Q&A with Production Chair Rob Daly

In Hye Lee, Social Media Coordinator 2012 is Rob Daly's fourth summer of shooting with CEF, and he helped make it a great summer for CEF in London, England.  Although he has been involved with CEF since 2007, it wasn't until 2009 that he was invited to become CEF's first-ever Production Chairperson.  Here are some of Rob's thoughts on the London photo shoots that he helped put together.

CEF: This is now your fourth year as CEF's Production Chair. How would you say the London photo shoots went this summer?

Rob: Fantastic! London was absolutely excellent. We're looking at well over a thousand images this year, which is a record. They're also very commercial and well-executed, since the right photographers were shooting the right subject matter. It's crucial to the ongoing business model that the quality of the photography is maintained to the highest degree, and I felt that was achieved this summer in London. This year, London has been particularly successful, since we were able to draw on our resources, skill, and contacts here. It varies from year to year--some years, Vancouver is our largest shoot. Some years, it is split evenly between Vancouver, London and Los Angeles. This year, it was London.

CEF: What are some of the photo shoots you remember from London this summer?

Rob: I went to the Jasper White shoot for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon, with all the kids making letters of the alphabet and symbols. I also did some retouching for some of the images from the [CEF] party we had a couple days ago in London. Another shoot was a photo booth shoot [with Chris Windsor], where we had a photo booth set up [that] people go into with crazy costumes... [But, it had ] a proper, high-quality camera and better lighting than a regular photo booth. There were a hundred great shots that came from that.

CEF: How did the photographers become involved? Are they mostly contacts you've previously met?

Rob: Most of the photographers in London are involved through me or Fiona Watson, our Creative Director. London is a very strong centre of image creation. Getting people who contribute consistently is the most important thing. It's great having people who contribute once, but we need a base of people who contribute ever year or every other year. In London, we have at least twenty photographers we can draw on, including my colleagues from OJO Images. That makes it pretty easy. Robert Kent was also instrumental at contacting photographers in the beginning, and will continue to be so in the future.

CEF: What is the best thing about working with CEF?

Rob: The best thing about working with CEF is knowing how much good it does. It makes a difference. The other thing, of course, is seeing a group of people get together on these big shoot days. Ultimately, it's knowing what it does at the other end. Communities make incredibly good use of the resources that Compassionate Eye has made available to them. That is undoubtedly the bottom line for me. It comes down to that.

CEF would like to thank Rob for all his hard work as Production Chair. It  has clearly paid off and we had an amazing summer of photo shoots in London.  To see the many amazing behind-the-scenes shots from the various London shoots, head on over to CEF's Flickr page!