City Renewal Authority hired me to photograph the independent traders at Dickson Shopping Centre. The brief was to move the focus off the shops and onto the people running them, so locals had a reason to turn up.
I shot every business in the precinct: the owners, the work they do, an ordinary day on the floor. CRA came away with an image library it could build the campaigns from.
A photographer wandering a shop floor mid-service is a nuisance. Every owner in Dickson let me do it anyway, and a few of them fed me while I worked.
It made me wonder how many photos these businesses actually have of themselves. A couple of the owners already knew what good pictures do for them. Most had been putting it off for years.
Everyone got their shots. Handing someone a photo of their own shop that they're proud of makes the case better than I can.
