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About Geoff
Geoff’s interest in photography began at around the age of 10 when he became fascinated with his dad’s film camera, not just the photo side of it, but all the knobs and dials on the camera, and of course the little viewfinder. So Geoff’s dad bought him a little camera, he’s no idea what it was, but he does recall having to get out-of-date black and white film for it from the local chemist!
Geoff eventually bought a “proper” camera, a 35mm Zeit EM, when he was 17 for a European college trip from St. Helens College.
Then, while backpacking in Australia in the early 90’s, he bought a 35mm PentaxZ20 to take some travel photos around Australia, New Zealand and Asia. This trip really got Geoff into photography and travel, especially in South East Asia. Still, it wasn’t until back in England a few years later that he began to look more into photography as a business.
At the time of starting his business in the late ’90s, Geoff had been working in catering for about 12 years when he decided to quit the job and start his own business from the spare back bedroom, retouching old and damaged photos and delivering leaflets to advertise his services.
Within a few months of starting the business, he opened a small shop and expanded on the services he was offering to include portrait and commercial photography, then after a few successful months he opened up a family portrait studio in Ashton in Makerfield and started to offer portrait, wedding and commercial photography.
Although the studio specialised in portraits and weddings, Geoff also really developed his Photoshop skills by re-touching old photos, changing backgrounds and processing images for customers too, but sadly, due to personal family circumstances, the business closed down after about 12 fantastic years.
Moving to Ulverston, Cumbria
Following the closure of the studio, Geoff continued to work as a freelance photographer and image editor and also began to build websites and design logos for small businesses.
Living in such a beautiful small market town, right on the edge of the lake district, Geoff’s passion for landscape photography quickly grew and he began to focus much more on landscapes. in 2017 he was asked to produce some of his work as prints for sale in a local Ulverston shop/gallery, TP Framework.
Following the success of print sales, Geoff went on to produce his first calendar for Ulverston in 2019 which really took off and enabled him to raise money from the calendar sales for local charities. To date, Geoff has raised over £1500 from calendar sales and continues to produce The Ulverston Calendar every year.
During the lockdown, Geoff came across #PortraitsForNHSHeroes which was started on Instagram by @TomCroft, Geoff started to offer free digital watercolour portraits for NHS and frontline staff who would send him a photo to use, this quickly took off and Geoff created around 150 free portraits over a few months for people from all over the country. The local press picked up on this and ran an article about what Geoff was doing, this was also picked up by Cumbria Life magazine who also ran an article. One of Geoff’s #PortraitsForNHSHeroes was published in the subsequent book by Tom Croft, then in another book “Through the Locking Glass” along with appearing in an exhibition in locations throughout Cumbria. Another of the portraits that was commissioned by a family who had lost a loved one in America, appeared in exhibitions in New York and Miami.
New for 2023
Geoff is expanding on his design skills and producing a range of digital assets for others to use in their work.
Over the years, Geoff has created digital images for use in his own work, these have mostly been for portrait backgrounds, however, those images are also ideal for website backgrounds, use in printed media for brochures and flyers, scrapbooking and lots more.
These new assets are all developed specifically to be downloaded and range from stock photography to digitally created images. This new development in Geoff’s business will build into a unique collection of assets that customers can download and use instantly on their own projects.
This exciting new development of digital assets will range from stock photography, videos, drone footage and sound recordings, to digitally created art and abstract images for use as various elements in photography and design.
You can contact Geoff at (+44) 07920091100 (WhatsApp or text is best)
or email hello@geoffbeattie.co.uk