Meet The Client
- Client: Chessington Word Of Adventures (Merlin Entertainments LTD)
- Location: Chessington World Of Adventures
- Project Type: 2-Day Commercial Photography for Marketing
- Date: 15th and 16th of May
Key Deliverables
Key Deliverables
- Dynamic action photography on Go Ape and the park’s thrill rides, capturing movement, expression and energy.
- Wildlife experience imagery including the giraffe feeding and safari encounters, prioritising warmth, connection and a sense of genuine interaction.
- Luxury hospitality photography of hotel rooms, themed restaurants, the evening meal and leisure amenities.
- Professional venue photography of conference rooms and event facilities for use in corporate sales materials
- A complete, cohesive image library covering the full guest experience across both days, delivered in high-resolution and web-optimised formats.
About The Client
What The Photoshoot Achieved
A VIP experience captured as a real story
High energy action content that sells the thrill
Warm wildlife moments with genuine connection
A complete day out, including hospitality
The Client Brief
The brief was to follow the guest group across their full experience and create a visual narrative that could support multiple marketing purposes: digital campaigns, print, social media, hospitality sales and internal communications.
That meant covering a wide range of environments and moods, sometimes within minutes of each other.
- Action photography on Go Ape and the park’s thrill rides, capturing movement, expression and energy.
- Wildlife experience coverage of the giraffe feeding and safari encounters, prioritising warmth, connection and the calmer side of the resort.
- Luxury hospitality photography of hotel rooms, themed restaurants, the evening meal and leisure amenities.
- Venue photography of conference rooms and event spaces for use in corporate sales materials.
The underlying goal was to produce images that show Chessington as more than a collection of individual attractions. The brief was to tell the story of a complete experience.
Nate has an incredible talent for capturing the perfect shot, and it's difficult to express just how impressive his work truly is. His unmatched storytelling ability through photography makes him one of the best in the industry—while remaining approachable, adaptable, and incredibly easy to work with. This isn’t our first time working together, and it certainly won’t be the last. If you need any kind of corporate or event photography, Nate is the one to call."
The Creative Approach
A two-day brief spanning action photography, wildlife encounters and fine dining requires a deliberate shift in technical approach between subjects. I planned the shoot around those transitions rather than working reactively.
Action and Rides
For Go Ape, I was harnessed up and I joined the team up in the trees’ this gave me the opportunity to be close to capturing the genuine reactions as they scaled the obstacle course. For the ride photography, I worked with fast shutter speeds and a flexible position that let me anticipate movement and expression simultaneously. The best action images are not about freezing motion. They are about capturing the moment a person stops thinking about the camera and is entirely absorbed in the experience. I look for that moment and I wait for it.
Wildlife Encounters
The giraffe feeding and safari section of the shoot called for a completely different pace. Here we were in a moving vehicle, a Landover 130, I wasn’t able to move, and I had to careful not to disturb or spook the giraffe. For this portion of the photoshoot I prioritised clean backgrounds, natural light and genuine connection between subject and animal. The temptation with wildlife photography is to get too close or too clever. The images that work are usually the simplest ones: a hand extended, a curious head, a real expression.
Hospitality and Evening Dining
The evening meal is easy to underestimate in a brief like this. I treat it as a distinct chapter of the story. The details matter here: the table settings, the light, the atmosphere, the conversations. A well-photographed evening dining sequence tells a prospective guest what kind of experience they will have, more effectively than any brochure copy.
Hospitality and Evening Dining
Between the action elements, I worked through the restaurant themed spaces and conference facilities. This required a different lens choice and a methodical approach to staging and light. The goal was to produce images that are commercially usable in sales decks and booking platforms, not simply aesthetically pleasing.
The Results
The project produced a versatile library covering all four content areas across two days. The images have been used across Chessington’s digital marketing, in NGT Travel’s corporate materials and in promotional content for the resort’s VIP experience packages.
It also confirmed something I have found consistently true on large commercial briefs: the projects that demand the most technical range tend to produce the most commercially valuable libraries. A client who can see action, wildlife, hospitality and venue photography all carrying the same look and feel has something genuinely useful.
A Personal Note from Nate
When you photograph the full journey, the marketing becomes more believable, and far more powerful.
Real guests make the strongest storytelling
Having Next Generation Travel as the focus meant every image had energy and authenticity, with expressions you cannot fake.
Variety is the challenge and the value
From Go Ape and rides to wildlife encounters and dining, the shoot demanded quick technical shifts while keeping a consistent look and feel
Celebrating real connections
That final chapter matters. It adds warmth, connection and a sense of occasion, turning a set of highlights into a complete story.
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