KDH Projects is a name that you have probably never heard of but they have more than likely contributed to your day to day on multiple occasions without you knowing. They make factories for the food industry. Big ones. If your weekly shop contains anything pre-packed like ready meals, mixed salad or fruit, sushi or sandwiches, you have inadvertently consumed produce that would probably not have been manufactured without their services. They are able to construct everything from the ground up for large scale commercial food manufacturing. What starts as a hole in the ground can, in just a few weeks, becomes a bespoke factory dedicated to providing the big name supermarkets and high street restaurant chains with efficiently and cost effectively made produce. Their company is made up of a unique collection of trades and skillsets dedicated to this specific market.
KDH approached A9K to provide two things. First, their new vehicle signage was due a refresh and required some crisp new workwear shots to form the basis of the new van decals. Secondly, work was coming to the end phase for a large sushi factory built to service London’s many, thriving, high street sushi chains. The factory was at the perfect point of construction to provide “befores and afters” of the build process so a couple of dates were pencilled into the A9K calendar. This can be tricky at the best of times given the amount of logistical changes a large scale build undergoes towards the final fit and finish. Flexibility is key. To put this into perspective, imagine trying to take shots of a 3 bedroom show home and the client wants the house to look immaculate. The only catch is, the builders won’t finish work until midnight on Wednesday, the cleaners are going in first thing on Thursday morning and the buyer is moving in Thursday lunchtime. At no single point will the premises be 100% finished, clean and free of equipment and tradespeople all at the same time and to top it off, the buyer does not want to open the door and find a photographer delaying them getting into their shiny new house. So now imagine that scenario in premises a hundred times bigger with fifty more people, tools, cables, walling, forklifts and a fire alarm test or two. Like I said, things can get tricky.
Typical for most niche providers, the team onsite really knew their stuff and worked round A9K flash heads and tripods with ease. It would be all well and good getting the perfect shot but these guys were all there to do their thing too so it’s really important to be aware of your surroundings at all times on jobs like this. It’s not just a health and safety issue, it’s basic manners. Over the course of the two days we got some very nice large format images for both sections of the brief that can now be used in the client’s portfolio for years to come. We always find that as a rule, the more effort that goes into a shoot, the more value you reap from the created assets. In this instance the client has pristine workwear shots that will lend themselves to not only vehicle signage, but flyers, large format print, digital banners, social media and of course their own website. The interiors of the factory can be used by their sales team to illustrate exactly what can be built going forward. New clients that might have only looked at 2D CAD printouts up to that point can see the end result at a glance – no imagination required.
