Stand Up: Lightbox

What is most striking about the founders of Lightbox is not their incredible physical attractiveness, but instead, the amount they’ve got on their plates. Benoit, Amy and Jessica are not only the HB’sIC of covering almost every event St Andrews has to offer, but between them have also been involved in FS (Marketing, Choreography and Press), STAR, GIG, studied abroad and interned at M&C Saatchi. One even has their own fancy website. Do you feel inadequate yet?

The professional eye that Lightbox lends to their endeavors has got them a bit of reputation around town – in a crowded Central over a post-exam pint, they filled me in on the strange idea others seem to have of their group as an external, ‘grown up’ agency.

‘We’ve had meetings with other students and they are always surprised to be shaking hands with someone just like them. We are students, we’re aimed at students, and it’s bizarre because we just don’t see ourselves that way. In a way it’s a compliment!’

Perhaps some confusion stems not only from their high quality photos but also their fee. Lightbox charges to cover an event and get the photos up on Facebook – what exactly does this cash go?

‘It mainly goes towards the photographer’s time. They will spend a good three or four hours taking photos, and another three or four editing them. Photos out of the camera are never just published! Usually you will have around 900 pictures to go through to find just 150 good ones. Some events will even ask us to be there for eight or nine hours, but our fixed pricing makes it more accessible to all.  Other than that, it goes towards running the website and insurance: everyone who works for us is insured and we have public liability insurance, so events can hire us at no risk to them. We’re not money driven at all; it just keeps us going!’

After snapping their first shots in February 2012, Lightbox are nearing their second birthday, although to many of us it seems like they’ve been around forever.

‘It took off so quickly, it showed there was definitely a gap we had sprung upon. We didn’t realize how far it was going to go though…’

Indeed they are no longer the only ones of their kind, with new photography groups rearing their heads all over the place.

‘It’s nice to see other people coming together; we like to think we helped create a culture where people value photography. The fact they exist is a good thing for us! Competition forces us to think about what our brand is and what sort of style we are, good reasons why we should be hired and why people should pay more for us. It’s a differentiated market, and in terms of cost we’re at the top. We need to work on keeping that top spot to prove we deserve it, which can be hard as other people are really good too! It forces us to think about new ways to ‘do’ photography, and the depths that we could be going to.’

This year is a big turning point for the group, as six of them will be moving on to bigger things in the graduate world. Their personal plans range from management positions, to PR, to shooting wildlife documentaries: the general consensus is that there  isn’t too much money to be made in commercial photography. So what is to become of their baby once they leave the town?

‘It feels bizarre, but the group are going to do a really, really good job of it. We’re moving along and evolving all the time, taking on far more video and design jobs than we ever did and getting involved with things for the University as a creative agency. Events are becoming a small part of the picture, as we’ve had the opportunity to expand with new people.’

At the end of their first year they were pushed to the limit and opened applications for two spots, eventually ending up with eight new team members who form the group today. They have a hand in almost everything photographic that you see flying around on Facebook, from the Other Guy’s head shots, to Catwalk and everything in-between. On popular weekends, they reach over and above 130,000 unique hits to their albums, an amazing reach and another fantastic reason they’ve been marked as the creme de la creme of student photography.

Click here if you’re a budding photographer, videographer or designer and want to share your work with the team. Applications are open for another 24 more hours!

Look out for exclusive Lightbox photos in the Stand’s event reviews!