In September last year, I wrote about using professional photography for blogs, so in this ‘love’ focussed month, I decided to talk about what you might photograph related to love if you are blogging on this theme in February.

There are several Awareness Days this month that link to ‘love’ and the blogs you write can be about you personally or your business or both.

Some of these events and situations need a professional photographer, but for your social media, you could capture some images on your mobile phone.

If you are going to organise an event linked to a national day or week, and have booked a professional photographer in for the main event – capture some images on your phone, to gain traction in the event to sit alongside the professional images.

10 special weeks/days this month are:

The first three days /weeks are about making connections with schools and or colleges. My love of photography started as a boy, so I know there will be other children out there who may already be, or will become passionate about the subject. Engaging with schools, and taking photos can be a great way to introduce them to photography.

  1. Big Schools Birdwatch (RSBP); runs from 6th Jan to 20th If nature is part of your business, or something you are personally interested in, and you have links with a school in your community, this could something for you.  As part of the event, taking photos of the birds would be useful for the school, and for a blog about the event.
  1. National Apprenticeship Week 6th – 12th The theme for this year is ‘Skills for Life’. taking an apprentice on in your business. This is a great opportunity, if you haven’t got an actual apprentice, to link up with your local school or college to invite pupils you’re your business and share the love of what you do, and show them the type of skills you use. If you already have an apprentice, write a blog focussing on them. Ask them some questions about which skills they think they’ve learnt whilst working in your business; what they’ve enjoyed most; what have they learnt about working with a team?   For either of these situations, with the appropriate permissions, take photos of them working with you and your team.
  1. Student Volunteering Week 6th– 12th Unlike the above, this is about volunteering in the community, learning to tackle social challenges, and finding out how both the communities and students benefit. It is a great opportunity to demonstrate how social action creates positive change. Last year 60 Colleges, Universities and Students Unions across the UK took part. If this is something that resonates with you or your business, then it would be worth contacting local colleges to see if they have anything planned. If not this year, you could perhaps talk to them about next year – planning ahead.
  1. St Valentine’s Day. This is an excellent time for photographers. As well as booking a couple’s portrait during February, why not show the love to your business team and write a blog about them, introducing each of them in a paragraph, saying what they ‘love’ in life, and include a lovely photo from your recent business team photoshoot.
  1. National Nest Box Week 14th – 21st This is definitely one for bird lovers how love watching birds in their garden. This event marks the breeding season for birds, and asks members of the public to set up nest boxes in their gardens to help with this. So, if you love birds and want to write a more personal blog, this would be a good one to write about, and capture photos for. You will need a decent camera to capture the birds, because you are unlikely to be able to get close enough to take pictures on your mobile without scaring them away.
  1. World Sustainable Energy Days 28th Feb – 3 March. Write a blog about how your business is becoming more sustainable, with photos to go alongside. Product photography showing how you have changed from unnecessary packaging to recyclable packaging.  Photography showing a local producer supplying you with products; services etc – sharing their logo, and sharing the benefits of integrating local producers into your supply chain, thus cutting down on the carbon footprint. Do you have an electric vehicle in your business that make most of your local deliveries? Capture images of your staff preparing for a delivery, putting the products into the vehicle etc.
  1. There are many food awareness days this month, which are crying out for photos. Some of them are: Real Bread Week 18 – 26 Feb; Dark Chocolate day 1st Feb; National Carrot Cake day 3rd Feb; Nutella day 5th Feb; British Yorkshire Pudding day 5th Feb; Ice Cream for Breakfast day 6th Feb; World Latte day 11th Feb; World Almond day 16th Feb; Drink Wine day 18th Feb; Chocolate Mint day 19th  For food producers, whether you are producers, or bakers, or chocolatiers – having professional photos of your food is incredibly important. It is the main focus of your business and should have photography to match. If during the year, you have had a product or working style photo shoot, then use some of your pictures to write a blog to match your day. If food isn’t your business, then just take a mobile photo of you eating the product of the day for fun social media posts.
  1. Love your pet day 20th Feb. In June there is a Take your Pet to Work day, but as we are talking ‘love’, we all know how much the Brits love their pets. This is the perfect day to share a blog about your well-loved pet, and share photos. You may have loved your pet enough to have professional photos taken of them – talk about how the photoshoot went. Was it easy, were there problems, how did your pet perform in front of the camera.
  1. Snow Moon 5th Feb 6.28pm. This is actually a full moon in February, which is named after the snow on the ground in the Northern Hemisphere. Some North American tribes called it the Hunger Moon, due to the scare food sources and hard hunting conditions during the mid-winter months. Others called it the Storm Moon. If you are fascinated by the Moon, then talk about this in a blog, and look into the other full moon names, and see if you can capture images throughout the year. There is plenty of information about the moons on the royal Museums Greenwich site. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/full-moon-calendar
  1. Flowers of this month: Most people have heard of birthstones, but did you know there are also birth flowers? February’s flowers are Violet and Primrose. If it’s your birthday, then this might be an interesting thing to focus during your celebratory month. If you also enjoy walking, link it with countryside walks where you can go in search of your flowers, and document with photographs.

If you would like professional photographs for any of your business blogs, or a couple’s or pet portraits – or any other blog related idea, please get in touch with me, so I can help.   Email me at Info@moore-photographics.co or drop me a message.