign on billboards being promoted across the bus networks. I was pleasantly surprised to let a bus out in front of me the other day to see Oona’s wonderful smile looking back at me. What a treat…

“You did such a fantastic job”

Jasmine, Leeds Hospitals Charity