New Year’s Eve fireworks from your home

If your flat or apartment looks out over the London New Year’s Eve fireworks, I can photograph the display for you from your balcony. For private clients it’s £2,000, including VAT.

I can only be on one balcony at midnight, so I take one New Year’s Eve booking a year.

What I need from you

A clear view

A balcony, or access to the roof, with a clear, unobstructed view from the camera lens to the fireworks. That means being outside.

What I don’t and won’t do is shoot through glass. Windows and glass walls are grubby on the outside, however clean they look from indoors. Window glass isn’t optically sound, and it can throw reflections across the frame. There are ways to cut down the reflections, but nothing gets rid of the dirt, and the pictures pay for it.

If the best view is from your building’s roof rather than your balcony, you’ll need permission from whoever manages the building before the test shoot.

I’m height safety certified and carry public liability insurance, so I can work safely at height.

What you’d like

Tell me what you’d like to do with the pictures, and I’ll shoot and edit with that in mind. If you’re planning a big print for your wall, tell me roughly how big. If you’ll share them on Instagram, I can make a panorama people can swipe through, and I do the same with the video.

The test shoot

Before the night, I visit you for a test shoot. It shows me the view and tells me exactly which kit the job needs, so on New Year’s Eve I bring only that, instead of hauling every lens I own across London on the busiest night of the year.

You keep the pictures from the test shoot too.

On the night

I photograph the display and film it in 4K.

If the test shoot shows you have a fabulous view, I’ll arrive a few hours before midnight and get to work on it before the fireworks start.

Getting into London on New Year’s Eve is hard work. Getting out is worse: queues for the Underground, and trains so full you wait for the next one. I’m usually home around 6am.

Belt and braces

I’m properly paranoid on jobs like this, and I check everything twice. I keep a written checklist in my camera bag, built up over the years I’ve shot the fireworks, that tells me exactly how to set up to capture as many shots of the display as possible.

I bring plenty of batteries and usually run two cameras, so if one fails, the other keeps going. Each camera saves every shot to two memory cards at once, so there’s always a backup.

Making the most of your view

If your home has a spectacular view, I won’t waste it. I’ll photograph every landmark I can see, and shoot panoramas and super-high-resolution pictures that print very large, big enough to fill a wall.

The price stays the same either way. If all I get is the fireworks, that’s what you pay for. Everything else the view gives me comes at no extra cost.

After the night

Fireworks pictures are best shared while people are still talking about them, so I aim to deliver within 24 hours, and sooner if I can.

Everything arrives sorted and labelled, so you can see at a glance which pictures are for printing and which are for social media.

Using the pictures

The pictures are for your own private use, for ever. Print them, frame them, and share them on your own social media with a credit. That covers everything I deliver: the fireworks, the test shoot pictures and any extras from the night.

The only things I ask are that you don’t sell them, use them for a business, pass them on for anyone else to use, or upload them to stock photo sites like Alamy or Adobe Stock. If you’d like to use them commercially, for a holiday let, say, let’s talk about a commercial booking instead. If they’re used beyond what we’ve agreed, I’ll charge a commercial licence fee for that use.

Under UK law the copyright stays with me, but that won’t get in the way of enjoying them.

Crediting me

If you share the pictures on social media, please tag my account for that platform with an @ in the caption, or tag me in the picture, wherever the platform allows it. My accounts are linked at the bottom of every page on this site.

What I do with the pictures

I may write about the night on my blog, and if any of the pictures earn a place in my portfolios, a good skyline shot, say, they’ll go up on my website. I’ll post a few on Instagram, Facebook and Flickr.

It’s your home, so I’ll never name you, tag you or say where you live without your permission.

Changing your mind

You have 14 days from booking to cancel for any reason. Just tell me, and I’ll refund you in full within 14 days.

If you’d like the test shoot to happen within those 14 days, I’ll need you to ask for that in writing. If you then cancel before the 14 days are up, you’ll pay a fair share for the work I’ve done so far, and I’ll refund the rest.

Refunds after that

If I get it wrong, you get your money back.

If I have to cancel because I’m ill or there’s an emergency, you get a full refund, and you keep the test shoot pictures.

Fog and smoke are out of my control. If they hide the display, the fee isn’t refundable, but I’ll still be on your balcony all night, and you’ll still have the test shoot pictures and anything else the view gives me.

Booking

Book as early as you can. I’ve had enquiries about the fireworks as early as the summer, and the night tends to go early. Don’t let that stop you getting in touch closer to the date, though. I may have had a cancellation.

Before you book, I’ll send you my full terms in writing, including how to cancel. Full payment is due before the test shoot.

To book, or to ask me anything about the night, get in touch.