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ABOUT US
Wildcard Photography was set up in 2004 by the father and son team of Dennis and Matthew Smith. With photographic experience spanning many decades, we decided to combine our two great interests of photography and motorcycles to create a new company specialising in images of bikes. Initially we concentrated on racing shots at club and national level following the British Superbikes (BSB), BEMSEE and MRO race series around the country. We also covered events such as the NEC Motorcycle Show, BMF Rally, etc. We became quite well known in racing circles and started doing press relations and promotional work for a number of riders and teams. This led us to having our regular press releases and photographs published in a number of newspapers, magazines such as Bike Sport News and Streetfighters, and we have had numerous covers and “Images of the Month” in The Riders Digest. Our images have been used on countless websites and we exclusively provided images for the first Superbike Grand National at Castle Combe Circuit for their race programme and event advertising.
 Three years of being away from home every weekend gradually took its toll however and we started to scale down our race coverage. At the same time we were approached by a calendar publisher who wanted to produce a new title featuring images of classic British bikes and wondered if we could help. Of course we jumped at the chance and it was a huge thrill the first time we saw our images on sale in high street shops. The success of that title in the first year led to us providing images for another new title, Superbikes, the following year featuring the top road bikes and exotica of the time. We have continued to exclusively provide images for these titles ever since.
Moving toward a different style of photography with the calendar work and some features we had done for TRD meant that we had largely left high speed shooting behind and now concentrated more on portraits - whether of biking personalities or effectively portraits of the bikes themselves. At the end of 2008 we took this to the next logical step and started carrying out proper model portrait photography. In a short time we have become very experienced in many forms of photography and particularly lighting techniques that we can apply to portraits regardless of the subject or nature of the shot. We work in all genres, from fashion and editorial to glamour and nude. We are happy to receive commissions from individuals who are perhaps aspiring models or actors putting together a portfolio, local business people needing an image for their website or annual report, or perhaps clients that just want some nice images for their home or to use on social networking websites like Facebook.
Alongside this we continued to carry out a number of ad hoc commercial assignments, including such varied work as interior shots for a local hotel, product photography for a cookery equipment company, a huge billboard advertisement for a garage and many more interesting assignments. Ultimately, this grew into the Wildcard Commercial division of our business.
In 2009 we combined all our experience across these different genres and types of photography to create what we believe is a high quality wedding photography service. And it is the level of service that we are particularly proud of as we offer a truly flexible approach. Whether our couples want a traditional, contemporary, reportage or journalistic style of photography, whatever extent of coverage or end product may be required, we can provide it. We looked long and hard at the established wedding photography industry and spent a long time developing our systems to ensure that our couples have a fun and enjoyable time on their wedding day with great service and unobtrusive photographers providing memorable images that can be treasured for years to come.
Our years of experience have now been brought together to deliver our range of ‘Wildcard Workshops’, where we are delighted to impart our knowledge and hard-learned tips and tricks of the trade to those just starting out on their photographic adventures.
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