Like many people who spend a lot of time travelling for work, I often have the radio on between photography shoots. Earlier this week I was listening to The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X when the team started discussing the collection of random pens that seem to accumulate in the studio.
It was one of those conversations that probably wasn't intended to go anywhere, but it made me smile.
As it happened, I had a box of branded pens sitting in the office.
The pens had originally been produced to help promote our school prospectus photography services. Schools invest a huge amount of effort into attracting prospective pupils and communicating with parents, and professionally produced prospectuses remain an important part of that process. The pens were simply one small part of helping keep our services visible to the people we work with.
As I listened to the conversation on the radio, a simple thought crossed my mind.
The team were talking about random pens.
I had pens.
Why not send them some?
There was no grand marketing strategy behind it. No lengthy planning meeting. No campaign objectives. No target audience analysis.
I simply thought it would be fun to add a few more pens to the collection.
So I packaged some up, wrote a short letter and sent them off.
A few days later, I was getting ready to travel to the first of that day’s photography assignments when I heard the moment I'd completely forgotten might actually happen.
Dominic Byrne started reading my letter out live on air.
Hearing Chris Vaughan Photography mentioned on The Chris Moyles Show was unexpected enough. Hearing Lincoln mentioned was an added bonus.
The biggest surprise wasn't hearing Chris Vaughan Photography mentioned on national radio. It was seeing the look on my children's faces when they heard it too. For a brief moment, their dad's job became considerably more interesting than usual.
Then the conversation moved on to the pens themselves. Adam Brown, who was sitting in for Chris Moyles, commented on the quality of the pens, describing them as "premium" and discussing how nice they were to write with.
For a photographer, there are probably worse product reviews to receive.
The whole thing lasted only a short time, but it was a great reminder that opportunities often appear when you least expect them.
Businesses often feel pressure to make marketing more complicated than it needs to be. There are endless discussions about algorithms, advertising platforms, content strategies and the latest trends.
Those things all have their place, but many of the best opportunities still come from paying attention, listening and finding ways to connect with people.
In this case, all it took was hearing a conversation, spotting a chance to contribute something relevant and taking action.
The result wasn't a sales pitch.
It wasn't an advert.
It was simply a genuine interaction that happened to lead to Chris Vaughan Photography and Lincoln being mentioned to a national audience.
As a commercial photographer, that's something I see regularly in the organisations I work with.
The businesses that build the strongest relationships are rarely the ones shouting the loudest. More often than not, they're the ones who communicate consistently, pay attention to the people around them and look for opportunities to add value.
Photography works in much the same way.
The best images often come from noticing small details that others might overlook. A genuine interaction between colleagues. A moment of pride. A story worth telling.
Those are often the photographs that make the biggest impact because they feel authentic.
That's also one of the reasons I enjoy working with schools on prospectus photography projects. Every school has its own story, culture and personality. The challenge isn't simply photographing buildings and classrooms. It's creating images that genuinely reflect what makes that school special and help prospective families understand what life there is really like.
The pens that found their way into the Radio X studio were originally designed to help promote that work.
I certainly didn't expect them to end up being discussed on national radio.
Yet here we are.
Will the mention transform the business overnight? Probably not.
Will the pens still be in the studio in a month's time? I'm even less confident about that.
But it was a fun reminder that opportunities often come from unexpected places, and that sometimes the simplest ideas create the most memorable outcomes.
And if nothing else, Chris Vaughan Photography now has the distinction of supplying premium pens to The Chris Moyles Show.
That's not something I expected to write when I got out of bed this week.
If you'd like to learn more about our school prospectus photography services, take a look at our school prospectus photography page.
