EXTENDED BIO - SIMON...
Simon is a Creative Photographer based in Hinckley, Leicestershire and covering all of the UK.
I provide a relaxed and enjoyable experience for your special day. You'll find me most reliable whilst providing quality images with the complete photography service all couples and clients are looking for from a qualified and experienced professional photographer.
You receive my full and equal attention whether your wedding or event is large and grand, or small and niche.
Contact me direct to find out if I'm available. There are no commitments until you book.
More important to you than the numerous weddings and portraits I've photographed over the years is the quality of the photography, the service you receive and the experience of the day.
As a Youth -
I am one of a family of five children born and raised in southeast Birmingham. “Our mom and dad” worked hard and were always around for the family. Thanks to loving, caring parents I had a good upbringing with a most memorable and exciting childhood.
I’ve always been full of energy. When at primary school I would regularly skip and run over the cracks in the pavement. We had a park across the road from our home, where I spent most of my youth playing football. Many of our football games would continue late into the evening and included the dad's too. They were wonderful days!
My Introduction to Photography -
I was introduced to photography at the age of 16 through a family friend who was an amateur photographer. I purchased a second hand 35mm Praktica MTL2 camera with a 50mm lens, which cost me £25. I would travel on the bus into Birmingham city centre shooting the scenry and the people around quite candidly. Compared to today’s digital photography, shooting with film had a cost each time you pressed that shutter release button. I quickly learned to press the shutter just at the right moment.
Photography Education & Qualifications -
I am Qualified with the BTEC National Diploma in Design Photography. One year at Solihull College and two years at Sandwell College in Wednesbury. I was awarded both the Humanities Award for my work and my first commission to photograph Belgium for Kodak. Two separate trips to Belgium for an exciting, challenging assignment, which helped kick-start the way I needed to think about the business world of photography. Valuable experiences I will never forget.
Photography Apprenticeship & Career Beginnings -
My first job was as a salesman at Birmingham Camera Exchange, in New Street, Birmingham.
I then became a large format print copy Photographer at Alan Baker's in Birmingham city centre. I would work in the darkroom and photograph using a large format 10x8 inch bellows camera to horizontally project images and graphics onto large rolls light sensitive paper. I would unravel the paper rolls and using heavy-duty magnets, hang them up against a metal wall. I would then feed the paper through the processing machine, after which I would scrub “sulphuric acid” onto the emulsion to expose the paper of the blackened exposed areas. It was a noxious, hazardous job at times. This would create large display images and graphics for commercial and exhibition advertising.
Immediately after my studies I became the Assistant Photographer in a commercial creative studio in Aston Cross, Birmingham. Here I gained more in-depth learning about the best use of quality light in photography. Over three years graft with a lot of gleaning from one the best commercial and model advertising photographers in the UK.
Between jobs I booked a temporary work-break to take on an exciting three-month assignment as the Exhibition Staff Photographer for a youth charity in southern Chile. The assgnment was voluntary and I must say it was an exciting and satisfying experience. Driving Land Rover’s and Hilux pickup truck's to assignments on rough terrain and through rivers as far as 150 miles on some days. Taking the seat out of a Cessna light aircraft and pushing my camera lens through a small hole in the undercarriage to capture images of the terrain below ready for a mountaineering group to be sent out and explore that area. Sailing as a solo passenger on an old fishing boat down the southern coast of Chile on the Chonos Archipelago, my Spanish was very "poquito", but I managed to get by. Those were exciting days!
Photography as a Professional -
I was then quickly employed as the Senior Studio Photographer for a business in the city centre of Birmingham, consisting of a team of eleven photographers. I worked hard for seven years and I became recognised as the “all-rounder photographer”. From then on I was behind the camera for almost all portrait assignments the company undertook.
Simon Delon Photography - Today
Today I have well established, successful, progressing business going back to 2006. My best decision was that leap of faith to do what I felt I wanted from all I had learned... with the hope to learn and progress more.
For Your Confidence -
As a multi-disciplined photographer, I keep separate the marketing for my social/wedding and corporate/commercial photography services and websites.
When couples search for their perfect wedding photographer, they're much more likely to stay looking and book if they immediately see the photos and meet the photographer they're looking for from the website. If it's my wedding photography you're looking for, it's my wedding photography you see. And vice versa for a corporate client on my other website.
My full name is Simon Delon Jones.
Delon is a unique name here in the UK. And as such, I use the trading name of Simon Delon Photography for my social /wedding photography services and website. As there are quite a few Simon Jones' in this world, I've now made it very easy for you to find me, which helps bolster your confidence in me as your photographer and with my integrity, if you don't know, or have never met me before.
My corporate photography work can be found on my corporate photography website www.provisionphoto.co.uk with my legal business trading name Pro Vision Photography Ltd.
Correspondence will be from my usual email simon@provisionphoto.co.uk and any legal items such as booking paperwork, receipts, etc will be from the legal business trading name Pro Vision Photography Ltd.