It’s been a while since the O Street crew last touched base at the studio… and we’re all missing it. We’ve even had a couple of new recruits since we started working remotely: Eli joined us a couple of months ago, and George who’s been with us for almost a year still didn’t have his very own O Street portrait.

So we knew it was about time to get reacquainted for a new matching look—for most of us, at least. It’s a tricky job to physically reunite across the Atlantic (and even the Scottish Border right now).

After frantically crossed fingers and nervous glances at the sky, we couldn’t have asked for a better day. Sunshine as ordered and Glasgow’s trademark breeze acting as a natural wind machine.

Our favourite photographer and good pal Peter Dibdin kept us all in line, getting some great shots in the process. All we had to do was avoid the oncoming traffic.

We all brushed up pretty well, with sunlit smiles and hair blowing in the wind (well apart from Neil though his beard did move at one point.) However the real star of the show was the yellow chair. We wanted something a little different for our photos. Something offbeat yet on brand for O Street.

Cue a bright yellow office chair in the middle of the road. After a spot of bother laying hands on the aerosol during a local paint shortage, studio dad Neil managed to paint the chairs himself without annoying the neighbours too much. So our perfectly odd prop was set to steal the scene against the greenery and fortuitous matching graffiti in the background.

Yup, it was great to finally get back to the studio (or at least down an alley around the corner) and meet the team again. Plus we have these smashing new headshots to show for it. With so much of our time spent working remotely, it’s easy to feel far apart—even while we’re working online every day. So these photos really bring us together and that feels good.

All professional photography by Peter Dibdin.

Last week we hung up our macs a wee bit early and piled in a van destined for Loch Fyne—our annual fishing trip. After the usual pit stops at craft breweries and Waitrose breakfast foods aisle, we settled into our loch-side bothy, baited our hooks and tried not to drink ourselves too sick to fish.

When it came time to hunt the waters, we followed our noses (and wily know-how no doubt provided by Neil and David’s magic fishing caps) and happened upon a school of mackerel ripe for the picking. From there it was all sushi, fried fish breakfasts and a bit of swimming in the icy cold waters—not a bad price to pay for a handful of hangovers. Here’s to next year!

The O Team Crew

I must confess, I am not O Street’s finest photographer. In fact I am really shit. Since a student I have been told all about f-stops and shutter speeds, but it’s gone in one ear and out my arse. Every time I pick up a camera it’s like my first time. I am not proud of this, in fact good photography skills is something we look for when recruiting designers.

Last week I was on a trip to Orkney as part of a research project I am working on with the Glasgow School of Art’s Institute of Design Innovation and I really, really needed to take photos of the people we were speaking to.

I rather sheepishly asked Ed if I could take the studio camera. ‘Sure’ he said, ‘no problem’. Well that’s where he was wrong, there was a big problem, I didn’t know how to use the bloody thing. I thought I could bluff it on auto mode, but all my shots came out with a blue tinge and that really cool blurry background thing I always ask other photographers to do for me didn’t work.

I did eventually throw in the towel and phone Ed, ‘Can you tell me how to work this camera man?’ he laughed. He talked me through it while I played around with the buttons and dials in a pub, I mean café. Here is my finest mastery of the blurry background thing (depth of field!), its an empty chair in the pub …café, and that’s where I peaked at that particular technique.

What does help however is stunning things to take photos off, and that certainly wasn’t lacking in Orkney, it even looks like I did that lens flare effect on purpose (*ahem).

The killer shot was at the end of the trip, the view from the top of the hill of the island of Hoy and the lighthouse just as the last of the sunshine was breaking through the clouds in what my grandfather once called ‘foal’s legs’. I needed to charge the battery though as it was really low. I plugged the charger into a socket in the office we had commandeered… damn the socket didn’t work! I yanked it out and the top pin of the plug snapped off. It looked quite funny, I picked up the camera to take a photo of it, but the little screen at the back said ‘Camera Battery Exhausted’.

…me too! (Here is quite a nice shot I fluked earlier in the trip instead)